It threatened to be pleasant but without success. I went to town. Found to my discomfiture that my Office boy was about to leave me. 310This at this time is highly inconvenient. My time was consumed in going about on various commissions, in an attempt to find the missing Trunks, and in reading a little of Gibbon. One or two Tenants came to see me. One to pay rent, another to give me notice of his intention to quit one of the Tenements. I thought this would subject me to some trouble but before I left Boston, an application of a satisfactory nature was made for it. This is a very agreeable thing. Houses are no trouble when men are really in want of them.

I returned to Quincy to dinner. The whole Afternoon was taken up in superintending some improvements to the Garden which I really think is at last taking the appearance of a Gentleman’s place. A little care and attention is all that is wanting. Paid a visit at Mr. T. Greenleaf’s in the evening. All there but Mr. Price whose absence was not accounted for.

Much the same cloudy, unpleasant weather which we have had all along. I remained at home today. Read a portion of Thucydides but my time was very considerably interrupted. I have now reached the causes of the famous War, and the author becomes more interesting. His style is peculiarly compressed. He leaves to the reader every thing but the leading word. It is like striking chords in music when you supply the rest of an octave. This to a man so superficial in Greek is not perfectly easy reading. Took a walk with my Wife at noon, and searched the Gardener’s books afterward, but without much success. It is difficult to reduce theory to practice.

Afternoon, I finished Seneca’s first book De Ira and passed an hour in the Garden. Seneca writes with an attempt to concentrate sense. It is as if you would feed a man always upon brandy. It is no doubt very fine but the human mind will put up with no such tax, and straightway forgets as much as is not most prominent. In the evening, read a little of the Memoirs of the Due de St. Simon. A cynical historian of the age of Louis 14. But he probably tells much truth.1

The early part of the morning was so cloudy that I decided upon remaining at home. But it appearing a little finer at ten o’clock, I concluded to start with my Wife for Boston. She wished to go and see Mrs. Sidney Brooks who has come from New York to remain a day or 311two. I did not employ my own time to much advantage, it must be confessed. Read a Newspaper or two, performed a Commission or two, and talked a little with W. E. Payne who has just returned from Charleston,1 about Nullification, at the Athenaeum. This sentence is not properly constructed. This brought the hour for returning, and accordingly we reached home to dinner.

Afternoon, I passed partly in the Garden and partly reading Seneca, but I did not turn my time to so much advantage as I ought to have done. A quiet evening at home.