Morning cloudy and cool. I went to the Office as usual but must plead guilty to a great deal of idleness. At the Athenaeum, where I read the English Newspapers and Magazines. I think the alteration in the British mode of thinking is one of the most surprising incidents of the present age. They talk democracy more than I ever expected to hear 53them. Query, Is this for the better? I fear not. My doubts as to the durability of our Government lead me to hope that others will be aware in time of the danger to be incurred in adopting our principles.

Took a walk. Afternoon, busy copying my letter which engrossed nearly my whole time. I read a little of Retz finishing the second Volume. My Wife and Miss Phillips took tea out so that I spent my Evening studying Architecture. It must be a delightful pursuit but then it is an enormously expensive one. Our little fortunes in this quarter would vanish in a trice before it. For myself, I do not know that I shall ever want to exercise myself practically in it, but at any rate, it is a useful branch of refined acquirement.

Went in the Evening to Mrs. Frothingham’s. Found there, Gorham Brooks and his Wife, William G. Brooks and our families. Nothing material took place. I returned home with the ladies at ten. The Wind had come round to the South and it was warm.