The days are growing more mild but the nights remain as severe as ever. I have however suffered from cold much less than usual this year. I went to the Office and studied a little and examined accounts &ca. This is a never ending business. Walk calling at various places on matters of business. Then Ovid. Afternoon resumed the examination of old papers but rather idly.

Finished d’Israeli with whose books I have been very much pleased. They are superficial, partial and narrow minded in political matters and yet they contain a vast deal of pleasant information gathered from obscure sources such as do not often get drawn together. They infuse a spirit of literary undertaking such as I have not often before felt and disclose a world of matter which it is my delight to revel in. The aspiration of the soul for higher things than the mere miserable incidents of every day is perhaps the most charming as it is the most depressing of all feelings. Perhaps the Germans of all nations cultivate entertain it most and it is for this reason that I enjoy the study of their literature. In our every day world where matter of fact is more looked after than in any other portion of the globe what are such feelings worth more than the intoxication of coarser materials?

I read tonight a review in the Foreign Quarterly of Goethe’s last volume of Autobiography.1 A singular character, of undoubted talent and yet some characteristics of which cannot fail to make the gravest smile. Idled an hour over the cittish2 couleur de rose notions of Germany given by Mrs. Trollope. I know no earthly reason for reading the second volume excepting that I have been through the first.3 Rather depressed today.