On this day I count myself thirty one years old. The change into middle life is now complete and I bid adieu to it’s spring time. Well, I have had more than a common share of enjoyment and feel grateful to God that I have reached this day with health unimpaired, and with more of the blessings of this world than fall to an ordinary lot. I have striven to deserve them with not so much success as I had hoped. Indeed my remembrance of my own errors is always keen, and though it has not always the effect to correct them, very much moderates my propensity to ambition of worldly distinction. The desire to be useful is one thing, the anxiety to be prominent is another, and perhaps the task of a conscientious man is greatest when he strives to draw the line which divides the duty consequent from the first from the selfish variety prompting the last.

My time was quietly passed in reading in the morning, MS, and Lessing. Afternoon, Lucretius and Scott. Evening, took Tea at the Mansion. Mrs. Frothingham’s two sons, Octavius and Edward are with us.

My plans for improving my Diary have all failed, yet I am mortified by its present insipidity, and propose to try another from today, of this kind, first in memorandum form to notice the weather, then my gen-96eral employment of the day. Visitors if any of interest, and upon the plan of Gibbon a statement of my reading, and remarks if I have any to make. Perhaps I may fail in this new scheme, but any thing is better than this monotony of trifles.