The weather is moderating gradually and continues bright and pleasant. I began Goethe’s Götz von Berlichingen but read only one 52scene of it. Office. Mr. William Spear from Quincy called upon me as usual for the purpose of making his Quarterly settlement. I attended a sale of Stocks for the purpose of making one or two purchases on my own and T. B. Adams’ Accounts. This done I returned and completed my Diary &ca. For the first time since the day I started for Washington, exactly two months ago I had a head ach—The consequence of overeating and drinking yesterday. Even a long walk and the fine air did not restore me. But a moderate dinner and a short nap had the effect so that I passed my evening in scribbling. I have been over half a quire of paper and have as yet produced nothing to my mind.

Mr. Brooks was out until late. I went over a file of Dr. Rush’s Letters in which are many very characteristic anecdotes and sprightly observations. I must make some farther investigations into the character of Dr. Rush. Read part of Sir James Mackintosh’s short biography of Sir Thomas More—A little gem to be found in Lardner’s Cyclopedia.1 He was not valued at his worth by his own generation and it is a little doubtful whether he will go down to posterity. For most of his works are but the fragments of a great whole which he did not live to make out. Indulged in a little of d’Israeli’s third volume, but the Items were dry. My evenings are of some advantage to me this winter.

The weather is gradually moderating and becoming exceedingly pleasant. I read this morning for an hour, then attended divine service. Mr. Frothingham. Isaiah 44. 16. “Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire.” A singular text and I was much at a loss at first to comprehend his management of it. He adverted to the cold, it’s nature, it’s severity and it’s benefits. He alluded to the manifestation of fitness which it afforded in the arrangement of the physical world, adroitly introduced an old quotation from Mather who is grateful for his situation where the sap oozing from the logs that were burning freezes and drew from it the exhortation to keep a thankful heart. Mr. Frothingham is a finished writer but his thought flows in a thin and narrow stream the purity of which does not quite make up for it’s scantiness.

In the Afternoon, Mr. now Dr. Parkman,1 2 Kings 6. 12–17 embracing the whole passage but these words most especially. “Fear not; for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.” An encouraging view of the supports to the cause of Christianity, evidently alluding to the present fears of the infidel faith if I may so call 53Miss Fanny Wrights beautiful absurdity. I hardly fancy there is cause for much alarm. Our world grows wider and admits greater varieties of belief. Men’s minds do not take in the whole while they watch a particular part. Mr. Parkman is an ordinary man with all the pedantry of the clerical profession. But he is a worthy citizen.

Read a Sermon of Barrow: The duty of Prayer from 1. Thessalonians 5. 17. “Pray without ceasing.” Good practical sense. He takes prayer in the most enlarged sense as including not only applications for aid, but thankfulness for favor and the general piety which is a habit of the mind rather than any outward act. He defines the nature of the advice in a similar way. He supposes the injunction to be the cultivation of that state of feeling under which man is led to rely upon and look up to the Deity in all the various conditions in which he may be placed. Some of these are enumerated by him. But I was much struck today with the inelegance of the language used in some cases, the singularity of some of the expressions and the ungraceful tone. I have not noticed this so much before.

My Wife and Mr. Brooks rode to Medford and did not return until quite late. I sat down in the evening and wrote against Mr. Webster’s nomination but what avails it? The thing is to be done and I am not to make myself a gladiator in any arena of personal contention.