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Tom waiting for us with the sleigh. Cold weather and fine sleighing. My father was sitting in his chair in his room, has not been downstairs since his accident but is slowly improving

Sunday Feb. 15" 1885. Mary, Sara, Girard and his wife and children took a ride after dinner down by the Point, up the river road and home by the Alms house. It was a bright, sunny winter day. After I got them home I went up to the station and got Marys trunk.
 
Monday 16" Sara and I came down by the train which leaves Kingston at 8 but did not get along until 9. It looked like snow and we soon ran into a snow storm and as we got farther south it began to rain and poured when we reached 42" St an hour or more late. The delays on the West Shore road are getting to be a great annoyance and passengers complain. Sara went to Marys and I came to my room vexed and uncomfortable from breathing foul air in the cars, a young wax faced fellow insisting on having all the ventilators closed. What stupidity on this point which does not seem to abate. After I reached my studio the rain poured in torrents and the East wind drove the coal gas down the chimney and into my room. Found Mr. Alfred Booths card and an invitation from Agnes Field to a reception to celebrate his brother David Dudley Fields 80" birth day which took place Friday evening. Wrote to Mary Gifford. Spent the evening at Marys with Sara, Marion and Calvert both having gone out. Went to the club a short time. The weather has again grown very cold. We have every extreme in one day this year. 

Tuesday 17" Bitterly cold this morning when I went to breakfast. I am glad to get back to my comfortable room such days. What misery it must be not to have a warm comfortable place such weather and yet I dare say thousands in this city suffer every day in extreme cold weather. Calvert looked troubled. He told me he had a note coming due March 1" and that rascally old Telden wont pay him. I despise that old wretch. Rich and too mean and selfish to pay for work finished satisfactorily long ago. What are such men thinking of. My tailor came and dunned me mildly today. I have been hard at work painting a study 8x15 for a picture of Mt. Katahdin and I did it so quickly that I pitched into the picture 18x34 and have got that on the canvas. I think I will make an attractive picture of it and I hope the Boston man who wrote me will want the study. Called on Mrs. Weeks and went to the club. 
     
Wednesday 18" Snowed in the night and all forenoon. Sara came to see all my pictures. A letter from Mr. S[[?]] of Boston. Thinks he does not care for the study an outline of which I sent him. Wrote him he could have my picture "An Autumn Walk" 15x18 for $200 without a frame. I presume this will end in nothing as such things usually do with me. There is always a struggle with me in such cases between trying to get something like a decent price and the desire to sell a picture. I dont think it wise to make too sweeping concessions. People are apt to hold you at some thing like the estimation you hold yourself but it seems so difficult to sell at any price that I feel I ought to avail myself of every chance. My picture is not dry enough to work on and I am idle today and thus there is room for worries. I went to the Water Color exhibition this morning for an hour. It was snowing and I was the only person there. There are many clever things but nothing which makes a strong impression. Sara and I went to the Madison Square Theatre and saw the "Private Secretary" broad farce it seemed to me. I had never been to a play in this theatre before. Judge & Mrs. Morrell were there and they had taken Marion and Bonyer. After the play they asked us all around to their lodging house in 18" St where we had some refreshments.   

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---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-04-26 11:27:03 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-05-02 22:49:41 .