The arrival of Mr. Brooks makes quite a difference in the house. I live a sort of negative life this winter which I cannot much reconcile myself to, but in time I hope that I shall not feel so much its disagreeableness. Continued Emilia Galotti and then went to the Office.

Received from my father the annual Treasury report and commenced a series of strictures upon it which I pursued with such ardor that I neglected every thing else. I broke off with the intention of re-37suming after a walk at home. But it was a bitterly cold day and on getting home my fingers would not hold a pen. I sat down to the luxury of Ovid. After dinner the fever was utterly gone and my plan was at an end. Thus it is with me now. Utterly discouraged. I find nobody that thinks as I do or appears to feel any sympathy with or for me. And if it was not that I had this record to communicate my feelings to, they would make me tolerably unhappy.

I did little. Arranged a few papers and read Mrs. Jameson whose book amuses me. Miss Henrietta Gray did not return home on account of the cold. In the evening Mr. R. D. Tucker and Mr. Davis came in, and we had an agreeable evening. The latter is amusing as usual. After a slight supper I had time enough to finish Emilia Galotti with which I have been much pleased.

After looking over Emilia Galotti for the last time I concluded next to go to the fountain head and try Goethe’s Faust,1 which I began—A piece of originality of singular and characteristic quality but which in the very outset betrays great mental power.

Office. My time so absorbed there in Accounts that I went very far beyond my hours and lost my walk. Mr. Ladd my disagreeable Tenant came to pay me rent, and Mr. Brown. I sold and this day transferred some shares of the Fire and Marine Insurance Co. belonging to T. B. Adams and thereby have saved to him the heavy advance which they had cost and which he must in the end have lost. This has been worrying me ever since the purchase and still more as the repayment by the Company of a fourth of their Capital at par had thrown all the premium paid for it upon the remaining three quarters. I also transferred more of my father’s shares in the New England.

Home in time for Ovid. Afternoon Mrs. Jameson and the papers. Evening the same and Faust.

Clouds, such as we usually have at the close of the year. There is something quite cheerless in it and yet I do not feel the effect of it 38much at present. My health is certainly better, and I have got over for the present the tendency to jaundice which formerly oppressed me. To me it seems much the same what the weather is. I enjoy little or nothing in the external air in winter, and I find all my pleasures at home either in the study or the nursery.

At the Office writing as usual. Left it early for the purpose of going with my Wife and Mrs. Frothingham to see the last of Greenough’s performances. A cherub leading a child to heaven—A pretty idea enough and executed with more than his usual success. I did not remain long enough this time to form a complete judgment of the subject, but I promise myself some other visits.

Walk and Ovid. Afternoon after looking over many of the official papers, and arranging all of them as well as I could I began upon the private correspondence which will prove more interesting I imagine. I took up Mr. Jefferson, for his is perhaps the best.

Afterwards, began a little book with the singular title of Bubbles by an old man, written with a great deal of spirit by some Englishman upon a visit to some of the more retired of the German watering places.1 W. G. Brooks with his wife and sister passed the evening. I afterwards made a beginning at the beginning of Faust which I had accidentally omitted.