I went to town this morning and was engaged at my Office in my usual way. Read some portions of the North American Review as well as a little of Marshall’s Life of Washington. In the first I was much pleased with the article upon Phrenology.1 Without being very sound it is yet amusing and pointedly written. The science, like many others which have been struck out bears witness to Man’s ingenuity, and to his passion for novelty. It is in some respects very dangerous, as it gives room for materialism as well as for the belief of the fatalist.

I went to Medford and found the child and my Wife pretty well. After dinner I amused myself as well as I could with one or two of the late periodical publications. But my principal difficulty in passing time here is the not feeling capable of devoting it to useful purpose. Books are wanting, place is wanting, and above all the spirit that presides over literature.

I walked down to the Grove and sat there in a kind of a reverie made up too much of views of perhaps too personal a nature. But these have a moral with them, to an understanding mind. They are empty, vain dreams, exposing our weakness to ourselves. I thought of writing again, selecting Hutchinson as the subject. Evening, quietly at home, reading 122and Conversation. I think Mr. Brooks seems very much depressed with his leg.