Another severely cold morning. I went to the Office as usual and 229after looking thoroughly over my Accounts and discovering the cause of the error alluded to yesterday I sat down and made some progress in Gibbon. But the best employment of a morning does not give me more than about an hour of attention to reading. And this is not so thoroughly done as it would be at my study at home. I went afterwards to the Athenaeum and obtained some books for our evening’s occupation.

In the afternoon, I continued reading Quinctilian who is certainly exceedingly sensible. His argument on the merits of private and public education is a very pleasant one. It is so natural and clear. I do not accomplish much in an Afternoon. Indeed it is impossible to imagine a life of so much apparent occupation and so little real result as mine. I finish a few pages of easy Latin and that is all. Miss Julia Gorham dined with us.

Evening. Read to my Wife a part of Hazlitt’s Conversations with Northcote the artist.1 Some of the ideas are very good, others are merely striking. But Hazlitt presses his own into view full as much as he does his friend’s. Began Pope’s version of the Odyssey2 and read the Guardian.