Cornish, New Hampshire, August 15, 1903. In spite of the untold tedium of rainy days, doubtless no more here than elsewhere, we are in an ecstasy over the beauty of this place. I never could describe the world I see from this hilltop. The mountain opposite is a sort of Fujiyama; people become magnetized by its beauty. Every morning we watch for the moment when the veil of mist is dropped and the dark-blue beauty of Mount Ascutney shines out on us. I am reading with deep interest William James’ “Varieties of Religious Experience.” Very illuminating and coördinating to my mixed and scattered thoughts. Nothing new yet, even to me, but the orderliness of the ideas is useful. Yesterday Clara Potter Davidge (one of the Bishop’s twins) called; we are to have supper with her to-night, and to-morrow with St. Gaudens. The people here are all painters, sculptors or “literary fellers.” Lucia Fuller comes back to-morrow. Her house is picturesque, her children ditto. * * * * * Cornish, September 5. We are working away on our hilltop. I have finished another Roman paper. At last J. has found a place in America where he can work. He is doing a good many landscapes. The beauty of Cornish is not believable. It is like Italy. I look out upon a scene I call the Val d’Arno, it is so like the part of the Arno one sees from above Florence. The atmosphere of work counts for something too. We don’t see people much, for they all, like ourselves, are “grind-stoning” away. All are kind as kind, however, willing and anxious to be friendly. Newport has given me such a horror of summer society--not the dear Papeterie, nor our cronies, but the big Newport--that it is stimulating to be among people of our own sort who observe as a sacred commandment the rule that nobody goes to anybody else’s house till four or five in the afternoon. Sherman Jordan, the stone mason, is a slow giant who only works when he feels like it, an enormous Hercules of a man who could fell an ox with his fist. He speaks in a high silly voice that is enough to make you scream with laughter. “Why didn’t you come to finish laying that wall to-day?” J. asked him. “Because I did not feel very well,” he said. Speaking of Winston Churchill, who is much in the public eye, Jordan said: “Mr. Churchill is very tony; he has an automobile that scares the hosses to death and he drives tantrums (tandem) besides.”