An excessively hot day. After despatching my business, I returned to town. These visits are short but necessary to keep up my father’s spirits which sink upon the return to quiet and solitude.1

At Boston I was very busy, first in Accounts, then in copying a Letter for my father to John following up the other. He wishes to bring him to settle in Quincy. I do not know but this is the only course in which he might do good.2 But if he accepts the invitation my position is most essentially changed and many of my views disappear. Not with any great regret on my part indeed, for I can easily adapt myself to the new circumstances. My time was so much engrossed that I did not execute all my work.

Returned to Medford. Afternoon quiet. Read Puckler Muskau Volume 1 which is more German than the rest. Ovid, and Madame de Maintenon. It was so warm that I was very languid.

Another hot day. I passed the morning reading Puckler Muskau whose Style amuses me very much. His modes of thinking are curious, but he does think. Nor does he confine himself like the Duck of Saxe Weimar to follow the bill of fare of every Table d’hote he finds. The Germans are a singular people. Without much solidity in their opinions they indulge in a considerable range of thought, and combine with 350it a sense of refined enjoyment of the essence of beauty in the world both moral and physical which makes them as writers generally pleasing, sometimes unintelligible.

Attended divine service in the morning but not in the afternoon, Mr. Muzzy of Cambridge, a young man in College with me.1 He hit upon the same Text with Mr. Stetson’s on the 6th July: Acts 20. 35. “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” The present was a theoretical view of charity. Mr. Stetson’s was a coarsely practical one. Neither of them touched upon the sources which make Charity the greatest of three with faith and hope. Neither of them considered the moral duty in its operation both on others and on one’s self. It was too warm to listen well today.

Read A Sermon of Atterbury’s. Psalm 57. 7 and 8. “My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise. Awake up, my glory! Awake psaltery and harp! I myself will awake right early.” It was upon the usefulness of Church music, by fixing the attention and producing a proper state of feeling. One head was upon the superior adaptation of the music of the Church of England. And it closed with an exhortation. I once heard Dr. Kirkland2 preach upon the same subject but his was a historical sketch of sacred music. I am much of a believer in its efficacy. Read Madame de Maintenon’s Letters. And in the evening Mr. Hall and Dr. Swan were here. Conversation tedious.