Viewing page 174 of 473

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

now I try to believe that she is spared all my trouble, that the sorrows of life touch her no more and that in some restful and satisfying existence she awaits the few flying years that shall bring us together again. My soul thrills at the thought of once more being with her. I have lived now a year and a half without her. How I have been able to bear it I do not know nor how I shall bear what remains to me of separation from her who was all the world to me.

Monday May 10 1880. I went home a week ago last Saturday. On Monday Jansen Anderson, George Weber and I went out to Deans by the morning train where Joe De Silva was waiting for us with a team. We drove immediately to his fathers. The day was fine and the spring beginning to show a little in the green grass and budding woods. A law had been passed preventing fishing in Delaware Co. until the first of June but we had the privilege of fishing just over the line in Webster Co. It was almost too early although on Tuesday we caught a number with the fly. On Wednesday we went to Furlow Lake but as we were there in the middle of the day we caught no fish. Thursday we came home having had fine weather all the time. Stopped at Mary Osterhoudts in Lincolnsville for our dinner and reached home about 6. Friday and Saturday I spent making a study of    our apple tree in blossom but with indifferent success. Sunday Sara, Calvert, my father and I drove up to High Falls after dinner. Calvert came up Friday evening. It was very hot and dusty and the ride was a little fatiguing on that account. I never saw such a profusion of apple blossoms. Some of the trees were a mass of white bloom. Calvert and I came down this morning by the St. Louis train. I am almost distracted with worries and sorrows. Maurice is behaving very badly. I am pressed for money to pay my bills and cannot sell a single thing. What I am to do I do not know. I no sooner arrive here than I wish I had staid in the country. I am too unhappy to want to be anywhere. How I miss dear Gertrude in these trying days. I think of her constantly and all my future without her seems chaotic and strange. What is to be the end of all this trouble I cannot tell. It seems to me that I am gradually being destroyed. I found letters on my return from Alice, from Laura and from Mr. Bancroft but not a word about my pictures in the Academy or the one Mr. Goodman spoke of. I do not know which way to turn.

Tuesday 11. Mary has gone up to Fishkill with Mrs. Morrell