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260

to my own needs. 

Wednesday June 12' 1878. I walked from Broadway this morning and was shocked to see in Appletons window a portrait of Mr. Bryant draped with black and believe it the simple announcement that he died this morning about 6 o'clock. I have had a fear from the first that Mr. Bryant would not get well and while I expected this from the time of the news about him yesterday still it was a shock to feel that this active old man, so prominent in the life of our city and so familiar in his activity and usefulness was gone forever. I left New York today by the Powell for the summer.

Sunday 16. Thursday I wrote to Gussie and to Bayard Taylor. Poor Gussie is in the midst of great anxiety. Joe and Laura are both sick and she is evidently alarmed about Joe. I have been at work making some pedestals for the flower vases. Yesterday Gertrude and I took a lovely ride, crossing the pier at South Rondout and going down the river as far as Pells, and returned by the river road. I feel the old melancholy upon me as soon as I get home. I think the difficulty of living and the anxieties about meeting our engagements are responsible for my unhappiness. I sometimes wonder how I am going to pass the summer. Today is a melancholy sort of a day, the sun obscured by vapor. I have thought a great deal about Mr. Bryant. He was buried yesterday at Roslyn and it was a perfect June day, just such as one as he wished for in one of his poems, on which to be buried. I can hardly realize that he is dead his life is so strongly imprinted upon this age and time. Wrote to Julia Bryant, to Mr. Bachelder and to Whittredge.

Monday 17. Old Mr. Williams died yesterday morning within a few days of eighty nine years of age.