Morning fine. I find the air for the season unusually cold. I went to Boston and was engaged there in a variety of ways. My time passes always very rapidly without my ever having a chance to look at a book. Is this useful employment of my life. Called at Mrs. Frothingham’s, then to the Gallery and Athenaeum.

As I was walking today I came across one of those very unpleasant circumstances which give us a chill in the midst of life and prosperity. A poor man as he was starting his handcart loaded with a barrel of something or other, slipped and fell, the barrel falling upon his head All this happened a few feet from where I was walking. He seemed not to have been very severely hurt for he was able to get up but he bled freely. A crowd was collecting so rapidly and there being persons to take the necessary measures I went away but the incident was a touching moral lesson to me which I hope to recollect.

On my return home I found the child drooping. These changes of weather affect her. I read a part of Henderson’s History of Wines a book obtained from the Athenaeum which gave me a great deal of new information upon the subject.1 Indeed before this, my ideas were not a little confused. All the French Wines were in my mind mixed up together, without much reference to the spots where they grow. Evening quietly at home. Read a little of the book of Prince Puckler Muskau2 and the Observer.