Friday, June 4, 1880 I took some roses and other flowers from our house over to the cemetery this morning. She loved roses and reveled in their June fullness of beauty. The laurels I put there the other day were faded but the roses Sara and I placed there on Monday were still fresh. Then I walked back of the cemetery and came home by the Common. The landscape was rich and full but its beauty only made me the sadder for I was thinking every moment of dear Gertrude and how the beauty and the charm had gone out of the landscape and out of all things since she was no more. I went to my studio and tried to paint but did but little. I proposed a ride to Sara and after dinner we went by the river road up to Flat-bush and home by the Alms house. I thought every moment of darling Gertrude and we talked of her and cried over our memories of her until it seemed my heart would break. It was a solemn sober day almost like September and the thoughts that struggled in me I could find no expression for. Dear darling, how I miss you--how unspeakably sad life has grown to me and how I pray for some release from its unhappiness, in interest in my art or in any thing that shall take my thoughts from dwelling on her I loved so dearly and whom I cannot but regret whenever her sweet mirage comes before me.
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