Marshall builds the chapter around John Adams's 1780 letter to Abigail, written from Paris while the American Revolution was "still raging and has not been won." The famous lines: "I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain." The ladder is explicit and three-runged: **politics and war** (this generation) → **practical and useful arts** (the sons) → **fine arts and luxuries** (the grandchildren). Each generation does the harder, lower-on-the-ladder work so the next can climb. The less-quoted preceding passage is what Marshall finds even more striking. Walking the gardens of the Tuileries among the marble statues, Adams writes that to observe and describe them with taste "would require more time and thought than I can possibly spare… if I could have time. But I could not do this without neglecting my duty." Adams takes genuine pleasure *and learning* from the art — "and yet it would be a breach of duty for him to linger upon such luxury, because he must be focusing on politics and warfare." The sentiment — deferring one's own access to beauty so descendants may have it — strikes Marshall as "rare" and "remarkable," foreign to our age. --- *Source: [[Book Inventory/Progression|Progression]] (Sebastian Marshall, 2016) — Uncommon Virtues #8 — Generational Focus*