The lecture, A Man Worth Knowing, is a condensed look at the life of John Adams. I am especially moved by these excerpts from President Adams’ diary which McCullough quotes. “I never delighted much,” Adams writes,
“in contemplating commas and colons, or in spelling or measuring syllables; but now … if I attempt to look at these little objects, I find my imagination, in spite of all my exertions, roaming in the Milky Way, among the nebulae, those mighty orbs, and stupendous orbits of suns, planets, satellites, and comets, which compose the incomprehensible universe; and if I do not sink into nothing in my own estimation, I feel an irresistible impulse to fall on my knees, in adoration of the power that moves, the wisdom that directs, the benevolence that sanctifies this wonderful whole.
The other excerpt, inspired by an ice storm that destroyed all of his treasured fruit trees and could have broken him, is equally inspiring.
“A rain had fallen from some warmer region in the skies when the cold here below was intense to an extreme. Every drop was frozen wherever it fell in the trees, and clung to the limbs and sprigs as if it had been fastened by hooks of steel. The earth was never more universally covered with snow, and the rain had frozen upon a crust on the surface which shone with the brightness of burnished silver. The icicles on every sprig glowed in all the luster of diamonds. Every tree was a chandelier of cut glass. I have seen a queen of France with 18 millions of livres of diamonds upon her person and I declare that all the charms of her face and figure added to all the glitter of her jewels did not make an impression on me equal that presented by every shrub. The whole world was glittering with precious stones.”
‘Tis a wonderful world and a grand, indescribably magnificent God who’s made it!
… JD
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