Morning clear and beautiful. This was the day fixed for our final return to Boston. Accordingly about six o’clock, I arose, and made all the preparations to start. Mine were much sooner regulated than those of my Wife and Child. We finally got off at about ten o’clock. I must 157confess I never left with so much regret and never went to my own home with so little satisfaction.1 This I do not consider a favourable symptom in myself. The strong stimulus of ambition which has pushed me on for two years to deny myself many of the pleasures of life, has given way before the prospect which circumstances now present to my view. My mind wants healthy occupation. It wants also something that may prove useful to myself as well as to others. Perhaps I have less confidence in my own resolutions, and more disposition to look to the pleasures of life. Here as everywhere my trust is in the Deity. Conscious that my present path is one of difficulty unusual to a man so young, I rely upon that aid which has never yet deserted me.

At the Office before and at home after dinner. My house was comfortless—Every thing being as yet out of order and going on roughly. The Jar of little things upon the Nerves is perhaps the hardest lesson of Patience in the world. Great misfortunes rarely come in numbers, and are met with greater courage, and most often are anticipated from afar. I read Bacon On Faction and the Spectator.