Friday, April 4, 1873- I spent the evening last Sunday at Thompsons with Mr. and Mrs. Joy, Mr. and Mrs. Rood, Eastman Johnson and his wife and Mrs. Youmans. Gertrude was not well enough to go. Monday I sent my pictures to the Academy. "November" 24x40 and "Sea from Shore" 24x42. Both are for sale and the price of each is $1250. I am sorry I cannot feel the old interest in the Academy but it is a different thing from what it used to be. This week I have been painting on a little picture 12x20 of Scribner's Mill and working on the Arch of Nero. Today I commenced a picture of the brook near Schutts a study of which I made last fall. Eastman Johnson was in on Tuesday and told me a man at the Falls of St. Anthony has bought a picture of him without seeing it and expressed a wish to get some unconventional landscapes. Eastman thinking I knew how to paint that sort has written him about this one and meanwhile I told him I would go to work at a picture from it so that he can have it if he wants it. It's only a chance but in these dull days I feel like improving every chance. The Kensett sale netted $127,000 exclusive of the frames. Besides there is this summer's work $20,000 and his private collection $14,000. I was in hopes this would call immediate attention to American Art but although it brought buyers from all parts of the country, only one or two have been here at the Studio Building. Tom Appleton came in yesterday and sat an hour with me. What a sense of worldly prosperity that man always impresses me with, and not at all in an offensive way. I know he likes my pictures and yet he has never bought the least thing. I like to talk with him. The city has been wrought up again with the news of the dreadful wreck of the Atlantic of the White Star Line. Capt. Williams was the captain with whom we crossed in the Manhattan. From what I heard of him since then I would not have cared to cross with him again. Wrote to Osgood & Co to return Gertrude's Ms. if they had read it.
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