DUBLIN, Oct. 9, 1905.

... As to the other matters, here are the details.

Yes, I have tried a number of summer homes, here and in Europe together.

Each of these homes had charms of its own; charms and delights of its
own, and some of them--even in Europe had comforts. Several of them had
conveniences, too. They all had a "view."

It is my conviction that there should always be some water in a view--a
lake or a river, but not the ocean, if you are down on its level. I
think that when you are down on its level it seldom inflames you with an
ecstasy which you could not get out of a sand-flat. It is like being on
board ship, over again; indeed it is worse than that, for there's three
months of it. On board ship one tires of the aspects in a couple of
days, and quits looking. The same vast circle of heaving humps is spread
around you all the time, with you in the centre of it and never gaining
an inch on the horizon, so far as you can see; for variety, a flight
of flying-fish, mornings; a flock of porpoises throwing summersaults
afternoons; a remote whale spouting, Sundays; occasional phosphorescent
effects, nights; every other day a streak of black smoke trailing along
under the horizon; on the one single red letter day, the illustrious
iceberg. I have seen that iceberg thirty-four times in thirty-seven
voyages; it is always the same shape, it is always the same size, it
always throws up the same old flash when the sun strikes it; you may set
it on any New York door-step of a June morning and light it up with a
mirror-flash; and I will engage to recognize it. It is artificial, and
it is provided and anchored out by the steamer companies. I used to like
the sea, but I was young then, and could easily get excited over any
kind of monotony, and keep it up till the monotonies ran out, if it was
a fortnight.

Last January, when we were beginning to inquire about a home for this
summer, I remembered that Abbott Thayer had said, three years before,
that the New Hampshire highlands was a good place. He was right--it was
a good place. Any place that is good for an artist in paint is good
for an artist in morals and ink. Brush is here, too; so is Col. T. W.
Higginson; so is Raphael Pumpelly; so is Mr. Secretary Hitchcock; so is
Henderson; so is Learned; so is Summer; so is Franklin MacVeigh; so is
Joseph L. Smith; so is Henry Copley Greene, when I am not occupying
his house, which I am doing this season. Paint, literature, sci