Fine, clear day. The mail bag came this morning, but it brought no despatches of interest, and but a single letter from my son Charles. His account of my private affairs is rather discouraging, and yet in some particulars it relieves me from anxieties. I do not think the public news very cheering. The country still wants the consciousness of a purpose It is however rather cheering to find that California manifests no disposition to favor the insurrection. Secession has found its limits. With discreet direction the present difficulties would tend to a great extension of a population of the pacific coast. There the slave question is not a drawback, and the slaveholding policy will cease to infuse its position into the body politic. The great problem however reamins unsolved on the banks of the Potomack. We must hear from there sooner or later. My labors of letter writing continue and even go on increasing. I wrote today to Mr Schurz at Madrid, who is anxious about intervention. Quiet day. Walk at dark— Evening, the Misses Gelston were here.251