Morning clear but it afterwards grew cloudy. I went to the Office and was occupied as usual—Diary, Accounts and a letter to my father which I commenced but had not time to finish. Walk.

Home where I read much of Livy. Then out to dine, at J. Quincy’s— Dr. Walter Channing, Dr. Jackson of Phil., I. P. Davis and his son T. K., C. P. Curtis, and C. Amory. P. Quincy of Cambridge there also. I have a great dislike to attending such dinners nowadays as the prevaling tone of feeling in Boston is entirely against my political feelings. If there is any thing which would be likely to heighten my tone, it would be to attend many, for a more supercilious, disgusting declaration of sentiment can hardly be imagined. My natural feelings are in themselves too moderate for any party, and consequently I am regularly walking the path between one side and the other, now and then touching and rebounding immediately. Mr. Curtis is now the tip top of the Whig State Committee and quite fit for the place.

Home with T. K. Davis who spent the evening and was pleasant. Afterwards, Swifts Examiners.

Morning at the Office. Weather very backward for the Season. I went to the Office and was much occupied in accounts—Sundry persons coming in to pay rent due. I finished the letter to my father and sent with it my Quarterly Account which I had been keeping back.1 It took me much of the afternoon to copy it. Walk and home to read Livy.

My father is confined to the house for a week and appears to be generally unwell. His mode of life is peculiarly trying to his constitution. I do not know, but it seems to me that his situation presents very little of the dignified or the agreeable in it. My imagination pictures old age as seated at home in the midst of social connexions and quiet enjoyments. But in this Country there is vastly little of this. Men seem to live for action as long as they can and sink into apathy when they retire.

My progress in Livy is slow but it is agreeable. Read a little of Fouqué, in whose book I get on too slowly. Quiet evening at home—Read Madame Junot, in the eighth volume which is the record of Napoleon’s decline, Swift’s Examiner.