All official duties will in time be attended to in the offices which are situated just west of the White House, so that the latter will be used only as the private residence of the President's family. Longfellow says: All houses wherein men have lived and died Are haunted houses. How true this must be of the home of our Presidents! George Washington watched its building, and with his stately wife walked through it when it was finished, and was satisfied. They were about ready to leave the scene of action, but they did much to prepare the stage for the procession of Presidents which has followed. For the last fifty years much complaint has been made that the house has not been large enough and that it was lacking in modern conveniences, but in spite of these objections no trouble has yet been experienced in finding men who were quite willing and even anxious to occupy it. The walls are covered with portraits of the Presidents and their wives. All these portraits are interesting. Mrs. John Adams bewailed the unfinished condition of the house, and used the now famous East Room for drying the family linen. Of all the noble matrons who have graced the White House, Abigail Adams was the wisest and greatest. Her letters make her the Madam de Sévigné of our land. Her letter (written February, 1797) to her husband, who had just succeeded Washington, sounds like the voice of an oracle. We quote a portion: "You have this day to declare yourself head of a nation. 'And now, O Lord, my God, thou hast made Thy servant ruler over the people; give unto him an understanding heart, that he may know how to go out and come in before this great people; that he may discern between good and bad. For who is able to judge this Thy so great a people?' were the words of a royal sovereign, and not less applicable to him who is invested with the Chief Magistracy of a nation, tho he wear not a crown nor the robes of royalty. My thoughts and my meditations are with you, tho personally absent, and my petitions to heaven are that 'the things which make for peace may not be hidden from your eyes.' My feelings are not those of pride or ostentation upon this occasion. They are solemnized by a sense of the obligations, the important trusts, and numerous duties connected with it. That you may be enabled to discharge them with honor to yourself, with justice and impartiality to your country, and with satisfaction to this great people, shall be the daily prayer of yours—" The first New-year's reception at the White House was held by President Adams in 1801. Mrs. Adams kept up the stately, ceremonious customs established by President and Mrs. Washington. It was her son, John Quincy Adams, as Monroe's Secretary of State, who was afterward to write out a definite code for almost every public ceremony. This code is largely in force at the present time.