Tuesday, July 8, 1884 It has been a cool, picturesque day with a North wind and magnificent sky effects. I longed to be at work with my colors but do not seem able to with so much else to distract me. I cut some of the branches from "Gertrudes tree" to open up a better view of the Vlight-berg. I hoed the melons and cucumbers and egg plants in the garden and after dinner dressed myself and went over to my house and looked about my outside studio. I found dear Gertrudes ship chair which she had on the steamer. I took it into my studio, put the cushion on it and came over to the house and got the cover and shall now keep it in my studio in the place of one of the chairs we bought over here. It was pleasant to look over my stack of colors and to begin to make some preparations for going out sketching which I hope to be able to do before long if we get our money on the Turck lot. He owes me $100 personally on it. I hope there will be no disappointment in this. I thought so tenderly of dear Gertrude as I went about my house and saw so many things connected with our early married life and I experienced such a longing for her and such a tender remembrance of her and our happy life together there that the hope that we may live there again was most gratifying to me. Dear Gertrude. The years only intensify my sense of loss in her and strengthen my love and admiration for her. What a blessing she was to me and what a comfort and charm in every thought of her. As I recall her sweet and lovely characteristics she seems to me to have been as near perfection in disposition and in unselfishness of character as mortals are permitted to attain. Thinking of where I shall go for my sketching the Head of the Rondout down below Griswolds, where the valley widens out and there are glimpses of distance, seems most to attract me. I went down to John McEntees after tea to see if he would not like to drive out there before long for a days fishing when I could look about and perhaps locate myself at Smiths, which Major Wilkinson said some friends told him was a very comfortable place to stay. John could not go this week but he thought he could before long and I look forward to the trip with a good deal of interest for it is most difficult to decide where to go.
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