Saturday April 19, 1890
Jervis McEntee Diary Entry, April 19, 1890, from the Jervis McEntee papers, 1850-1905, in the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
Saturday, Apr 19, 1890 Finished my packing and covering the things in my room to leave for the summer. The Express man did not come for my baggage and I rushed around to see him as I got on the car to go to the train. He said he would get my trunk there in time but I did not think he would. At the last moment I arranged with the baggage man to forward it by next train. Just then the express man drove up but the baggage man said he would not get it on this train and that I must hurry on or I would be left as the boat was two minutes late, so I hurried on board and met Joe Cornell and his wife and youngest son and while I was talking with them the baggage man came bringing me my check. It was a cold almost wintry morning and the wind blew from the North. Calvert and Downing went to see a man at Rhinebeck and they came over and staid with us over night. I came away from N.Y. feeling that I had made little impression as an artist on the people among whom I have lived for the past thirty years and that if I never went back I would not be missed. Perhaps I never will go back. The city has little attraction to me. The generation I know is passing away and I have little facility in making new friends. I must either make some new effort or sink out of sight and I have arrived at that time of life when it is difficult to enter upon a new career. My idea of art has always been very clear to me. It may not be absolutely correct but it has not changed much. I think however I am not in accord with the popular idea.
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