as New York.
Colonel T---- is growing old, too, and there is no artist of education
sufficiently prominent to take his place as President of the Academy of
Arts. By becoming more known to the New York public, and exerting my
talents to discover the best methods of promoting the arts and writing
about them, I may possibly be promoted to his place, where I could have a
better opportunity of doing _something for the arts in our country_, the
object at which I aim."

"_September 3._ I have nothing to do and shall pack up on the morrow for
New York unless appearances change again. I have not had full employment
since I have been in Albany and I feel miserable in doing nothing. I
shall set out on Friday, and perhaps may go to New Haven for a day or two
to look at you all."

He did manage to pay a short visit to his home, and then he started for
New York by boat, but was driven by a storm into Black Rock Harbor and
continued his journey from there by land. Writing home the day after his
arrival he says: "I have obtained a place to board at friend Coolidge's
at two dollars and twenty-five cents a week, and have taken for my studio
a fine room in Broadway opposite Trinity Churchyard, for which I am to
pay six dollars and fifty cents a week, being fifty cents less than I
expected to pay."

There has been some increase in the rental price of rooms on Broadway
opposite Trinity Churchyard since that day.

Further on he says:--

"I shall go to work in a few days vigorously. It is a half mile from my
room to the place where I board, so that I am obliged to walk more than
three miles every day. It is good exercise for me and I feel better for
it. I sleep in my room on the floor and put my bed out of sight during
the day, as at Washington. I feel in the spirit of 'buckling down to it,'
and am determined to paint and study with all my might this winter."

The loving wife is distressed at the idea of his sleeping on the floor,
and thus expresses herself in a letter which is dated, curiously enough,
November 31: "You know, dear Finley, I have always set my face as a flint
and have borne my testimony against your sleeping on the floor. Indeed,
it makes my heart ache, when I go to bed in my comfortable chamber, to
think of my dear husband sleeping without a bedstead. Your mother says
she sent one to Richard, which he has since told her was unnecessary as
he used a settee, and which you can get of him. But, if it is in use, do
get one