A rainy day with a heavy southerly wind and gloomy as the close of the year and short days commonly are. I am sometimes a little depressed. Went to the Office. Time passed there very quietly. No interruption. Continued my Diary and finished the laborious part of it, the account of my absence which I have enjoyed more in the description than I did in the reality. I am prevented from walking very frequently and fear that I shall soon lose the decided improvement which has taken place in my health since my absence. Nothing material took place.

Afternoon looking at Papers as usual—An immense work and rather 31a perplexing one. I must look at the collections made by others and see how they are made. The MS require immediate attention for they will very soon discourage even my wishes. They will be a good Winter’s Work. Evening Mansfield Park. Miss Austen excels in dialogue and in sketching domestic pictures. But she indulges less in them and more in treatise writing in this work, whence it is not so happy. Read Werther which I am going through a second time for the German.