The weather continues very fine. I went to the Office and occupied myself as usual. Visits from Mr. W. Spear who brought me a message from my Mason saying that I was disappointed of my bricks and must pay more for them. So it is in building. I do not know how to account for the revulsion in my feelings but I am now sick of my scheme.

Mr. Walsh came in and we talked. I then went down to the Athenaeum to look up an old volume of Newspapers and trace my grandfather’s first communications to the press. Home. Livy. Afternoon, Swift and these numbers. I found three pieces signed U, very much in his style of writing, but bearing not very directly upon any given object. They are dated in 1763, and allude very calmly to politics.1

As I was going on Mr. T. K. Davis came in and passed the evening. Mr. Brooks also passed a couple of hours. Mr. Davis talked of the possibility of starting a Press. I have often thought of it myself and am not 145sure that at this moment there is not a possibility of an opening of the kind. I should exceedingly like the occupation it would give me and we talked of it until a late hour tonight quite con-amore.

Mild, beautiful weather. I was occupied this morning in examining a series of coins procured for me from the East Indies through the kindness of P. C. Brooks Jr. Many of them are valuable as well from their age and origin as from their nature.1

Attended divine service and heard Mr. Frothingham. Luke 1. 59.62. A text of four verses too long to transcribe, but relating to the naming of John the Baptist, and the subject was the importance of the association of ideas with names illustrated by calling death the king of terrors &ca. Mr. Walsh walked an dined with me. Afternoon Luke 18. 1. “And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray and not to faint.” The utility and necessity of prayer as a support to the character.

I afterwards read a Discourse of Dr. Barrow. Ephesians 4. 5. “One Lord,” upon the name of our Lord given to the Saviour and the reasons why it should be particularly his. Evening, Mr. and Mrs. Ignatius Sargent came in and passed an hour in conversation. Nothing new.

A continuation of the lovely weather we have had. I went to the Office and passed my time partly in writing Diary, partly in making up a semi-annual Account for T. B. Adams whose remittance does not arrive and partly in conversation with Mr. Walsh. I also set about an arrangement of my papers which are again in excessive abundance. Home where I read Livy. Afternoon, MS of James Warren and Swift, Battle of the Books. Evening reading to my Wife, and Paul’s Letters to his Kinsfolk.1

Thus I give an abstract of my day. An unsatisfactory one perhaps. 146T. K. Davis the other night quoted a just remark from Sartor Resartus that the Cobbler learns cheap to mend shoes, and the product is mending shoes, but I receive a dear education and what am I good for in product. This is however not to be avoided. A man cannot entirely create his opportunities for action and I am not sure that he ought incessantly to be seeking them. It is difficult to hit the precise distinction which should exist between confirmed idleness on the one hand and restless uneasiness on the other. I will strive to throw off the depression which inactivity causes, and employ myself as much and as creditably as possible.