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51

Monday Dec 31st 1883  Another year had gone and while each day makes a year there is something solemn and touching in the close of the calendar year and the beginning of an absolutely new one, with a new title leaving the old one in its place with what is no more. The past year has come to me and to our family with many sorrows and losses which while we all feel deeply, have not left us in despondency and without much to be thankful for. First came Downing trouble, then poor Maurices sad death and lastly our dear Mothers. We have met them all bravely and with acquiescence and resignation and I am glad to be able to feel a sense of serenity an absence of wearing anxiety, whatever the future may have for me and a hopeful look ahead. I could not go home as I intended to on account of an important meeting of the trustees of the Century at which we declined Mr. Tracys request to renew arbitration in the Newton affair but adhered to our resolve to try the matter before the club at the annual meeting. The secretary was instructed to write an admonitory letter to Thompson and I have proposed an interview with Knower to try to induce Thompson to go to a place to be treated for his disease. I wrote to Sara yesterday and telegraphed her I could not come home. 



Tuesday January 1st 1884.
A very dismal day, the stores all closed and the dusty streets deserted. I came to my room and painted on the second of my Reichardt pictures as long as I could see. Calvert and I went to see the Clarke pictures which is certainly a very creditable collection. In the evening he and I went to see Raymond in "Paradise" at the 14" St. Theatre. I never saw him before. He amused me but did not strike me as at all a genius. Received a letter from Alice in which she told me her box I had sent her arrived all in pieces. So much for Express Companies. 

Wednesday 2nd  Very dark and misty, almost too dark to work but I painted nearly all day and in the afternoon laid in a picture 30 x 36 of the "yellow woods" from one of my studies in Mink Hollow. Booth sent me the tickets for tomorrow evening with a note in which was a reference to a letter he has written me. It came later with a letter from Rondout from Sara in which he is greatly outraged by a letter he has received from Downing. I showed it to Julia, Calvert and May at dinner. We are greatly annoyed at Downings lack of dignity. I wrote a short note to Booth this evening disapproving of Downing's course, asking him if he will let me see this letter and telling him I will see Downing. This worries us all because it puts Downing in such a miserable position. Went clear up to 44th St to call on Mrs. Stedman and found the No. given was a stable. A pitiful, despairing letter came from Mrs. Pelton. She has abandoned herself to her grief just as I feared. 

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