Day cloudy but it cleared. Distribution of time as usual. Evening at home.

I am commonly more occupied at my Office on this day than on any other as my Quincy business commonly is done on this day. Deacon Spear came in and returned me my Note to the Quincy Stone Bank 167which I hope is the last of the list of incumbrances upon me by virtue of my Country house.

Returned home as usual and read a portion of Electra which is more difficult Greek than Alcestis, but which is nevertheless a very powerful play. After dinner, worked upon coins as usual, and Crevier. Evening at home quietly, but passing rapidly by force of French, of Miss Martineau and a visit from Mr. Brooks which was however very brief.

Day cloudy with snow. Usual division on Sunday. Evening at J. Quincy’s.

The greater part of my day was taken up in continuing the third volume of Milman’s History of the Jews which had been sent to me by mail from Washington. The first part is the account of the siege of Jerusalem which I had already read in Crevier. The accounts being both drawn from Josephus are substantially the same, and it is a wonder to me how ignorant I have heretofore been of the most fearful detail of human suffering that ever has been made.

Attended divine service and heard Dr. Frothingham preach from 2. Samuel 23. 15. “And David longed and said, Oh, that one would give me a drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the Gate!” Of wishes and of hopes in human life, their effect upon the sum of human happiness. Matthew 11. 7. “What went ye into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind?” I also read a discourse of Bishop Hoadley from 2. Timothy 3. 4. “Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.” Sensible enough but not extraordinary. The Church of England is not so eminent for it’s developing talent as nourishing good sense.

Evening my Wife and I went to see Mrs. Josiah Quincy in consequence of her application to us in favor of a new female instructress of children. Mr. and Mrs. Minot came in and strange to say, Mrs. Davis and her son Thomas K. The awkwardness of the meeting was amusing enough. I could not help a little coldness and my Wife as well as all the persons present manifested a little of it. It seems that Davis has acted upon all his old acquaintances in the same manner that he has upon me, and they all resent it, especially as implying a sense of personal importance which does not belong to him. I think in this they do him injustice. But his is a species of wrongheadedness it is difficult to treat justly with due regard to that kind of self respect indispensable to correct conduct in life. I am personally as friendly in feeling to him as 168ever I was and yet I cannot consider him as justified in trespassing upon kindness in the manner he has done.