Another severely cold morning. I went to the Office as usual and 229after looking thoroughly over my Accounts and discovering the cause of the error alluded to yesterday I sat down and made some progress in Gibbon. But the best employment of a morning does not give me more than about an hour of attention to reading. And this is not so thoroughly done as it would be at my study at home. I went afterwards to the Athenaeum and obtained some books for our evening’s occupation.

In the afternoon, I continued reading Quinctilian who is certainly exceedingly sensible. His argument on the merits of private and public education is a very pleasant one. It is so natural and clear. I do not accomplish much in an Afternoon. Indeed it is impossible to imagine a life of so much apparent occupation and so little real result as mine. I finish a few pages of easy Latin and that is all. Miss Julia Gorham dined with us.

Evening. Read to my Wife a part of Hazlitt’s Conversations with Northcote the artist.1 Some of the ideas are very good, others are merely striking. But Hazlitt presses his own into view full as much as he does his friend’s. Began Pope’s version of the Odyssey2 and read the Guardian.

According to my observations the cold was greater this morning than it has been either day of the last three. But it gave way in the course of the day. I was occupied much as usual at the Office. Mr. Degrand came in and I accomplished the investment of the sum of money in my hands. This is an experiment. I have some doubts and fears owing to my want of experience in business. Read a little of Gibbon but on the whole did not do much. The weather was so bad, I did not walk. Read more of Gibbon who keeps up the interest of his history tolerably. This is a repetition showing the want of ideas in me, but I will not deface the page by erasing it.

Afternoon, continued reading Quintilian. A very dry piece of grammatical discussion which made me almost repent I had taken him up. It is undoubtedly true that nothing is to be done without a knowledge of grammar, but except as a matter of mere curiosity it is of no consequence to us how the Latin is to be arranged or spelled. Evening, read aloud to my Wife more of Northcote’s Conversations. After which I read the version of the second book of the Odyssey and the Guardian.