Fine day. I went to the Office, but did not spend my time as profitably as I might have done. Received a letter from my Mother not in very good spirits and describing a very heated state of things at Washington.1 Our Country is doomed to go through a perpetual agitation 267under the influence of individual passions. Ambition when beyond a certain limit is a terrible scourge.

I took a walk to the North part of the City to see the changes and improvements going on there which are certainly very great. But a check must now come upon the prosperity of our people.

After dinner, read Dubos, and Terence. In the evening I went to Mr. J. Sumner’s in Chesnut Street—A family party, Mrs. Gray and her Daughters, Mrs. Story and Miss Henrietta, Mr. Brooks and his three daughters, Mr. F. Coffin. We played one game of Whist. Returned at ten more amused than I expected to have been.