To Adolph C. Miller

Los Angeles, January 26, [1921]

Dear Adolph,—­I see that Harding [Footnote:  Governor Harding of the Federal Reserve Board—­a rumor of resignation.] is to leave you, and this is a note of sympathy.  What will you do?  Poor chap!  I know the satisfaction you have had out of working with him and now he follows Warburg, Delano, and Strauss.  By Jove, that’s why we can’t make things go as other countries do—­because we can’t give our people enough to live on.  This is at once the meanest and most generous of Republics.  Mean collectively, generous individually.

He will wait until after March 4th.  “Right oh!” I expect you to have some say as to his successor, especially as to the new Governor.  And if you can’t work with the new man you can lift your skirts and skip!  Freedom of movement, assured as to all by Adam Smith, is exclusively the prerogative of the fortunate few.  Don’t be downhearted!  You can’t be as badly off as you were for several years.  Just think how unlucky I am as compared with you, and pat yourself on the back and take one of the old time struts.  Good belly!  Good brains!  Good pocket-book!  Good friends near you!  Good dog to walk with in the woods—­and woods in which you can walk!  Good house, with your own books to look at you friendly-like.  Oh boy, rejoice and be glad!

February 17, [1921]

We are most terribly disappointed.  Your promised visit was a bright spot,—­a sunshiny place—­to which we have looked forward as to nothing else since we came here.  Well, life is a series of such jars, and child-like I submit, but am not reconciled.

...  Are you coming later?  How is Mary?  We really seem far away from our friends.  The land is beautiful, but friends convert a shack into a palace, a desert into a heaven.

F. K. L.

To John G. Gehring

Pasadena, near Paradise, February 18

Before breakfast this morning, indeed before dressing, I sent you a message which was a combined confession, apologia, report, and appeal.  I said, “I have done wrong, I apologize, I am slightly better, and I hope and pray you will not become downhearted.”  I also promised to write and here I am at it.  But you would have had this letter just as early anyway, for this morning was to be yours and mine.  All other mornings for two weeks and more have belonged to someone else.  I have been pretending to work, by going to the office each day.  And last night I said good-bye to the Napoleon of our institution, who took his private car and rolled away to Mexico, to Galyeston first, thence by private yacht to Tampico, there to see his properties and spend two or three weeks.

...  They desired us to go greatly, and ours would have been every possible comfort that one can have while traveling, ... but the tyrant Anne thought that as I was picking up a bit it was wrong to change conditions, and I yielded, hardly against my judgment, but strongly against my desire.