The weather continues very cold. I went to the Office. Mr. Walsh spent an hour and I passed some time in paying a visit to T. K. Davis who had much of the News of the day. He tells me that the Suffolk Senators were five to one in the late vote. That one being B. T. Pickman. This is as curious as any thing. This information I have since found was not quite true—Franklin Dexter not having brought himself to this, threw away his vote upon Bates. This is a small alternative. The Legislature is in great agitation. Mr. Webster and Mr. Everett have been flattering each other. The latter, not suffering any feeling of friendship to prevent his sacrificing my father, has been instrumental in procuring this empty sound, this Legislative nomination of Mr. Webster to the Presidency, in exchange for which Mr. Webster urges the translation of Davis to the Senate so that room may be made for Mr. Everett next year. Mr. Webster knows very perfectly what he is about in all this. The presence of my father in the Senate would hardly be agreeable to him. His newspaper organs are the Atlas and Courier, while strange to say the Centinel and Gazette incline to the other scale in the balance. An editorial in the former of the two last is written with far more ability than J. T. Adams is commonly known 69by. Well, we must quietly wait for the development of all this matter.

Walk and home to read Ovid. Mrs. Gray and her daughter with Mrs. Hall from Medford dined here. The young lady is just engaged to Mr. Ign. Sargent the husband of her sister who died three or four years since. P.C.B. Jr. dined here too. The afternoon was much abridged by it. I continued Faust or rather Hayward’s Preface and began the Translation.

Evening I went to the Theatre. A melo-drama called the Wizard Skiff written for the famous Opera dancer, Celeste. She enacts a dumb girl disguised as a man and Captain of the Wizard Skiff. The story is taken from the Massacre of Scio, in which a Russian leading the Turkish forces is supposed to have murdered the father and Mother of the girl, to have violated her and left her with her tongue cut out. She fits out a vessel with the assistance of a Greek priest who was left for dead in the Massacre and they arrive on the coast of Russia many years afterwards where the Russian has retired to a Castle. It is to be presumed that this must be the Russia of the Black Sea. The interest consists in the hazardous situation in which the Greek girl finds herself while pursuing her scheme of revenge to successful completion. The usual quantity of fire and smoke is administered. The piece is not dramatic. One sees the issue too easily, but her performance is quite spirited. She afterwards danced a ballet dance called the Danse des Folies. That is in a Masquerade in the Opera of Gustavus She comes in dressed with the cap and bells of Folly and leads the Masquers. The idea is exceedingly pretty. She does not appear much altered from what she was when here before, and her dancing is perhaps more decided but scarcely better.1 A short interlude of Is he Jealous and we went home in fine season.

A cloudy day with snow towards evening. I went to the Office where I passed my time writing Diary and reading the North American Review. I was much uninterrupted and wrote a short letter to my father.1 70The election for Senator went on today by the action of the House of Representatives. John Davis was again elected though not without losing all his ground for he had but one over the necessary number. What will be the result is yet uncertain although I rather think that the Senate will be overborne by the impulse of the Webster influence. The effect will not be likely to be favorable to this gentleman’s prospects. It will be no great compliment to any body after being thus bandied about. But to my father who has no personal hold upon the affections of the members, it is somewhat flattering that he should be stronger than the man who defeated him on a popular election two years since, for the Jackson votes are given to Mr. Davis, and they make a large part of his vote in the lower House. Let the result be as it may, I am content, only trusting implicitly in the Deity that he wills for our good.

Walk. Mr. C. Geitner stopped me to ask for some repairs and I accompanied him to his house where he lives in strange bachelor style. He has a fancy for collecting silver plate, all of which remains quietly in his trunk untouched. Home. Read Ovid and finished the third book of the Fasti.

Engaged to dine at the House of Mr. Inches. Mr. Brooks also but he declined going. Mr. Inches is a member of the Humane Society who give each other dinners. There were present today, Capt. B. Rich, Dr. Robbins, Dr. Bigelow and Dr. G. Heyward, Governor Davis, Messrs. Lothrop and Parkman, F. C. and J. C. Gray, F. J. Oliver, and R. G. Shaw. The thing was very dull to me, not to speak of the slight awkwardness of meeting Governor Davis, under existing circumstances. This however proved trifling, as I expected. But I have no partiality for this kind of dinner. Home early and quiet.