File:Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries- Volume 7, page 132, August 4, 1855.jpg

Transcription:

devils in disguise smoothing the easy descent downwards. The husband [Albert Brainard] he [Alfred Waud] paints as as a coarse, vulgar man, to whom she [Mary Jewell Brainard], unknowing her own nature, was made over, by father [Charles Jewell] and mother [Celina Jewell]. Of his own struggles towards right, Alf speaks strongly, though perhaps without exaggeration. He, at once intended joining the Kinney expedition, (a Nicaraguan filibustering business,) but the scene of the anticipated parting reversed all, — and an elopement was the result. He carried her off to Communipaw, on the Jersey shore, where she now is, dwelling as his "sister" she going thither twice or thrice a week. She left a letter half intimating an intention of committing suicide, (— her bonnet &c was left on one of the north river docks, but being snapped up by some one, this apparent devised evidence did not appear.) Advertisements were put in papers, and Waud being suspected, was visited, by father and husband, dogged and watched by police in disguise for weeks, even to the present time, with as yet, no result. On one occasion he led a spy a prodigious nocturnal walk, (a la Hannibal,) far along the Jersey shore, back to New York, to Brooklyn, and finally to his own lodgings. On another, the husband, (who had caused it to be reported that he had gone to sea,) tracked him, kept him company for some time under a feigned name, then revealing himself, insisted on knowing whither he was bound for, not being satisfied till Waud took him to Orr's, at Newark. The pursuit has slackened now. Waud intends, that as soon as a divorce shall have legalized the business, to marry the woman. And so stands the matter now. She is handsome, (I have seen her portrait,) young, American-French in descent, and, he says, passionately