From the trivial incidents of this daily life he wove his correspondence; enough of it, at last, to fill two volumes, “Out Doors at Idlewild” and “The Convalescent;” the former dedicated to Mr. Grinnell, the latter to Doctors William Beattie and John F. Gray, his physicians, and both books addressed more particularly to the author’s “parish of invalids.” These letters have by no means the literary merit of the “Letters from under a Bridge,” and it was, perhaps, presuming too far on their claim to even contemporary respect to bind them up at all after they had once done duty in the newspaper column. They were eagerly read, nevertheless, as they appeared from week to week, and a sympathetic public was interested in Willis’s kindly prattle about his landscape gardening, his tree planting, the deluges in his brook, his children, his horses and dogs, the eccentricities of his country neighbors, the humors of his poultry, the daily voyage of the family wagon to Newburg, the sleighing on the frozen Hudson, and the occasional picnics and excursions to Storm King, West Point, Poughkeepsie, or remoter points. Willis found himself not without amusement, becoming something of a country gentleman and public-spirited bulwark of society, taking part in local interests. There was a picturesque little Episcopal church a mile from Idlewild, in which he became a vestryman and used to pass the plate. Once he even made a speech at a public meeting, in favor of dividing the county. Letters XXXIX. and XL. in “Out Doors at Idlewild,” giving a graphic description of the ascent of Storm King, are perhaps the best thing in the volume. Among the many guests attracted to Idlewild by the hospitalities of its owner and his inviting pictures of his highland retreat were numbers of literary men and artists.[11] Bayard Taylor, Charles A. Dana, De Trobriand, of the “Courrier des États-Unis;” Hicks and Kensett, the painters, came up from New York at various times, and rambled, bathed, or otherwise disported themselves in the glen. Whipple and Fields ran across from Boston and made a pleasant visit of two or three days, of which both afterwards gave reminiscences. Fields loved to recall an anecdote that Willis told him, “of his watching a little ragged girl, one day in London, who was peering through an area railing. A window of a comfortable eating-house gave upon this area, and a man sat at the window taking a good dinner. The child watched his every movement, saw him take a beefsteak and get all things in readiness to begin; then he stopped and looked round. ‘Now a pertaty,’ murmured the child.”