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185

picturesque day, fine skies after the abundant rain in the night. I caught three black bass John only a chub, but we had a pleasant day. It rained just as we left and we had another hard shower Just before reaching the Red House when we were obliged to stop. - Mr. Asa Ealin came to see Mrs. Davis today with a view to marry her if she could fancy him but Sara tells me she was evidently disappointed in him and she thinks it will not come to anything. A telegram from Booth asking if they could have my bust of Hamlet Sara answered I was away from home but when I returned I telegraphed him and [[?]] to get it. 

Sunday June 13. 1880. A lovely still June day, the color rich and full - a day for memories and for longings which will never take definite form. Darling Gertrude is before me all the time. I think of her love for me, the absorbing interest of her life and feel it still about me while I sit here in the room where she closed her dying eyes upon me, it seems but yesterday although two years will have soon gone by. I have just finished reading "John Halifax" which I read many years ago and I found so much in their married life that was like ours in mutual love and dependence. The birds are singing. I hear the singing in the church below the hill. The soft skies, the gentle air, a sense of the fullness of summer, they all sadden me. I remember Bayard Taylor's saying once "it is the fullness of summer that saddens me and in the "perfect days comes an overwhelming sense of desolation" - Just below the hill Matt Snyder lies dead. He died this morning after a long illness and there are sorrows and new struggles and experiences for his family. On Friday night there was a terrible distraction on the Sound. The Narragansett and Stonington collided, one took fire from the explosion of the gas tank, burnt to the waters edge and sank - few details have come but there must have been feafull loss of life and heartrending scenes. Wrote to Gussie. 

Monday 14. Went to N.Y. in the noon train. Called at Eastman Johnsons where I dined and after dinner I went down to the Brunswick and called on Booth to learn some of the arrangements for the breakfast

Tuesday 15. Breakfasted at Vauxs. Mary 7 Marion went to Rondout yesterday. This is a rainy day. Went to the breakfast to Booth at 12 and did not get away until half past five