Clear and cool. I went to the Office after reading a little of one of Kotzebue’s Tales.1 This will perhaps set me upon my German track again. I walked to my House for the purpose of procuring some books which I wanted. It looks dusty and desolate but I could not help feeling a wish that I was in it. Returned to the office where I passed the rest of the morning in reading the pamphlets connected with Harvard College matters. No interruption but by Mr. Kauffer which sent me to Accounts.

The public is still in a state of great excitement in consequence of the debate in the House of Representatives. It is one of the curious incidents which happen in this world. A single individual connected with no party, expressing only his single opinion of the necessity of action and not even pledging himself to any course of action, sets the House of Representatives in a blaze and spreads a panic through all the commercial cities. Few men attain such power in a Nation. And in comparison of that, a seat in this place or that place is of very little 76consequence. I am quietly waiting to see the immediate effect of this, not doubting for a moment that it is for the best.

Walk. Ovid. Continued the papers for half the afternoon and read Grimm for the other half. Evening went with my wife and Mr. Brooks to pay a return visit to the Inches family opposite. Nobody at home but the younger daughter and young Inches. Dull, home, read a little of Carlyle’s Life of Schiller.2