Clouds and chilly atmosphere. I went to the Office. Time rather wasted. Read a little of Jefferson’s Letters which are not so interesting as one might expect. He seems to have been fond of the arts and desirous of introducing them into this Country, but his political ideas did not seem to obtain much more basis from the enlarged sphere in which he found himself.

Walk. I am interested in political affairs and wish I could do something in aid of the present excitement, but there are so many that I feel as if I could do but little. Why not try? and not be so confounded indolent as I now am. But I have been so indolent that I cannot wake up and so unsuccessful heretofore that I have no motive to wake up.

After dinner, Maritime Discovery and Ovid. Phaedra to Hippolytus—300The shameless pleadings of criminal love. There is something disgusting in the argument and impudent in the tone which deprives the writer of all sympathy. Evening quietly at home. Belinda.