I said that my plan was to be altered. This is in consequence of a disposition on the part of my brother to conciliate, by his manner to my Wife and by his postponing his departure. As this manifests an inclination which is certainly uncalled for by the circumstances, I feel it to be my duty to reciprocate it. So far as I can, I will do so. This will depend entirely upon him. If I am not subjected to any galling sense of inferiority unjustly and unnecessarily pressed upon me in matters of daily intercourse we shall do well. If I am again, I must leave the scene before my temper gets the better of me. I wonder what pleasure a man can feel in piquing himself upon always gaining little victories in boasting. What is there which raises more sharp angles in the whole progress of life?

I started early this morning to be present at a meeting of the Class called for nine o’clock, Commencement morning. Reached Cambridge shortly after that time and upon looking round found nobody. A more thorough examination discovered Fay, Dillaway, Allen, Sherwin, and I heard of two more.1 But the purpose for which the meeting was called the removal of the Cenotaph or monument of the Class, was not accomplished. Our graveyards are not sacred places that our little memorial is suffering in its present position. The idea is to put it in Mount Auburn. I went to look at it as well as at many of the 158old scenes of my College life. Many things are changed. Much building and ornamenting gives a different look to the place. I cannot account for the desolate feeling which came over me while I was there. Nothing came back to me that I valued. My friendships formed there have been none of them permanent. Poor Sheafe too, the inscription to whom on the Stone did nothing to diminish my melancholy, he has gone to a better world.2 This world has made all the rest uncongenial to me. I live in my own family and my own thoughts. The rest is a blank. Part of my feeling may also be attributed to the coldness of my instructors with whose names I have not a single warming association. They might have made me love the Institution. Is not this difficulty at the bottom of the present decaying condition of the College? For on this day the marks of decay struck me forcibly. No Graduate of modern times whom I have met entertains any enthusiasm for the place of his education. Few of them contracted any of the spirit of literary research. Indeed this which I did not acquire and which I weakened there is the only tie that holds me to it.

I hastened from the spot, and returned to town, where my avocations restored the general tone of my thoughts. In consequence of the reasons assigned above, I returned home to dinner. Afternoon passed in writing Diary and reading a little. Quiet evening.

As I had been going for so long a time I concluded it would be better to remain quietly at home today and turn my attention to winding up the principal things I was occupied about. In consequence of this I did little more than copy diligently morning and afternoon. A business for which I have no conveniences here and which affects my breast a good deal. I have got engaged in copying out the principal Letters in the Correspondence between my Grandparents and my principal difficulty has consisted in the difficulty of limiting my selection. They are all so good it is very hard not to copy all, yet this is more than I can or ought to do.

Hutchinson is all this while falling into the background. Nothing else of particular interest. I omitted to mention that my father started 159yesterday on a little trip to the mountains of New Hampshire, in company with Mr. and Mrs. I. P. Davis. This is in consequence of the urgency of the family who are concerned at the languid state in which he has been for some time past.1 In the evening, quiet at home. Gov. Knight2 and another man called. Nobody recollected him in time.