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137

I return here and only look forward to the end of the week to go back again. Julia & Miriam who came down from Hastings this evening dined with me and afterwards I went to the council meet up. Perry introduced his scheme for a paying school at the Academy and carried it, the free schools to cease after Jan. 1. I opposed it but to no avail and I consider now that the Academy is to plunge into another disastrous experiment just as we were getting out of debt. Mr. Huntington disappoints me and I find that a busy energetic man like Perry can carry any measure he sets about. I begin to despair if the Academy and when I once get out of office shall stay out.

Tuesday Dec 5. 1876. Booth came today but could not sit as he did not feel well and his wife was not well. His man brought his Hamlet costume around and he said he would give me a good sitting tomorrow. Tait an artist from Cincinnati called I met him first in Duesseldorf. Also a man came with a letter from DeHans for pictures for an exhibition in Newark Dined with Eastman Johnson. Renee was there and an Englishman from Montreal named King a queer half crazy man, fond of the drama and something of a literary character. He had been to see Booth in Richard II last night and was most strongly impressed. He had seen all the actors since Charles Keane and he made a note in his note book last night that "the spirit of Keane should revisit the earth that he might go back and tell his friends that he had suffered an eclipse. He was a queer fellow but a character. Wrote to Gertrude. Have painted today on the background of the Richard, but have felt melancholy and worried. I awake in a most wretched and unhappy state and have felt depressed all day.

Wednesday 6. Booth sat to me today for Hamlet and I have commenced to paint him seated in the graveyard scene selecting an attitude I noticed when I last saw him in Hamlet. I was attacked with one of my severe headaches