Pleasant morning. I went to the Office and was intending to do up all the writing in my Diary, but one interruption after another left me pretty much where it found me. Mr. Hurlbert came in about his rent. Then Mr. Walsh, then Mr. Spear from Quincy with questions relating to the management of matters there, and lastly Mr. T. K. Davis with some Bowdoin Prize Dissertations of which I am to be one of three Judges to award to the best a Prize. Much talk. He has just 245returned from a pedestrian excursion to the White Mountains and from thence to Lake George, is much delighted as well as renovated by it. Home late. I directly started for Quincy with my Wife and Louisa, there to dinner, family much as usual. Conversation with my father.

My Pamphlet. It sells a little better than I anticipated. An order today from Concord for fifty copies, quite helps along. I continue to circulate a few daily. The subject grows more and more important and will in the end excite attention.

The darkness came on more rapidly than I expected. We did not get home to my house until seven o’clock. Evening quiet, but from some unaccountable cause I felt so exceedingly fatigued that I was glad to retire early and leave much undone.

The day was pleasant although unusually sultry with southerly winds and damp. I passed my morning in reading the North American Review, which contains one or two amusing articles. I also pursued my work of copying.

Attended divine service all day, but in the morning I had barely got seated with my little girl before I became uneasy by her appearance and was misled by misunderstanding her to take her home. I thought her sick but heaven be praised, she was not so. It was too late to return. So I amused myself by a long and rather fatiguing walk. I do not know that there is much profit in exercise taken in this barren manner. Afternoon, heard Mr. Frothingham from Acts 17. 28. “For we are also his offspring.” My attention is again from my habits of life during the summer utterly gone. I heard but gained little from the hearing.

Home where I read a short Sermon from Dr. Barrow. Proverbs 4. 23. “Keep thy heart with all diligence.” It seems to be a discourse preparatory or laying out the ground, in the manner customary with this writer. He first explains the signification upon which he would rest, a practice conducive to clearness but which by too frequent repetition becomes fatiguing. A writer of discourses should study variety of arrangement. Mr. Geitner called to see me for a few moments, and young Gardiner Gorham spent an hour in the evening.

Morning cloudy with these thick mists which have prevailed for so long. But the day became afterwards fine. I went to the Office. Oc-246cupied in Arrears of my Diary against recovering which there appears to be a spell. Mr. Walsh came in to amuse me much and then T. K. Davis with another Bowdoin Prize Dissertation. We got engaged talking and the whole morning slipped away—So that I returned to my house at the hour I fixed without having done much.

An hour which I was able to spend upon Juvenal today consoled me. I do recur to the quiet of my classical studies with delight. None of the corruptions of politics, the dirty places in men’s hearts and the violence of the passions to observe, none of the need of watchful self control which although it may exercise the character too often degrades the moral sensibilities. I will persevere in my hour to the old folks.

Afternoon, copying from the J.A. MS—A long paper of Shaw’s which is valuable only for the Account to be found in it of his fugitive pieces in the Newspapers of the time.1 Evening quiet. Finished Beckford’s little book.