Morning at the Office. Nothing to interrupt me as a Southerly rain had set in which prevented much going out, and threatened to inundate the City. But it stopped in time to prevent much inconvenience. My time was wasted reading the Reports of the different sides of the Committee upon the question of repealing the 25th Section of the Judiciary Law.1 I think neither of them have much merit. The question itself is a plain one and supports itself by it’s own strength.

I received a letter from my Mother in very good spirits, which I was delighted to find.2 Returned home and passed the afternoon in reading the first Oration against Verres, being the only one which Cicero 416delivered. I did not have time enough to finish it though very short. The Law questions are puzzling. In the evening I looked over Buffon’s Theorie de la Terre3 but did not finish the paper upon it. After which I went on with the Port Royal Latin Grammar and read the usual numbers of the Tatler.

A part of the morning was devoted to Marketing so that after writing my Journal and the usual duties at the Office I had not a great deal of time to devote to writing a letter to my father as I contemplated. I succeeded however in finishing more than one half of it. My letter writing comes much easier than it formerly did so that now my great difficulty is to compress enough. This is the trying part of style and the one which makes the happy medium between obscurity and weakness.

Returned home and passed the afternoon in reading and reviewing the first Oration against Verres. It has great points. Cicero was a great master of address. He knew how to touch the Audience he was talking to and to threaten, court, or despise exactly as it suited him. Is this an art or does it come from nature. Probably the latter heightened and improved by the former. Tact is not with some men, with others, it does more than great genius. He manages the Judges here with great dexterity.

In the evening I attended the Meeting of the Debating Society and heard a discussion upon the subject of Lyceums and their expediency which was very amusing though hardly instructive. The tone of argument there is rather low. We are not Men accustomed to argue unless we are made to. And the mind is always ready to fly off in a tangent upon the least opportunity. Quincy however who cultivates the ironical vein was quite happy this evening. Returned with the Wind piercing cold. I read a little of Buffon and the Tatler.

Morning cold and clear. I went to Meeting all day, and heard in the 417morning a Sermon from Mr. Frothingham which my own personal suffering during the morning totally prevented me from listening to. In the Afternoon I heard Dr. Follen preach from a portion of the Sermon on the Mount. “Blessed are the pure in heart &ca.” He did not handle it with the ability such a Sermon requires. He is a German and I cannot bear to see a German undertaking to talk to Americans in their own language. And when he takes the sublimest part of the New Testament to talk upon, he tries his abilities in a strong light. His Sermon in other respects, was very good. It would have done very well with a hundred other Texts or with none at all.

Returned home and finished my Letter to my father with the Copying.1 Evening quiet. Read Buffon’s Theory of the Earth which amused me, and also finished the first Volume of the Latin Grammar and two Numbers of the Tatler.