Morning clear but extremely windy. I went to the Office and was engaged as usual—Accounts and bringing up Diary. Mr. Walsh came in and talked so that my hours flew without much account. Walk and home where I read Livy.

Received a letter from my Mother speaking rather discouragingly of my father’s condition.1 I feel some anxiety on his account. What the result is to be, God only knows, and to him I am always disposed to trust it. To him, unwilling as he may be to think it, the political world is closed—And to me, it never will open. I see the difficulties that embarrass me and am therefore disposed to think it wise not to set my mind upon ambition.

Afternoon, MS papers, after which Sismondi and then Fouqué. Evening, a party at Mr. Edward Miller’s—Only about twenty, but a very lively young set and it was very late before we got away. As we were walking home about midnight we were much struck with the extraordinary splendour of the Aurora Borealis, appearing in lines converging from the center at the zenith, and in flying masses like the appearance of a silk handkerchief when waving in the wind in the sun. It was not so beautiful in variety of colours as that last autumn but was more like the appearance described by the Northern Navigators.