Saturday, May 15, 2004
No Mumbling
Van Wyck Brooks, The Flowering of New England, 1815-1865 (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1940), p. 325, on John Quincy Adams:
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And every night, kneeling beside his bed, he repeated, "Now I lay me down to sleep," which he had learned from the lips of Abigail Adams. He had said it every night of his life, in Holland, Prussia, Russia, France and England, in Washington, Boston and Quincy. "I say it out loud always," he remarked, "and I don't mumble it either."