Morning cloudy but it cleared away hot. Afternoon to Quincy.

Morning at the Office engaged in Accounts, but on the whole luxuriating a little in idleness after my preceding labour. At noon with my Wife to see the Allston Gallery of Pictures now exhibiting.1 A first glance only from which no definite opinions can be formed. I gather from it only that his style has of late degenerated into a bad manner. He is frittering his power into miserable unmeaning pictures of Rosalies and Beatrices, Jessicas and Troubadours, the manual execution of which cannot redeem their insignificance.2

After dinner to Quincy where the men were not at work. I sowed a few flower seeds and otherwise wasted my time.

Home by eight and found Sidney Brooks and Mrs. Frothingham there. This did not surprise me but when they went, my Wife communicated to me the account of the accident that had befallen our daughter, Louisa. In crossing the Street below our house, it seems she was run down by a carriage of some kind and taken up for dead, or seriously injured. But upon examination, the Dr. thinks she has escaped with some severe bruises. My God! I think even now of the precipice from which he has saved me, with a feeling of shudder. Trusting as I uniformly do in his protecting mercy, I feel conscious how little I deserve the overflowing measure of his bounty which has been awarded to me. And when I consider what a narrow escape this has been and how constantly we are all of us standing near to danger and destruction, my heart hardly furnishes to my head any distinct manifestation of it’s feelings. I felt stunned as if the blow had not passed or as if I was not conscious of it’s nature.