Never having shared Jessamyn West's lifelong devotion to Thoreau and, having a horror of vehicular housing …, I was not altogether comfortable in spending three months with her parked in a trailer on the banks of the Colorado River near the small Texas town of Mesquite, regarding the works of God and man through the eyes of the savant of Walden Pond…. (p. 3)

Hide and Seek is at once a reminiscence and a commentary on our times and Miss West adroitly maneuvers the quick to mingle harmoniously with the dead. (pp. 3, 10)

[The] deification of nature embarrasses me, and while Miss West is anything but maudlin, I find myself staring at my feet instead of at the royal sunset she is looking at. And then, there is my discomfort in having that great big New England ghost around, putting in his two cents' worth every other page. (p. 10)

Jean Stafford...