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522 5th Ave New York Sunday November 10th 72  Before commencing to write a letter home or to Fannie I must give vent to my feelings in here as they are decidedly of too blue a cast to be written to any one who has any regard for me. It will be sufficient to say in the way of Journalizing  that I left Chicago on Thursday evening last to come down here and study during the winter if possible if not to quit for good.  I am in excellent health and intend to take care of myself but if I find that the  Rheumatism will come on in spite of these efforts to prevent it I might as well try and do something that will enable me to take care of myself and not be a burden to my friends. In the store I can make enough to enable me to go South springs when I am of course free from it. As an art student I shall remain yet for 

perhaps four years before I begin to earn my own living, now if I am in good health I do not care, as my expenses of living and so forth will be small and Father will willingly furnish it, but, and here is the rub, if every spring I am prostrated on a sick bed for two or three months in misery myself and a nuisence to my friends. I had better leave Art than so debase it in the minds of those who are compelled to keep and care for me. When a man pays for the trouble he causes others he cares nothing about it, but I defy any man with manly feelings to make himself a charitable nuisence for the sake of gratifying a whim or talent for I guess there is little difference between the two.  But I have now written my blueness into indignation so will venture upon making any friends mad instead of disgusted -