MY DEAR GEORGE,-- ... Yesterday I delivered an address before the University of Virginia on A Western View of Tradition--which when it is printed I will send out to you--and in the afternoon was taken up to Jefferson's home, Monticello. It is on a mountain, the top of which he scraped off. It overlooks the whole surrounding country, most of which at that time he owned. He planned the whole house himself, even to the remotest details, the cornices and the carvings on the mantels, the kind of lumber of which the floors were to be made, the character of the timbers used, the carving of the capitals on the columns, the folding ladder that was used to wind up the clock over the doorway, the registers on the porch that recorded the direction in which the wind was coming, as moved by the weather-vane on the roof, the little elevator beside the fireplace ... and a thousand other details. ... I would like nothing better if I had any kind of skill in using my hands than to take a year off and build a house. It is a real religion to create something, and you do not need a great deal of money to make a very beautiful little place. You must have one large room, and the house must be on some elevation, and you must get water, water, and water. ... It is water that makes land valuable in California or anywhere else. Affectionately yours, F. K. L. TO CARL SNYDER Washington, March 6, 1912 MY DEAR CARL,--I have this minute for the first time seen the copy of COLLIER'S, for February 24, 1912, and therefore for the first time my eyes lighted upon your most delicious roast of the Commerce Court. ... I do not know what the outcome of this movement will be. The only settled policy of government is inertia. The House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, I believe, proposes to abolish the appropriation for the Court, which looks like a cowardly way to get at the thing, but perhaps it is most effective. However, I really doubt if they will have the nerve to do this. It is a mighty critical year, I think, in our history. It looks to me as if the reactionaries were going to get possession of both parties, and that a third party will be needed and nobody will have the nerve to start it. Roosevelt has got everything west of the Mississippi excepting Utah and Wyoming, in my judgment. That he will be able to get the nomination I am not so sure; but he does not care a tinker's damn whether he gets it himself or not. That is the worst of it because the people won't give anything to a man that he does not want. ... Well, we are living in mighty interesting times anyway. As always yours, FRANKLIN K. LANE