On this day, it had been agreed that my Wife and her two younger children should go to Medford to make her father a short visit while I should carry out Louisa to stay with the family at Quincy. Thus my home is again disturbed after two months of almost uninterrupted enjoyment. I have lived far more to my taste since my removal to my own house than I ever did but my Wife does not enjoy this mode of life as much as I do. She depends more upon Society and more especially that of her sister. Sacrifices of personal feeling are necessary in this world and I therefore must learn to make them without grumbling.

The clouds looked so lowering in the morning that I was in great doubt about going. I passed a couple of hours at the Office in business occupation, then to the House where I was doubtful but at last con-178cluded to go. Having sent my horse away at eleven o’clock when it rained I was obliged to go and get it. We arrived safe and dry but the afternoon and evening gave us a succession of very heavy thunder showers. I passed the time in conversation. Nothing material.

The rain in the night was amazingly heavy and when I arose in the morning there seemed exceedingly little prospect of my being able to get to town this day. A furious and driving storm from the North east appeared to be deluging the land. It ceased after breakfast and remained a cloudy day. I therefore took my leave at about ten. My little Louisa appeared more willing to be left than I had quite expected and I rather doubt whether I was not of the two far the most affected by the separation. The City looked infinitely better for the vehement washing operation it had undergone.

I went home, changed my dress for a thicker one and then to the Office, where I was occupied in Diary and Accounts. Read an article in my last number of the North American Review upon Washington Irving’s late work.1 It was pleasant and amusing but there is far too much of the couleur de rose in every thing connected with this periodical. Puff, Puff, Puff, as if a sign board painter could not be made to pass as good an ordeal in matters of nice colouring by this process as an Artist of first quality.2 Home. Read Juvenal for an hour today faithfully.

Afternoon divided between Thiers, and the Manuscript papers which I arrange slowly. The campaign in Italy of 1796 interested me much. Bonaparte’s great fore was energy. That of La Fayette, disinterestedness. The one was the greater man, the other, the more virtuous one.

In the evening, I went down to see Maelzel’s Exhibition of his evening curiosities. The room, Concert Hall, was crowded to excess, and the air which still smacked of the heat of the last few days was almost intolerable. I take great pleasure in going to this exhibition because Maelzel is a connoisseur in music and besides his mechanical works he plays with spirit and truth. I was pleased with all his dancing figures, and with the conflagration of Moscow excepting that the horrible din made my head ache. The Chess player was there also as imperturbable and as successful as when I last saw him eight or ten years ago.3 Home at ten. My house seems longely and I feel the absence 179of all the animation of children as well as of the anxiety they cause me. Worked upon No. 8.