The opening of the day brought with it winter and storm. The snow was several inches deep already, and rapidly increasing with a violent 197wind from the Eastward. I hesitated long before deciding to go to the Office, a business not of the pleasantest. When there however, I was paid by receiving a letter from my Mother in tolerable spirits speaking of arrangements to come on.1 I am a little doubtful whether this is not all Smoke as usual. We shall see. She speaks very doubtfully of Mr. Everett.2 I do not exactly know why, but so much like a snake are his windings, that it is impossible at a distance to guess at them. Dr. Storer called in about this business of Farmer’s. The latter insists upon the sum of two hundred dollars which I think an enormous piece of extortion, and accordingly I am of opinion that the suit must go on. We talked it over and I could not help feeling galled at the idea that the scoundrel had of his hold over me. If it must be war, it shall be, and damned be he, who first cries, hold. Mr. Welsh spent an hour in conversation, the rest of the time was passed in reading Clinton’s Address to the Society at Columbia—A very uncommonly good production, with which Williston’s book closes.3 I have derived some benefit from this work, though not disappointed4 by the general impression it leaves of dissatisfaction. There are few specimens of true Eloquence, much rant, great bad taste and a good deal of brilliancy. At home after dinner reading Demosthenes on the Crown, which I am rapidly closing. Tomorrow finishes.

My wife has today been quite unwell and suffering. In the evening, I tried to resume Clarissa Harlowe in the last volume, but she was unable to hear. So I advised her to go to bed, and sat myself reading Campbell on Rhetoric, until I came to a metaphysical Chapter which posed me though I read it twice, and it is on a question which is curious. Why do sensible men sometimes write nonsense?