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talk very freely with him this but he said he would come to my room tomorrow.

Thursday Dec. 9. 1880. Began a picture of a snow effect I saw on my way home from Whittredges, on an old canvas. I got a very good tone but the canvas is so rough I shall have to scrape it. Mr. Pratt came down from the Museum and wanted to cata-logue the rest of Giffords sketches. He had had a letter from poor Weir telling him he could not come down so I went and asked Whittredge to assist me in selecting them. We brought the portfolio down to my room and selected about 140 to put into the sale. I have a most discouraged feeling all the time, but I keep at work but there is a kind of a hopeless look ahead and I seem drifting toward disaster. No one comes near the building to buy our work or even look at it and how I am to pay the already great demands upon me it is impossible to tell.    I should feel better if I were selling my work. This constant state of trouble about one many affairs must at last wear men out. A letter from Sara.

Friday 10. Repainted my snow picture. I dont think it is as good as it was at first and I question whether it is worth painting. No one will care for it. I wish I liked more brilliant and more cheerful things. So few people care for my sober pictures. Mr Pratt came down again this afternoon and finished  his list of Giffords sketches. I am going home tomorrow to which I look forward with much pleasure. It would be still pleasanter if I could take some money up with me or some encouraging report. Wet up to the Coleman House on my way to dinner to see Oscar Sawyer to ask him to go up home with me. He was not in but I left a card asking him to go and to meet me at the 11 o'clock train. 
Saturday 11. Went home by 11 oclock train. It was bitterly cold but the ferry boat was running and I had no delay. Fred Norton was on the train. Sara and I went down to John McEntee's in the evening to return to "Leaves of Grass" I borrowed for Stedman.
Sunday 12. Not so cold as yesterday. There is sleighing here and people went to church in a sleigh. The landscape looks wintry and pleasant. Just snow enough to be picturesque. I went over to the cemetery after breakfast and as I stood beside that snowy mound which hid all that made life desirable to me an awful sense of sorry and loneliness came over me and I could not help wishing I too were at rest there. I came home and wrote a long letter to Gussie, a lone one to Booth and in the evening one to Weir. There is a great feeling of anxiety at home with which I could not help being troubled, but we are all well and it seems to me it would take but little to take us measurably happy. My father and mother seem so well and active that this alone is a great blessing. I wish I could lighten their anxieties and keep hoping I may. 
Monday 13. Came to N.Y. in the noon train. It snowed a little this morning but it was thawing when I came away. I would have been glad to stay there. It seemed peaceful there and I seem nearer dear Gertrude there than any where else. My heart is anchored there out of all this troubled world. Attended a council meeting this evening.