Saturday, May 25, 1889 I thought I would go over to my studio this morning and try to get interested in painting but I have not done it. I have a strange reluctance to going over there and the thought of it brings depression of spirits. It seems so neglected there and I think so much of dear Gertrude and the days that are gone in connection with it. If I were only at work producing something I would be happier but I am afraid my days of producing are about done. Reading a sketch of Burrough's yesterday of his boyhood he said he had a homesick feeling to go back to the old place occasionally but he found after all his longings were for his lost youth, his father and mother and his old friends. I am sorry to own I am more unhappy here than any where else and yet I know that if I had money to live here easily it would not be so. I went down town and did the usual daily errands. After dinner I went over to the cemetery and with a piece of pumice stone cleaned the lichens and stains from the three marble head stones. They whose resting places they mark died so long ago that they scarcely seem a part of our family, at least not at all as do Maurice, my father and Mother and Gertrude. It is saddening to go there as Julia Dillon who was here last night remarked, but I do not want the place to look neglected during my life time, remembering how tenderly dear Gertrude would have tended my last resting place and how sensitive my mother was to any neglect in this respect. I came home and read in Madame D'Arblays diary. The weather is cool and the sunshine watery and a melancholy sentiment has hung about the day. I reproach myself with not accomplishing any thing while I know the years are flying by. I wish I could absorb myself in a picture but I have no ideas for one.
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