File:Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries- Volume 8, page 129, December 29-31, 1856.jpg

Transcription:

folks have friends and well for wishers. What does Mrs L [Mary Levison] hope the new year will bring to her? Well, nothing in particular, I suppose. She is not of the hoping or believing sort. [William] Levison would aspire to running up the Picayune to ten times its circulation. I think the man deserves it, too. For Ellen [Levison] — her wishes would be all for New Year’s presents, — that every sh caller should shell out something to her. [words crossed out]. Down stairs, one story lower. Artiaga and his little wife, he a good tempered Cuban, desirous that his native island should pass from the paw of the Spanish lion to the beak of the insatiable Yankee eagle. She a little, little woman, rather sickly, and sometimes dresses herself very prettily. They leave for Cuba at the end of January. I do not pretend to opine their new years hopes. In the back room sits Miss Sturgis, the thick, squat, owl-like old maid whose whole existence appears to be spent in that apartment. Her meals are sent up to her, and she dislikes ventilation. She has a lasting, raven like predilection for peeping at passers-by, opening the door for the space of two inches to effect this, and closing it with a bang when you have passed, as though she objected to your existence. Its particularly unpleasant. Sometimes she glides to the banisters, and calls sepulchrally to the Bridget below. Mrs [Catharine] Pot-