The Child continuing to hang about as if she was suffering I advised my Wife to send for Dr. Stevenson. This is a complaint to which she is not often subject—A sore throat from ulcers. I have watched them 63but they do not disappear under my Wife’s treatment. I went to the Office and was busy nearly all day in Accounts and making up my Diary. Took a long walk. The air was as mild as Summer and I was warm without a Surtout.1

Home where as dinner was delayed on account of company, I sat down and read a fair portion of the second book of the Fasti of Ovid. At four the party came. We had Governor Davis, Mr. Wadsworth, Judge Prescott, Dr. F. Parkman, Mr. J. Tilden, Mr. H. Inches and his Son, Mr. A. H. Everett, Mr. J. Coolidge, and Mr. Tucker besides Edward Brooks and Mr. Frothingham of the family. The dinner was very pretty and passed off extremely well.

Mr. Everett brought us the information that the ballot for a Senator had resulted unsuccessfully—My father having the highest vote. This is matter for reflection. It shows the prevalence of that strong feeling of dislike to him which exists in certain quarters here—The federalists and the Masons. The Whig vote was entirely lost by internal division. Governor Lincoln had more than a hundred being the greatest number in that party. My present impression is that the result of this will so alarm the Whig party that they will unite upon Davis, for the purpose of defeating my father. So be it. I consider the mode of operation as having already spoilt all the honor it might have been to him, and farther than that I never should have wished the place for him. The company went pretty late. I read a little of d’Israeli afterwards.

Dark and gloomy morning. The child seemed quite unwell and my spirits were as much depressed as I ever knew them to be. The only feeling which I have in life now centers in my children and when I see either of them suffering it is terrible to me. I ought to teach myself a lesson of patience upon this subject. I will try to address myself to a higher power for support in this weakness.

At the Office in heavy rain. Wrote out my Accounts for the month of January and then read a part of the great Thellusson cause in the Chancery Reports. This man alienated his property from his descendants during the lives of all those then in being and such as should be living within legal time afterwards, at the expiration of which time the accumulation to be divided into three parts, one to go to the eldest lineal male descendant of each branch of his family, he having three sons. This unnatural will was sustained by the Chancellor against every principle of equity in my humble opinion.1

Home. After dinner, continued the letters of the Willinks and those from the Treasury. Mr. John Davis is elected as I foresaw he would be by the House of Representatives.2 Much good may it do him. The indication of the State of feeling on the part of the Webster party is decisive. Evening finished the first volume of the second series of d’Israeli. Some curious things. Read also an Essay of Clarendon’s upon patience in adversity. This was a good lesson to me. I reflected upon what he had suffered and his situation when writing it, and I concluded to read three or four Psalms which comforted me. Finished Goethe’s Götz von Berlichingen which was too hard to be agreeable.