Roots we all have and we must not be torn up from them and flung about as if we were young things that could take hold in any soil.  I have been, all America has been, too indifferent to roots—­home roots, school roots, work roots. ...  We should love stability and tradition as well as love adventure and advancement.

Your new job interests me, but I wonder if you will go with the Secretary of Commerce [Hoover], ...  I guess he did right.  But unless he gets to be the leading adviser he’ll have to get out.  For I’m afraid we are to see too much politics—­Republican Burlesonism in the saddle.  Government by unanimous consent is not practicable, and it looked as if this were Harding’s motto until Hoover’s appointment.  Hoover will be the man to whom the country will look for some guidance along progressive lines, and the country will expect too much, more than any man can deliver.

Please tell your dear Mother that I have her book, and last night read two chapters.  I know Bok and did not think him capable of such a literary work, or that he had such character as his book reveals. ...  My love to the Troop, and write just as often as you can.

F. K. L.

To Curt G. Pfeiffer

Pasadena, 22 [February, 1921]

My dear old Pfeiffer,—­I have treated you shamefully.  Yes, I have, don’t protest!  But I have been pretending to be busy.  Mr. Doheny wanted me to go to Mexico, and Anne did not want me to go, and I have had a hard time.  They have gone and we have come out here with Mrs. Severance, in the loveliest hillside spot you ever saw.  Flowers and trees all about and mountains in the distance.  Wonderful land!

To-day I celebrated G. W.’s birthday by taking on a new doctor. ...  Thought I had escaped from doctors but it is not so to be. ...

This is all my news.  I do wish I were there to talk politics with you.  Poor Harding!  He will suffer the politicians, I fear, till they undo him. ...

The Germans seem to have recovered their audacity.  They should have been driven into their own land and then some.  I am not for revenge nor for their paralyzing, but just reparation they should pay.  Perhaps things have been botched, I do not trust Briand.  I’d trust Hoover to get all they could pay, and he’s the only one I know who could be just and at the same time sensible in method, but he can’t be used where he should be used. ...

March 31

...  You are a delight and joy to a thirsty man, a true water carrier, you give of the water of life.  For you know that men shall not live by bread alone.  Not only words of wisdom, sage counsel, come from you, but there is a heart behind which does not wane with the years, but on the contrary grows stronger and more generous.  I look forward to returning to New York to be able once again to feel with you the pleasure of an intellectual companionship, wherein