The summer is gone, but as yet there are no traces of Autumn save in the ripening of vegetation and a general feeling of a completed harvest. Today is cool and brilliant and with the merest hint of fall. The past week has been very hot and the country is suffering for rain. I received a letter from Whittredge from Newport where he has finally settled down in no enthusiastic mood after wandering about a good deal. He describes the region as not unlike Gloucester but is not sanguine. I have written him that I shall not go at least until I hear from him again and again I am unsettled and do not know what to do on my limited means. Somehow I always manage to get entirely out of money just as I want to go sketching. I have money coming to me but do not like to ask for it. I wrote to Church a few days ago that I should be unable to accept his invitation to go up to Maine with him. My father and I drove to High Falls on Friday after some water from the Sulphur Spring. We dined at Fred Nortons. Spent a part of a day the past week burning old letters of twenty five years ago and some ambitious manuscripts which gave me a twist every time I thought of them. What silly things we do when we are young. It seems to me I have done my full share of them and I experienced an immense sense of relief after I had got rid of a lot of these weak crudities. When we get older we are idle half the time because we are not so ready to do every thing which suggests itself. Received a letter from Booth who is at Long Branch but is soon going to Chicago to act. The temperance movement still continues here with unabated interest. Many drunken men have now kept sober for two weeks which with no lasting result would be a gain. A reading room for the reformed men is opened and I have been busy fitting up and painting a table and desk and some chairs for it. Maurice continues in his better course and is hopeful and cheerful. He now seeks the society of better people, spends his spare time at home and has gone to church last Sunday and today. Wrote to Lucy.
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