Morning cloudy but the day was clear with an unpleasant easterly wind at noon. I remained at home all day. Visit from Mr. Harvey Field who came for himself and a Neighbour to settle the rent that was due to my father. Conversation upon the late Representatives Election. He evidently thinks himself perhaps not without Justice the 102cause of my father’s great success. He says the Masons here were his most violent opponents. Yet Masonry has no influence any where.

I was rather delayed about my work, yet succeeded in accomplishing a Satire and an Ode of Horace, the remainder of the Chapter of Neale begun Wednesday and some of Hutchinson. My share in the latter being a little of the smallest.

In the Afternoon, I pursued my work upon Indexing Pamphlets. A large Collection of many good ones and many very flat, stale and unprofitable. Perhaps it is one of the most singular subjects we have to speculate on, the feeling with which one examines the effusions personal, political and miscellaneous of past times. All dead and buried in the tomb of the Capulets. All the evidences of the restlessness of the human mind. Quiet evening at home. I read Madame de Sevigné and the Observer.

Morning fine. I find the air for the season unusually cold. I went to Boston and was engaged there in a variety of ways. My time passes always very rapidly without my ever having a chance to look at a book. Is this useful employment of my life. Called at Mrs. Frothingham’s, then to the Gallery and Athenaeum.

As I was walking today I came across one of those very unpleasant circumstances which give us a chill in the midst of life and prosperity. A poor man as he was starting his handcart loaded with a barrel of something or other, slipped and fell, the barrel falling upon his head All this happened a few feet from where I was walking. He seemed not to have been very severely hurt for he was able to get up but he bled freely. A crowd was collecting so rapidly and there being persons to take the necessary measures I went away but the incident was a touching moral lesson to me which I hope to recollect.

On my return home I found the child drooping. These changes of weather affect her. I read a part of Henderson’s History of Wines a book obtained from the Athenaeum which gave me a great deal of new information upon the subject.1 Indeed before this, my ideas were not a little confused. All the French Wines were in my mind mixed up together, without much reference to the spots where they grow. Evening quietly at home. Read a little of the book of Prince Puckler Muskau2 and the Observer.