Wednesday, October 11, 2023
Disappointment
John Quincy Adams, Diary (September 30, 1821):
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I had hoped that at least one of my Sons would have been ambitious to excel — I find them all three, coming to manhood, with indolent minds — Flinching from study whenever they can, and if not content to hold the 30th and forty-fifth rank in their class, incapable of the exertion necessary for raising them higher. It is bitter disappointment. The blast of mediocrity, is the lightest of the evils, which such characters portend.
