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few days ago that I should be unable to accept his invitation to go up to Maine with him. My father and I drove to High Falls on Friday after some water from the Sulphur Spring. We dined at Fred Nortons. Spent a part of a day the past week burning old letters of twenty five years ago and some ambitious manuscripts which gave me a twist every time I thought of them. What silly things we do when we are young. It seems to me I have done my full share of them and I experienced an immense sense of relief after I had got rid of a lot of these weak crudities. When we get older we are idle half the time because we are not so ready to do everything which suggests itself. Received a letter from Booth who is at Long Branch but is soon going to Chicago to act. The Temperance movement still continues here with unabated interest. Many drunken men have now kept sober for two weeks which with no lasting result would be a gain. A reading room for the reformed men is opened and I have been busy fitting up and painting a table and desk and some chairs for it. Maurice continues in his better course and is hopeful and cheerful. He now seeks the society of better people, spends his spare time at home and has gone to church last Sunday and today. Wrote to Lucy.

Wednesday Sept. 5. 1877. Yesterday took a trip out on the Rhinebeck & Conn. R.R. as far as the state line with a view of getting an idea of the country for sketching. I was rather pleased with the vicinity of Copake but saw nothing very striking. The mountains near there were 

[[newspaper clipping]]
WOMAN'S CURIOSITY ALLAYED.

The Kingston Freeman relates the following as an illustration of non-appreciation of art: "An artist not unknown to fame, who for a number of years has made sketches during the Summer in the Kingston Valley and among the Catskills in this vicinity, tells the following bit of his experiences among the 'rooral deestricts.' It was in Shandaken, where he had raised his umbrella and planted his campstool in a field, in which was a magnificent tree covered by a beautiful vine that he wanted to make a study of. He had been intent on this work of making a sketch of the vine-covered tree for some time, when he noticed that a man with a yoke of oxen had entered the field and was plowing seemingly unconcerned as to him, while the people at the house seemed much concerned at sight of a man under an umbrella working away at some mysterious labor. After the plowman had made a circuit of the field several times his curiosity became excited, and he walked up to him and without a word looked over the artist's shoulder for a time, then raised his head and voice and called to his 'wimmen folks,' who were streaming across the field to learn what was going on: 'Needn't come; t'aint nothin',' and then walked back to his plow and resumed his work, while the females returned to the house with their curiosity allayed." [[/clipping]]                            

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