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426

sleighing on Wednesday, now the fields are almost bare. Downing and I took a walk up to the tunnel, through it up to Lucas Valley and home across by the cemetery. 

Monday 19. My mother suffers pain in her back and left arm. She seems very weak and I am alarmed to think she is failing. A feeling of sadness has complete possession of me which I try to conceal from her for I think she is worried about our affairs and suspects we are anxious although we try not to let her know any thing of our anxieties. I came down by the evening train hoping there would be some word for me from Springfield but Gill does not deign to reply to my letter. All these things make me feel how little my pictures are cared for. I am troubled more than I can express and look forward to the summer with alarm. 

Tuesday 20. Wintry cold again. I am afraid these violent changes will be bad for my poor mother. Spent the day trying to paint an evening effect in the mountains with mist rising from a sketch I made when we were at Bracketts more than twenty years ago. Fuller thought he would like it if I could succeed in it, but I do not succeed. The fact is I am in no mood to produce anything. A Mrs. Smith from Detroit called with Neary the artist to get a picture for an exhibition in September. A Mr. Whitney of Springfield called. Joe and Gussie dined at Marys. Calvert and I called at Mrs. Thurbers but she was not at home, and we returned to 18" St. George Sand says in her Histoire de ma vie which I am reading with great interest "in our factitious society, the total absence of money constitutes an impossible situation, frightful misery or complete powerlessness." She knew its terrors and its slavery. 

Wednesday 21. This is my fathers 83" birth day. I wish I could do something to celebrate it. A letter from Gill saying he could have sold both my pictures if I had been willing to take less. Why did he not tell me this in time so that I could have authorized him to sell. I shall have to ask smaller prices but it seems a difficult thing to do without depreciating my work in the eyes of those who have bought my pictures in the past. I tried to paint on the evening picture with mist rising but got it into the same hopeless state that I am in. Solaced myself by reading George Sands struggles. In the evening called at Mr. Gordons. They were not at home. Went from there to Butlers where I spent an hour. Cold as winter again and was glad to get to my room where I sat before the fire and read George Sand until 11 oclock when I went to bed and forgot my troubles as happily I can in sound sleep. 

Thursday 22. Looked over my old picture and got out an Indian Summer I began more than a year ago and worked on it. Tom Appleton and Miss Hale of Boston called. He looked old and was heavy and stiff but said I looked as young as when he first knew me. Was as talkative as ever. My work does not interest