Morning clear and tolerably mild. Went to the Office as usual and passed my morning in reading Williston and in business affairs. This Agency is far from being an agreeable business, so many little trifling 196demands and applications, and so much trouble about the rent. But as I have undertaken it, I will carry it through without any winking. Mr. Brigham called upon me to make arrangements respecting the payment of Money due on the Canal Notes.1 agreed to go to Quincy on the first of the month. A letter from my Father received this morning is in very low spirits and advises me to sell stock to make up my payments.2 I am sorry to see this kind of thing operating upon him for it portends more ominously to the ruin of his property than any thing I have yet seen. Mr. Isaac P. Davis called about the Picture of my Father.3 I recommended to him an arrangement with Mr. Curtis. Thus passed the morning.

Returning home to dinner, I found P. Chardon Brooks and his wife there according to invitation, and they dined with us. He is a clever fellow, but evidently feeling under heavy restraint with me. My own character is so grave, that he can make nothing of it. I wish to be on good terms with him as with all the other members of the family, but I fear it is more difficult work to be cordial than one might suppose. After dinner the time was so much consumed, that I had only time to finish two pages of Demosthenes, and a short time to read a debate carried on at the close of the Administration of Washington upon the Answer of Congress to his Speech.4 It is curious, as it developes the principles of the day and the very unfinished speaking of the men. I am somewhat amused by the sense of novelty which every Speaker appeared to experience.

In the evening, I finished Lalla Rookh to my Wife. It is a Poem of much glitter and some sweetness, of too much to cloy, and sicken entirely yet not enough to keep alive. The constant description is agreeable at first but gradually becomes fatiguing. Edmund Quincy also spent an hour or two pleasantly.

The opening of the day brought with it winter and storm. The snow was several inches deep already, and rapidly increasing with a violent 197wind from the Eastward. I hesitated long before deciding to go to the Office, a business not of the pleasantest. When there however, I was paid by receiving a letter from my Mother in tolerable spirits speaking of arrangements to come on.1 I am a little doubtful whether this is not all Smoke as usual. We shall see. She speaks very doubtfully of Mr. Everett.2 I do not exactly know why, but so much like a snake are his windings, that it is impossible at a distance to guess at them. Dr. Storer called in about this business of Farmer’s. The latter insists upon the sum of two hundred dollars which I think an enormous piece of extortion, and accordingly I am of opinion that the suit must go on. We talked it over and I could not help feeling galled at the idea that the scoundrel had of his hold over me. If it must be war, it shall be, and damned be he, who first cries, hold. Mr. Welsh spent an hour in conversation, the rest of the time was passed in reading Clinton’s Address to the Society at Columbia—A very uncommonly good production, with which Williston’s book closes.3 I have derived some benefit from this work, though not disappointed4 by the general impression it leaves of dissatisfaction. There are few specimens of true Eloquence, much rant, great bad taste and a good deal of brilliancy. At home after dinner reading Demosthenes on the Crown, which I am rapidly closing. Tomorrow finishes.

My wife has today been quite unwell and suffering. In the evening, I tried to resume Clarissa Harlowe in the last volume, but she was unable to hear. So I advised her to go to bed, and sat myself reading Campbell on Rhetoric, until I came to a metaphysical Chapter which posed me though I read it twice, and it is on a question which is curious. Why do sensible men sometimes write nonsense?