Book 3 — JOHN ADAMS UPON RICHES.

In the thirty-sixth year of his age, John Adams made the following entry in his Diary. He was then practising law in Boston, though living in Braintree.

"It has been my fate to be acquainted in the way of business with a number of very rich men—Gardiner, Bowdoin, Pitts, Hancock, Rowe, Lee, Sargent, Hooper, Doane. Hooper, Gardiner, Rowe, Lee and Doane, have all acquired their wealth by their own industry; Bowdoin and Hancock received theirs by succession, descent, or devise; Pitts by marriage. But there is not one of all these who derives more pleasure from his property than I do from mine; my little farm and stock and cash afford me as much satisfaction as all their immense tracts, extensive navigation, sumptuous buildings, their vast sums at interest and stocks in trade yield to them. The pleasures of property arise from acquisition more than possession, from what is to come rather than what is. The rich are seldom remarkable for modesty, ingenuity or humanity. Their wealth has rather a tendency to make them penurious and selfish."