One of my friends has suggestively sent me Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy.  To offset it I went out at once and bought a new suit of bright homespun clothes and a red overcoat—­pretty red.  In addition I have a New Thought doctor giving me absent treatment.  I am experimenting with Hindu deep breathing, rhythmical breathing, in which the lady who runs this hospital is an adept.  And what with an osteopath and a regular and a nurse and predigested food, I am not shirking.  If melancholy gets the better of me now—­ Kismet!

Tell your dear Lady that it was infinitely good of her to write, (and she has, I may say, quite as brilliant a pen-style as speech.) And one day I shall write her when the world looks better.  My best reading has been William James’ Letters; and that which amused me most a new novel, entitled Potterism, by Rose Macauley, which cuts into the cant and humbug of the world right cruelly.  I see your beautiful serene landscape and envy you.  And I envy those who hear your hearty chuckle each morning in the Inn.  As always,

F. K. L.

To John W. Hallowell

New York, December 9, [1920]

Dear Jack,—­I have tried out New York again and find it lacking as before.  No help!  They do not know. ...  So I am going to Californi...A.  I wish I were to be near you—­you really have a special old corner in all that is left of my heart.  And one of these days well indulge ourselves in a good time—­a long pull together again.

I have been reading William James’ Letters—­and real literature they are—­far better than all your novels.  What a great Man—­a mind, plus a man.  Not to have known James in the last generation is to have missed its greatest intellect; Roosevelt and James and Henry George were the three greatest forces of the last thirty years.  Sometime when you come across a good photo or engraving or wood-cut, or something, of James, will you buy it and send it to me?  I want a human one—­not a professional one.  I guess he couldn’t be the pedantic kind anyway.

Billy Phillips has a new baby-boy born Monday.

My plan is to leave here in a week, go to Washington and see Nancy, and get a glimpse of some of my old people in the Department, thence to South Carolina and then probably California for two or three months.  Ah me—­most people would think this luxury—­I think it hell!  But it may be for my great spiritual good.  Certainly if I could have you to walk with for these months, and more of William James to read, I could take a step or two forward.

Have also been reading a bit of Buddhism lately.  It is too negative—­that is almost its chief if not its only defect, as an attitude toward life.  It won’t make things move but it will make souls content.  And I can’t get away from the thought that we are here as conquerors, not as pacifists.  I can’t be the latter, save in the desire.