Jervis McEntee Diaries

Sunday January 25, 1885

Jervis McEntee Diary Entry, January 25, 1885, from the Jervis McEntee papers, 1850-1905, in the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

Sunday, Jan 25, 1885 I wrote a letter of condolence to Mrs. Jervis. It was a mild grey day and as my father had not been out since the cold weather we arranged to go for a ride after dinner. I assisted him at his bath and he dined with us. I took the two horses driving myself and my father, Sade, and Girards four children went out on the Flat bush road crossing over through the woods and back by the Red house. We had a charming ride and I felt something of the old satisfaction in our winter rides with my mother and dear Gertrude to enjoy them with us. After we came home I told my father my plan of taking pupils and he was pleased with it. Poor man. I can see he wonders how I am getting along and detects at once the least depression in me. After he retired Sade and I sat in the sitting room and each wrote to Lucy, she of home affairs and I about my plans. Then we talked of the lonely days we often now pass she at home and I in my studio and she showed me a little selection which she took from the Whittier Calendar a few days ago "I long for household voices gone / For vanished smiles I long / But God hath led my dear ones on / And He can do no wrong"[.] We talked until late of our dear ones, of how my mother used to ask her to read the quotation each morning on the Bryant calendar, how Maurice used to repeat the tender words of Whittier showing that he had a very tender place in his heart which used to seem so hard and cruel to us sometimes and so trying in vain to give utterance to the aching regrets we both so often feel we each went to our rooms, happily able to forget them for a time in sound sleep.