Sargent's letter to Mary Hale, October 20, 1917
(Sargent's commission of President Woodrow Wilson in 1917)
 

The New Willlard,

    Washinton,

          D.C.

         Oct. 20, 1917.

My Dear Mary,

I recognize your handwriting on the ottawa poem.

Here I am under weigh. Have had two sittings already and hope to have one every afternoon, My sitter is interesting looking, not at all like the Kodaks of him in the papers, and very suave and reposeful. The White House is empty, the habitation of the Lynx and the bittern. How different from the days of Roosevelt who posed or rather didn't pose, in a crowd . . . .

My soul longs for the Pope Building, and if the President behaves himself I hope to be back there in two weeks.

Yours Ever,

John S. Sargent

(Letter from Sargent to Mary Hale, October 20, 1917; quoated in Charteris, pp. 161-162

Notes

Mary Newbold Patterson Hale was a cousin to Sargent. She would eventually write an article called "The Sargent I Knew" for The World Today, November 1927