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indiscrabably bad we played cribbage a good deal and looked at the fire in our room that is when the smoke did not blow down so thickly that we could not see it. Of course we saw some sights we "did" the Town Parlamentary buildings Sydenham &c &c all of which I have notid in a little book I kept then so I will prance on to the morning of the 18th when with infinite difficulty we got our baggage and selves aboard the train for Dover en route for here. the channel was quite smooth so neither of us was sick & soon we were in a foreign country where we could understand nothing but what little I knew was brought up reaching Paris that evening we went to the Grand Hotel but the following day changed our quarters to a less pretentious place the Hotel de Normandie. here Pomeroy & I lived in modest seclusion during his stay which terminated the morning of Dec 10th and returning in the cab from the depot took my baggage and came directly over here where in company with Brush of the old N.A.D. I had the day before engaged two rooms. I had already established myself at the studio de les eleves de M. Carolus Durand payed my entrance fee of 25 francs and commenced 

brilliantly as a modelist. Now I began to feel that I in realety was out for myself I was at work both at French and in the Studio and altho it would be ambitious to say that at this time I was progressing yet nevertheless I was trying my best to do so but I am as you know a social sort of a fellow and influenced more or less by my surroundings so it was perhaps fortunate that old Mr Pils said when I applied to him for admission to his Studio in the Beaux Arts. "It is full" so I became better placed. An hour and a half more and this year will have changed again - it has been a mighty happy one to me particularly the bright and gay summer at my most happy home tho the past few weeks have not been without a good many homesick hours. Once in a while I become very practical and wonder to myself if my future is going to repay me for sacrificing those happy days that might be spent at home. But I intend to work hard and to succeed if possible and with a continuance of the blessings of the past year I shall, and for their continuance I appeal confidently to one source -- Farewell 1873