My eyes opened this morning to behold the snow lying thickly on the earth. This was to me exceedingly sudden and unexpected, and as I must confess not very welcome for it seemed to presage an early Winter. The warmth of the day however produced rain and made all of it disappear faster than it came. I was at the Office as usual, and attended to my portion of the translation of the Preface though it must be allowed that I did not feel quite so brisk as I wish I did. The fatigue of yesterday as well as the cold had produced very disagreeable effects upon my lips and face. I read a portion of Puffendorf as usual, though interrupted in the middle to go down and see if I could not 76obtain some Flower Roots for my Wife which I did—One bundle for Thirty Cents. I then returned and continued the second Chapter of Pufendorf which I finished.

My feelings were such in the Afternoon that I could not attend to Aeschines and so devoted myself for the larger part of it to writing up my Journal which my busy avocations for two days past had prevented my doing. This took up so much of my time that I had only enough left to finish the Declamation of La Harpe against Seneca and the remaining Chapter which concludes his Course of Ancient Literature. I have been on the whole amused, entertained and generally instructed, though I have not implicit confidence in his judgment or his taste. And my opinion has gone on decreasing. I read in the Evening almost uninterruptedly in Clarissa Harlowe to my Wife, going only for a few minutes to the Meeting of the Debating Society where I did not see sufficient promised to pay me for the absence from home. There were but three or four persons present and those not very promising Debaters. I returned directly and finished reading only at nine o’clock.

The morning was clear and cold. We determined to go to Medford, according to promise while this fair weather lasted. Accordingly we started after breakfast as we did on last Sunday, arriving there just before time to attend Divine Service. I went morning and afternoon and heard Mr. Stetson deliver what I did not doubt were sensible Sermons, if I had been sufficiently fortunate to have been able to have attended to them but I was not. My attention would not turn as I would have it so I was fain to give up the Contest and a judgment. Mr. Brooks was much pleased with the Sermon. The day passed otherwise without any thing worthy of notice. I wasted as much time as I always do.

In the evening as Abby was anxious to make some visits among her Medford acquaintance, her father and I accompanied her to Mr. Stetson’s in the first place, where we saw the Parson in his prime condition and his small Wife. They were as usual, the former a wriggling nervous man of sense, the latter a very quiet unmeaning woman. We soon left there and went to Miss Osgoods, two Maiden ladies, daughters of the old Parson,1 who take after him in manners and in drawl, but appear to be tolerably intelligent from the small opportunity I have of judging of them. We went from there to see Mr. and Mrs. Hall with whom we spent over an hour.2 We thus accomplished an 77evening’s work. This business is a little irksome to me, but it is proper and I consider it one of those fitting sacrifices of the married State which I have made perhaps as much for my own good as the general one. We returned home late in the evening and retired soon afterwards.