Morning at the Office as usual. Time occupied partly in reading the Edinburgh Review. This number has much strong writing in it, but not a great deal of that which is better than show, real substantial foundation. My time passed rapidly and I did not seem to do much, but our days are now so short that they do not admit of the performance of a great deal. I paid the long unsettled bill of my Carpenter Mr. Ayer who made my Book Cases, and felt very glad at being able to free myself from that debt.1 I had been in hope to make an Investment this Winter but instead of it find myself barely able to pay all my Debts. These were not large neither. But my disappointment at the failure of the Banks to pay Dividends, and my not yet obtaining any of my Fees for my professional Services have had some effect in producing this. I hope still not to let the Winter entirely pass without making some attempt to this effect.

In the afternoon, I read a part of Aeschines but being interrupted 96by Mr. Sparks and his Clerk for a little while I was unable to read as much as I had wished or to do all my task of translation. I this afternoon read what is called his beautiful passage upon the parental affections. It is good but now it would be trite. After tea I went down to hear Dr. Walter Channing deliver a Lecture upon Aqueducts and the modes of conveying water. It gave me a little information but not as much as I had trouble so that I was not quite paid. On my return I found Edmund Quincy at my House who sat and chatted for a little while quite pleasantly. He is disposed to be quite sociable and I am very well satisfied that he should be. I afterwards read Brumoy’s Analysis of the Choephorae and Plutarch’s Life of Demosthenes.2

Morning at the Office. Finished the remainder of the Edinburgh Review. This publication is carried on with much talent and power, but not in the very best taste. The articles have a grandiloquence about them that is injurious to them when analyzed, though it makes an effect apparently. This occupied all my morning with the exception of only a short time that I was occupied in making inquiries upon the obtaining a Certificate for a poor Pensioner at Quincy, Rufus Davis by name, who by an accident lost his some time since—A business committed to me by my Father.1 I only ascertained the steps it would be necessary to take. I then went to see to the purchase of some Liverpool Coal and purchased a Chaldron at twelve dollars, which is very cheap, considering that in the last Spring I was obliged to give at the rate of eighteen, one third more. Thus went the morning.

I occupied my afternoon in pursuing the study of Aeschines which as far as I have gone, has been pretty well analyzed, though it takes so much of my valuable time that I think I shall be unable to continue in the same path. I must remain satisfied with translations. My field is wide, and only now do I begin to feel the incitements of a powerful ambition. It excites me at every moment with an indefinite preference which seems to remind me that I ought to fulfil the duties to which my station designs me. But it is wrong to be carried away too fast, there is time, and there must be opportunity.

In the evening I went down to the Meeting of the Debating Society but found that we were shut out, the consequence of which was that 97the Members who came were obliged to return home and this unfortunately for the Society which is on it’s last legs. I had gone prepared to oppose the resolution which I apprehended Quincy would make to put an end to the Society, instead of which I returned home and very quietly read Clarissa Harlowe to my Wife.