XII
POLITICAL COUNSEL-LINCOLN'S EYES 1920
Suggestions to Democratic Nominee for President—On Election of
Senators—Lost Leaders—Lincoln's Eyes—William James's Letters
TO WILLIAM PHELPS ENO
Saugatuck, July 5, [1920]
Here I am at your desk looking out of your window into your trees, up the gentle rise of your formal garden into the brilliant crown of rambler roses above the stone gateway.
This is a very delightful picture. The sun is just beginning to pour into the garden. He is looking through the apple trees and having hard work to make even a splash of golden green upon the lawn, but the silver spruce and the tiara of roses get the full measure of his morning smile and are doing their best to show that they understand, appreciate, and are glad. Oh, it is a great morning!
And on the water side it has been even more stimulating, I have walked along the stone wall, the water is down, very low, the boat is stranded, like some sleeping animal, with its tether lying loose along the pebbly strand. The gulls are crying to each other that there is promise of a gulletfull. Nearer shore the fish are leaping—only one or two I think but they make just enough noise to make one realize that there is life in the smooth water, that it is more than a splendid silver mirror for the sun which streams across it. I disturbed a solitary king-fisher as I went out to the wharf. He rose from his perch upon the rope, circled about for a minute and then settled back, on his watch for breakfast.
It is altogether lovely, a quiet, gentle, kindly morning, such as you have often seen, no doubt, when Judah Rock is making its giant fight to rise triumphant from the sea.
But this is not a bit of geologic prophecy nor a Chapter I. to a love story, that I am writing. This is a bread-and-butter letter. I have been your guest and I am telling you that I have enjoyed myself. But you, of course, wish something more than the bald statement that I like your place and that your bread was good and your butter sweet. Yes, you deserve more, for this place is an expression of yourself. No one can be here and not see you at every turn, even though you may be right now in Paris "making the way straight." You have put your love of beauty, your restrained love for color, and your exceptional sense of balance into the whole establishment. It is a man's house—things are made for use; the chairs will stand weight; the couches are not fluff; one can lean with safety on the tables. But everywhere the eye is satisfied. My bed is beautiful, French I fancy, yet it is comfort itself. The lamp beside my bed is a dull bit of bronze which does not poke itself into your sleepy eye, yet you know that it fits the need, not only for light but for satisfaction to the eyes after the light comes. And the bath tub—may I speak of a bath tub in a bread-and-butter letter?—the bath tub is not too long—do you ever suffer from the long, long stretch into the cold water at your back and the imperfect support to the head which imperils your entire submergence?—your bath tub is not too long, and I grab it on both sides to get out. And as I dry myself I look down into that garden of precise, trimmed and varied green upon which the rambler roses smile.