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.

Faust is certainly a very striking piece. The idea is so wild and yet so natural. A man who has exhausted himself in study, finding nothing new or interesting or solid in this world longs for an acquaintance with the more powerful spiritual creation. He accordingly dabbles in magic until he gets the Devil in the shape of Mephistophiles, a travelling student into his company, who is at liberty to tempt and torment him as much as he likes. Perhaps the most singular and German idea is the prologue in which the Deity with all his angels is introduced discussing matters with Mephistophiles and giving him permission to go after Faust. I was shocked and yet what is it more than Milton has done? Perhaps the idea of representation makes the difference.

I went to the Office where I wrote my Diary and in a book of a curious description in which about this time for many years past, I have been in the habit of once recording my feeling of the moment.1 Perhaps as good a moral may be drawn from it as from any thing 39in this world. Walk. Dropped in to look at the Statues with which I was more pleased. Ovid.

Afternoon, took a vacation from work to read a pleasant book, the Bubbles, but I think his theory about the Classics is a thorough Bubble. He is a military man. Evening Mrs. Jameson, Diary of an Ennuyé,2 and Faust.