My excessive fatigue and uncomfortable night made me delay my time of rising until very late which made me miss Prayers, a most remarkable number of which I have neglected this last week. Indeed dissipation of any sort has become exceedingly irksome to me as I always feel more contented staying here and doing what I know to be 197my duty. Was not the time of Tudor’s residence here so short and my amusement to stop immediately upon his going away I certainly would not feel desirous of any thing of the sort. I do not wish any more the society of students. My feelings are in a singular state. I feel alienated from all my friends and in their society my nerves are continually jarred. I am again disgusted with the boorish temper of Richardson, with the meanness of Otis, with the narrow mindedness of Wheatland, the obstinacy of Dwight, the rough pawing of Tudor and the nonentity, to use such an expression. It is well for me that I keep such a book as this to vent my angry feelings and not to show dislike except to one. They all have redeeming qualities to counterbalance their peculiar faults except the infinite foolishness of this one who has not even the good temper which I once gave him credit for. Enough of this subject. It is grating to think that I never could continue esteem to any particular individual after I had seen a certain quantity of him. Tudor, I like most because to me he exhibits none of that which makes him appear badly in his conduct to others. I have repulsed even such advances in intimacy as would make me too familiar with any person. I think it the only way to keep respect from others, and good will to companions. A man will not be so much liked but he is raised by tacit consent and always spoken of in terms of respect in like or dislike. There is a good stanza in Cowper on this subject which is too long to quote however, and I know it sufficiently well without.1

I spent this Morning in writing an answer2 to my father’s letter of yesterday which took me considerable time. I stated to him an accurate list of expenses here and informed him that I could not reduce my demands a bit at present. In case I found that more money was on my hands than I expected, I would return the sum whatever it was or count it as in my hands for which my honour was responsible. I wish for this as a trial. I wished for the Knight Accounts3 as one and I thank Heaven I am able here to say that I have acted the part of a good Steward.

Dr. Ware preached in the Morning which was rainy and unpleasant, Mr. Jenks4 in the afternoon, his Sermon was highly metaphysical in it’s Commencement, and rather too demonstrative, by this I mean mathematically so, in its close. It was too much of an attempt ending I am sorry to say in a failure. I regret it because I respect the man as being one of my schoolmasters whom I thought well of and almost the only one. He implanted or strengthened in me an early taste for reading by a simple method which I should always recommend to a good schoolmaster. After having got my lesson, he used 198to permit me to read a Plutarch which he kept on purpose in the school and gave it to me as a mark of distinction and scholarship in this way exciting me by every motive which can act upon a boy to gain instruction. I believe it is to this I owe my clear ideas on the subject of history.

I also finished the tenth and last volume of Aikins British Poets today by reading Beattie5 who closes the collection. I have been now three months and five days in it in which I have taken but two holidays and those unavoidably. Of this regularity I have reason to feel proud since it ensures to me that method which is of such great importance in future life. Perhaps I have not adhered to my resolution of noticing critically every author but I found it more than I could do upon a first reading which was the case with many of them, at least to give a good one, so that I thought it much better to give a good one at some future time when I could discover all or most of the beauties which have escaped. My comparison in Cowper has made me ashamed as I find that I have not got so much taste as I thought, and also that I have been somewhat negligent in the second perusal as I found out but half the beauties which I observed the first time.

I spent a little while in the Evening with Otis but my day had been so much employed that it was not until late that I could close my Journal. If I only had a little more of my time at my own disposal and less at that of the governors of the institution I should be more willing to remain here. I am however pretty well satisfied even now. At half past nine I read my Chapters which continued this Evening the song of Moses on the overthrow of Pharaoh. I then spent a little while in looking over my Enfield which has become rather toilsome and disgusting now however and went to bed noting also that I resisted an invitation of Tudor’s. X.