Mild day and cloudy with occasional snow. I went to the Office. Continued and finished Rousseau’s Essay upon the Inequality of Man. A singular and dazzling theory which makes civilization the root of all evil, which considers ignorance as bliss and man naked, in the woods, living upon Acorns as in his best condition. This whole structure is a mass of ice, brilliant while it lasts but utterly unsafe to stand upon. Man in his wildest state is not an isolated being. The experience of all Countries shows him a gregarious animal, which fact alone destroys the theory.

Short walk. Then home to read Persius. I have two translations, Gifford’s and Drummond’s1 and the Dolphin edition so that I wade through the obscurity rapidly. There is much good sentiment in this Author and a high standard of thought. Afternoon, finished Levesque’s sketch of the reign of Peter the first. A singular man of whose charac-283ter it is difficult at once to judge. He was a tyrant and yet a useful monarch. He built up a Nation without apparently understanding the real principles which are at the bottom of it’s greatness, attaching as much consequence to the shaving of a beard and a particular dress as to the forming a marine and extending the communications of his Empire.

Evening, went to the Theatre. At this time alone as my Wife did not take to this opera. T. K. Davis and T. Dwight happened to be in the box with me. The Sears and Otis troop in the next one making a great noise in loud conversation. How very European and rude. Robert the Devil was better performed, particularly the duett “Base fears” and the song at the gaming table. Indeed all the music in this as in every other Opera in my experience gains upon acquaintance. Home early and wrote Diary. Wind high and stormy.

Weather cold and clear. I went to the Office as usual. Engaged in Accounts, and took down with me Mr. Gallatin’s Essay on the Currency, which by reading over I wish to make myself master of. But it is a singular property of my mind that upon a second reading of any book I cannot fix my attention at all. And the effort is almost time thrown away. I do not know that I shall be able to make much use of the knowledge after I get it but at any rate if I cannot immediately get the benefit of it, the thing will keep stored up.

Walk and call at the Athenaeum, then home where I devoted my usual hour to Persius. I like him better now that I am less troubled about his meaning. There is good philosophy in what he writes. Afternoon, Adam Smith. I have some idea of going over him again, but my former difficulty occurs and I am afraid I am just familiar enough with the substance to lose my time. Evening quietly at home. Read to my Wife from the Memoires of Madame Junot, the Duchess d’Abrantes.1 Afterwards, began Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister Wanderjahre.2