Fine day. Time as usual. Evening sixth Assembly.

At the Office where I dispatched two of my papers upon currency to Mr. Buckingham. I hope this will stimulate me to further exertion although I am afraid not for even in this first instance of it I failed to go on. My ambition is dead. It is injurious to me even to hope for any distinction in this life as the elevation is followed by as instantaneous a depression. My duty however is to try, and so I continue at brief intervals to throw out some thing with a consciousness perpetually falling in its estimate of my power of acting upon others. The position which my father has assumed and in which I follow him is not one of very easy attainment. I fear that I shall utterly fail in making any thing out of it.

Reading today one of my Grandfather’s MS reflections upon Government I found a very deep and wise discussion of the parties which agitate our country. And in it I saw my own fate as a politician clearly marked. Began Philoctetes being the fifth play of Sophocles that I have attempted. After dinner Crevier, and resuming upon the Ms.

Evening, the sixth Assembly, as pleasant as any of it’s predecessors. These have made an agreeable impression upon me of Boston Society, which though not so very brilliant and hightoned as that of more fashionable capitals has perhaps a more quiet and well regulated spirit.