.ODg.MTcyMQ

2-

around at $5.00 a day waiting to get a look at the mountain is a pretty high price,bad enough if the mountain is clear every day. However, anything you can think of to assist in this venture, I shall be very grateful for,as I have wanted all my life to paint this mountain not only to satisfy personal emotions,but to do a kind of official portrait of the mountain,as I feel I am now the "authorized"painter to do that painting,as Waldo Pierce and myself are the two outstanding Maine painters,and Waldo's interest is not as keen as mine,and by virtue of the prodigal's return idea, [letters crossed out] I am doubtless keener than he is on the subject, and he has painted it from the Togue Pond side which Caleb Scribner game warden says is not the good side,but that the best view is from Katahdin Lake where Cobb's Camps are. I [letters crossed out] mean later on also to make a visit to the [letters crossed out] State Library after I am settled in Ban gor where I plan to stay for possiblytw o months,and I never feel quite happy in New York although al all or most all of the people I know are there. I want eventually to reverse the order,stay in Maine ten months in the year and go down to N.Y. for two during exhibition time and all that. Waldo feels the same as I do too,as both of us having lived a lot in the great outer world, feel satisfaction in getting back into the home lot, and strengthening our natural love for the home acres--and I am hoping that a lot more Maine-iacs will encourage feeling too,as I think we [letter crossed out] should be loyal to our "DIRIGO" country. Many thanks for your official letter,which will be of great value to me from now on, and I am proud to possess such a document. Very Sincerely yours, Marsden Hartley [handwritten signature]

�