Clouds and cold with a high Easterly wind. To Quincy. Afternoon and evening at home.

After going down into State Street for half an hour, finding that Mr. Hobart had come in as I had arranged,1 I immediately proceeded to Quincy. I went time enough to give me half an hour to look about my place at Quincy, but it seemed so cheerless I was glad to get away. There is no attraction to me in the country in the winter season, however much I delight in it in summer.

At the appointed time I went to the vault in the grave yard, and found there Mr. Hobart just arrived with the body. Mr. Harrod and I. Hull Adams soon joined us accompanied by Mr. Lunt. This gentleman made a short and feeling prayer and then the remains of Thomas were gathered to those of the rest of his family. Poor fellow, no more deserving member is to be found there. I could not avoid reflecting upon the vanity of human expectations and the necessity of unlimited submission and trust in the divine decree.

I went into the vault and saw there the coffins as they remain still in very good preservation of the various members of the family who have died during the present century, with the exception of my grandfather 205and grandmother who lie under the Church. There are my two brothers both of whom died far from this place and both of whom have been returned to it as Thomas is. My uncle Thomas, and aunt Smith, Louisa Smith’s mother, and a child of Mrs. T. B. Adams, and two besides whom I do not remember.2 As Hull told us his mother was not yet informed of this event and he feared the effect of her seeing us, we returned directly to town. I got home chilled at three o’clock.

Afternoon reading Gibbon. Did nothing else. I shun writing. Evening W. C. Gorham called and spent an hour. He is a thinking young man but is in a bad school for this country. He is too English.3 Read Gibbon’s celebrated fifteenth Chapter. What a labour it must have cost to overlook the primary causes of the spread of the Christian faith in order to magnify the secondary ones.