MY DEAR "S. W.,"--On inquiry at your studio last Monday I was told that you would be in the country for ten days or a fortnight more. I confess that this pleased me much for it showed you both happy and prudent. Surely the winter is long enough, however much we cut off of this end--the city winter I mean; and the country this month has been little short of divine. We came down on the 16th, and I have to get mine (my country, I mean) from the "Norton Woods." But they are very good indeed,--indeed, indeed! I am better, both physically and morally, than for years past. The whole James family thrives; and were it not for one's "duties" one could be happy. But that things should give pain proves that something is being _effected_, so I take that consolation. I have the duty on Monday of reporting at a "Philosophical Conference" on the Chicago School of Thought. Chicago University has during the past six months given birth to the fruit of its ten years of gestation under John Dewey. The result is wonderful--a _real school_, and _real Thought_. Important thought, too! Did you ever hear of such a city or such a University? Here we have thought, but no school. At Yale a school, but no thought. Chicago has both.... But this, dear Madam, is not intended as a letter--only a word of greeting and congratulation at your absence. I don't know why it makes me so happy to hear of anyone being in the country. I suppose _they_ must be happy. Your last letter went to the right spot--but I don't expect to hear from you now until I see you. Ever affectionately yours, W. J. _To Henry James._ NEWPORT, _Jan. 20, 1904_. ...I came down here the night before last, to see if a change of air might loosen the grip of my influenza, now in its sixth week and me still weak as a baby, almost, from its virulent effects.... Yesterday A.M. the thermometer fell to 4 below zero. I walked as far as Tweedy's (I am staying at a boarding-house, Mrs. Robinson's, Catherine St., close to Touro Avenue, Daisy Waring being the only other boarder)--the snow loudly creaking under foot and under teams however distant, the sky luminously white and dazzling, no distance, everything equally near to the eye, and the architecture in the town more huddled, discordant, cheap, ugly and contemptible than I had ever seen it. It brought back old times so vividly. So it did in the evening, when I went after sunset down Kay Street to the termination. That low West that I've so often fed on, with a sombre but intense crimson vestige smouldering close to the horizon-line, economical but profound, and the western well of sky shading upward from it through infinite shades of transparent luminosity in darkness to the deep blue darkness overhead. It was purely American. You never see that western sky anywhere else. Solemn and wonderful. I should think you'd like to see it again, if only for the sake of shuddering at it!... _To François Pillon._ Cambridge, _June 12, 1904_.