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of dear Gertrude. Sometimes it seems to me I cannot stay here but must go up home where I can be with Sara and my own people. I have tried to paint but my work does not interest me. I wrote to Alice and after my lunch I went down to the foot of Charlton St to bid good bye to Charlie Coleman who sails for Europe today. I did not stay long but returned and filled out the afternoon reading in Miss Mulocks "A Noble Life" which I read many years ago and which seems to accord with my present unhappy state. In the evening I went with our people and Mrs. Taylor and Lily to Fred Stedmans reception. It was hard work to drive myself out but I knew I ought to go. When I returned to my room I found a letter from Sara enclosing the one I wrote to Barnum about the Vanderlyn panorama with a most curt and vulgar reply scripted at the foot of my polite letter. Nothing could more adequately stamp the whole character of the man and I shall keep it as a literary curiosity. 

Friday Apl. 23. 1880. Tried to paint today upon my larger picture Schoharie creek and improved it somewhat. Then I wrote a letter to Lucy and read some in Miss Mulocks "A Noble Life" and so the day wore away. I dined with the Bachelders in the evening in the Coleman House. Mrs. B seemed very cheerful although we talked of dear Gertrude and of her brothers wife who died a year ago and to whom she was much attached. I came home early and retired always glad to close my eyes in sleep to the loneliness of my daily life. 

Saturday 24. Rainy and chilly. Commenced a new picture 12 x 20 of Shokan Scenery on the brook. Wrote to Mrs. Weir concerning a vacancy in Miss Brackets School which Lily might be interested in. Went to the Club in the evening but I had a dull time meeting no one who interested me much until just before I came away when Beard sat down by me. He told me a very damaging story about [[?]] which if true stamps him in my mind as one of the basest of mankind. Saw Eastman Johnson just as I was about to leave and we walked over to 6" Avenue together. 

Sunday 25. Sunday is always a trying day to me in New York and I would like to have been at home today. Calvert ad I walked up to 41" St to see the New Music-