Moncure Daniel Conway Journal, March 17, 1853

17th. My 21st birthday! This morning I thought the Irish girl who attended the room would eat me up because I was born on St. Patrick's Day. - This a beautiful day. Ma writes me abt. the use of my "freedom in years" which I have now attained. My dear kind mother is able to prophesy what of my majority, - for I shall never want nor have more freedom from my parents than I've ever had - which surely is all I should have. In all my life I never pined for this day. O my Father may I be Thine, - may I never outgrow humility and modesty: do then watch over me in the world as my mother & father watched in my unconscious childhood.

- I went at night to the Cath. Ch. heard a rhapsody from a Jesuit priest on St. Patrick. They sang St. Pat's day.