I left Medford with Mr. Brooks, and my Wife was to follow in the Carriage. My stay here this time has been less agreeable than ever, from the absence of occupation and of the company which I have always had heretofore. Mr. Frothingham has been there and generally some others of the family. Add to this, a change in Mr. Brooks himself from the effect upon his spirits of his knee.

Time wears insensibly enough, but when I take a jump of five years back, what a difference there does appear to be between things then and now—A difference in Mr. Brooks’ family, in our own, and in the world at large. These are matters for the Philosopher, for the moralist, who would turn the small incidents of life to account.

I was engaged in Boston partly in Accounts, partly in reading Marshall. Rode to Quincy to dine and found my Wife and child there before me. The Afternoon was passed in making up my Arrears of Diary, and in taking a Salt water bath, the first this Season.