Saturday, Sept 4, 1886 The evenings are cool, almost chilly, although we have had no fire yet. Girards wife brought her cousin a Miss Garret over here this morning for me to see her paintings, which were poor enough and to go over my studio. She teaches and I tried to be as kind as I could although I could not say much. My father rode out with Jamie. He does not care to go far and would not go at all if we did not suggest it. He lies down the greater part of the time even when he is not in bed. I made a new box to the drain down near the road. Am idle, miserable and unhappy. What is it all to end in. I am in despair when I look ahead and when I see how I shrink from any responsibility. Cousin Rachel came today and shortly after Julia (Rockefeller) Van Valkenburgh and Ellen (Burnett) Mc Irving and her little girl. I confess I had to make an effort to see them and we did not ask them to stay. I do not feel like seeing any one. I came across a little book in which dear Gertrude kept an account of her personal expenses, in my book case today. It had a sad interest to me. I read too, a letter she wrote me just after we went off with our regiment full of apprehension and anxiety and overflowing with love and tenderness. O! for the touch of her loving hand tonight. I have finished "Amiels Journal" the record of a most sad life and am reading Matthew Arnolds "Literature and Dogma" but I crave something which sustains and not which criticizes and destroys.
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