Morning fair. My Wife was informed that one of her Domestics was taken ill in the night and this put us in considerable confusion. My Mother and the rest left town at ten, and I do not expect to see them again this year.1 I regret their absence more and more. We have all spent the Summer in an unusually pleasant manner, and I have been myself relieved from a good deal of care and responsibility. It is a little singular that during this Summer we should have been so unlucky in Housekeeping, and perhaps it is the worse from the contrast it presents to living with others. I regret more on the account of others than myself.

Went to the Office, but my time passed without much profit. I am a trifler in life and all my good resolutions are vanishing into thin Air. So much for me. Took a short walk and returned home. Finished in the Afternoon the letters to Atticus. I am glad I have had the perseverance to accomplish them. Indeed they are on the whole interesting, and give the only true key to the character of the man. But they require great attention. The Greek bits of quotation are pleasant but sometimes obscure, the allusions are totally lost or but partially seen.

Evening very quiet. I read a part of Miss Edgeworth’s Practical Education. I like this book much. There are many very sensible views in it of the nature of Children’s minds. My own impression is that clearness is the great requisite and that this is lost nine times in ten 164because Children catch the words of their superiors without their ideas. Read the Spectator.

Morning pleasant. I forgot to say that I was busy last Evening as well as this morning in correcting a proof Sheet of my father’s contribution to Blunt’s Register.1 It came so late that I could not send it yesterday so that I thought I would save the lost time by sending him the corrected proof instead of the first copy. It is something of a labour to correct these as I found, and it requires a much more practised eye than mine to see the mistakes in letters at a glance. I looked it over three times and found new ones each time.

Went to the Office where I passed my time as usual. Read a good deal of the Debates in the New York Convention and went about upon several Commissions. But At noon I felt so unwell that I thought I would go and walk. Before I had reached School Street I was taken quite sick at my Stomach, which continued with great violence for a Couple of hours. It seems impossible to say what the cause was, but so it was that I was incapacitated from doing any thing today. Last year I had very much such a turn, though it was then accompanied with head ache. Today it came without any notice. I laid down feeling chills, but as the Night came on grew better so that after Tea I sat down and continued Miss Edgeworth. Interrupted soon by Mrs. Frothingham, Miss Lydia Phillips and Edward Brooks who came in and were quite agreeable the rest of the evening. Mr. Frothingham came also afterwards. I read Miss Edgeworth and the Spectator.

Morning at the Office without being able to do much before going there. Our family is so much disorganized at present as to make it difficult to study at all. It began to rain soon, and continued doing so all day. I wrote a little and read a little but on the whole did not do much. My father came in to accomplish a little of his final business. Nothing particular was necessary to be done excepting to supply himself with Cash and to get his Chronometer which had been broken. 165He went about however and amused himself as usual until nearly two o’clock when he left town and I bid him Good bye. I could not help feeling dull at the departure, but went immediately to try and get over it at Mr. Frothingham’s where Abby and I dined.

After dinner I returned home and began Cicero’s letters to his brother Quintus, the first of which seems to me one of the most admirable of his works. Evening at home passed quietly. Read a Chapter or two of the History of George 4th. which was interesting, and some of Practical Education. After which began the seventh Volume of the Spectator.