Yesterday was a sore day (as I hear) for the War Department. The official statements from that bureau were exposed in a most mortifying manner, and on the question in committee of the whole to strike out the first section of the obnoxious bill [i.e. to reject it] the court mustered but five or seven affirmatives—and this after the combined exertions of several of the leading members, as they are called, in favor of the motion. My question to Mrs. B. related to a book that I had lately read with some amusement—Melincourt. It is not new, but I had not happened to meet with it before. I have been trying to read Southey's Life of Wesley for some days. Upon the whole, I find it a heavy work, although there are some very striking passages, and it abounds in curious information. From 279 to 285, inclusive, of the second volume is very fine. Yesterday I was to have dined with Frank Key, but was not well enough to go. He called here the day before, and we {464} had much talk together. He perseveres in pressing on towards the goal, and his whole life is spent in endeavors to do good for his unhappy fellow men. The result is, that he enjoys a tranquillity of mind, a sunshine of the soul, that all the Alexanders of the earth can neither confer nor take away. This is a state to which I can never attain. I have made up my mind to suffer like a man condemned to the wheel or the stake—and, strange as you may think it, I could submit without a murmur to pass the rest of my life “in some high, lonely tower, where I might outwatch the Bear with thrice great Hermes;” and exchange the enjoyments of society for an exemption from the plagues of life. These press me down to the very earth, and to rid myself of them I would gladly purchase an annuity and crawl into some hole, where I might commune with myself and be still. * * * * * I am glad that the pretty Mrs. F——h is so comfortably established at Mrs. Kemp's. Do I understand you correctly that the C——'s, Rootes, Gilmer, and Mr. Burwell are of the same party? I should like very much to join it, for (to say nothing of the ladies) R. and G. are two of my favorites. I could be somewhat less miserable there, I am sure, than I find myself here. * * * * * If I possessed a talent that I once thought I had, I would try and give you a picture of Washington. The state of things is the strangest imaginable, but I am like a speechless person who has the clearest conception of what he would say, but whose organs refuse to perform their office. There is one striking fact that one can't help seeing at the first glance—that there is no faith among men: the state of political confidence may be compared to that of the commercial world within the last two or three years.