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an awful sense of her loss swept over me and I could not help a flood of tears. How constantly I think of her at home and how almost holy the house and the place seems so full of memories of her I loved so dearly. We went for a ride about noon. My father, Sara, Downing Jimmy and I by the Roatina, Charley Livingstons and home. It was such a perfect winter day we all enjoyed it very much, and when we reached home we had dinner.
Monday 17
Another bright beautiful winter day. It gives me a pang to leave home to come back to the remorseless city. I am always so glad to go up there on Saturdays and so sad to leave on Monday. I always read dear Gertrudes letters while I am there and I see how eagerly she used to look for me on Saturdays. I hardly dare think of this and of seeing her no more, for I live now in an atmosphere of tender regret for her and for our happy life together, about which there is something strange and indescribable leading me to withdraw myself from the active world and to seek for seclusion and rest away from general society. It is not a healthy feeling but I cannot help it. Attended a meeting of the council.
Tuesday 18
Have worked all day on my picture 30x36 which I began before I went home. I awake with a strong disinclination to go to work and a feeling that I was not sufficiently interested in my subject but I have done a great deal and forwarded my picture. A young girl called who had sent a drawing to the academy. She was from Chicago and her name is Bessie Ford. there is no vacancy in the school and so she must wait. She was very modest and not at all discouraged, but I thought how weary to wait in a great city in this way, for she told me she had to make her own living and did by painting little pictures. I was interested in her and told her I would try to facilitate her entrance to the school. She is to come tomorrow. A Mr. Kratz called to see about publishing an illustrated catalogue of the acadmey and Sheldon of the Evening Post came in and we talked of the neglect of American artists. He had seen a picture of men "Over the hills and far away" a collection to be sold and had spoken complimentarily of it in the Post. It is a picture I sold to Wickes two years ago out of the academy for half my price and he professed to think a great deal of it. He has evidently traded