Sunday, June 13, 1880 A lovely, still June day, the color rich and full, a day for memories and for longings which will never take definite form. Darling Gertrude is before me all the time. I think of her love for me, the absorbing interest of her life and feel it still about me while I sit here in the room where she closed her dying eyes upon me, it seems but yesterday, although two years will have gone by. I have just finished reading "John Halifax" which I read many years ago and I found so much in their married life that was like ours in natural love and dependence. The birds are singing. I hear the singing in the church below the hill. The soft skies, the gentle air, a sense of the fullness of summer -- they all sadden me. I remember Bayard Taylor's saying once "It is the fullness of sorrow that saddens me["] and in the "perfect days comes an overwhelming sense of desolation". Just below the hill Matt Snyder lies dead. He died this morning after a long illness, and there are sorrows and new struggles and expenses for his family. On Friday night there was a terrible disaster on the Sound. The Naragansett and Stonington collided, one took fire from the explosion of the gas tank, burnt to the waters edge and sank -- few details have come but there must have been fearful loss of life and heartrending scenes. Wrote to Gussie.
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