Arose and after breakfast reviewed a part of Paley as usual. It was a part which is the driest and least interesting of all we have studied. After this was over I went up to see my mother. She was exceedingly unwell today and I was really terribly apprehensive for her. She appeared so dreadfully affected by chills. I finished Junius in her room and on the whole conclude that I have never seen a more powerful display of eloquence in any work which I have ever seen. So much force of the language, such a happy distinction in terms and such a peculiar application of ideas, if I might so express it, as I never saw before. I wish to see one or two of Johnson’s Pamphlets and shall then compare them. Thus my time went and writing up one day of my Journal which I unaccountably neglected heretofore.

I then dined and in the afternoon continued my duty to my Journal after which I wrote to John.1 I concluded not to send my former letter as at this time almost every thing is dangerous and as I have understood that it has been the practice at least at one office to read all 330letters. This Country though the purest under the Sun is going to ruin. I am in perfect despair for republics and can only abuse human nature. I am growing more and more attached to the idea of private life and can only lament the necessity of the name of which I am so proud. My letter to John was very melancholy as indeed I felt so, for my Mother’s sickness has made me thoroughly unhappy. I never felt more like cursing the world and all that is in it. I was inclined to repine bitterly. I went in and found my Mother in extreme pain, and did not dare leave her for a moment lest she should faint away. It was as bitter a time to my feelings as I ever had in my life. The house was lonely, every body out in the Evening at a party, and my Mother usually attended with so much care was now without a person almost to assist her. I felt her state. I remained with her all the Evening until she retired when I went to my Grandfather’s and sat with him. No conversation, for I was in no humour to keep one up, he retired. Soon after the family came in, My Uncle a little elevated. I sat talking with him and George much longer than I wished but his perpetual conversation delayed me. XI:5.