Morning severely cold. I went to the Office as usual and passed my morning besides my usual occupations in reading the Life of Caesar in Suetonius1 which I did as a kind of assistance to my view of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Nothing of any particular consequence occurred and after taking a walk, returned home. Found my Wife laid up by her Cold. My Man sick in bed from the same thing and the House again all out of order. I had flattered myself that my troubles had ceased when my Woman went out of the House, but it 195seems that now I am to have some more. The family was in so much disorder that I concluded to pass my Afternoon at the Athenaeum the result of which was that I did little or nothing.

Returned and as there was nobody to make my Fire, I sat in my Wife’s room all the Evening. Continued Gibbon and made more progress than I expected. A man ought to have the power of fixing his attention upon a book in situations not the most convenient to him, or else he will lose a great deal of time that might have been made valuable to him. This has been so little felt by me that I have suffered by it. But I am likely to be so much tried as to make me learn better. Read my usual Numbers of the Spectator. Mr. Brooks spent a part of the Evening here.