306 N. Raymond Avenue,
Pasadena, California.
March 14, 1900.

Dear Frank, —

I regret that these seven weeks
have lapsed without my finding favorable
opportunity to write you. I fear you have thought
it a little remiss in me ; for besides your
letter's many items of interesting and welcome
news, it also brought me your kind invitation
that I stop off to see you upon my way
home. The realization of this kind thought
of yours at once appealed to me strongly,
and I have thought of it again and again
with unabating interest. For several reasons,
however, I cannot as yet promise myself
the pleasure of seeing you again and
meeting your friends. The time of my return
home remains quite indefinite. My limitations,
too involved in my weak throat and
back and eyes are still such that I am

only able to enjoy small and irregular bits
of sociability. Even with my kindred here I
have not had a single satisfactory talk
for many months. I am glad to say all
these disqualifications are becoming some what
lighter. But you will understand, Frank,
that I cannot send you the definite word
of acceptance I should like to. Even by your
expressed wish, however, you have afforded me
a pleasure, and I thank you sincerely.
I feel it also in no sense unreasonable
to hope that I may become so much
stronger and other conditions become
sufficiently favorable that within a few
months I can count upon a fire-side chat
with you.

I congratulate you upon the fine
appointments of the new house. Its special
features seem to me as pleasant as
unique. I should certainly like to enter
the bird-room with you and see that

3
[1900, Mar. 4]

changeling thrush in his stork-like posture. It
would be a satisfaction to me also to see
that remarkable spinster Mica. Perhaps she
would don her fifteenth suit in my honor.

The typewriting charts you mentioned
expecting to send me did not come.
I hope it was because you did not
mail them rather than because you had
mislaid my right address ; for I shall
regret it if they have been lost.

I doubt not the promotion which was
all but realized when you wrote is now
an established fact, and that the new
work in the large quiet office-room moves
on well, notwithstanding the large amount
of it. If it is within reason that one
man should do the work allotted you -
or I might say that two average clerical
heads should do it at all - I have no

doubt you will find your new position in
no sense a strain upon your intellectual
stature and weight. Indeed I feel no
question for that capacity of whose measure
you spoke some what doubtfully.

My sister Alice is still with me,
but expects to start home in two or three
weeks. We came to Pasadena five weeks
ago. Though but eight miles from Los A., this
little city is much higher and more removed
from ocean fogs, and has the great Sierra
Madre wall near by as a shelter from winds
and a source of beauty varying hourly. It is
a city of exceptional cleanliness, beauty and
culture. It has a growth of native live-oaks
which Los A. has nothing to match,
and the mocking-birds and other songsters
sing to us all day long. Little by little, too,
my strength has been increasing. So

3
[1900, Mar. 4]

altogether we are much gratified with the
change. —— We are in a pleasant
boarding-house, and pass our time in
reading, such games as horseshoes and
bean-bags, rides awheel. I haven't much
staying power at these various things ; but
by frequent rests and much kind
indulgence, manage to have a part in
the diversion or [recupation] of the hour. I
still have a boy who reads to me a
couple of hours daily. — This morning
Alice and I finished one of Paul Leicester
Ford's books, "The Story of an Untold Love",
and I thought of you. If you have not
read it and ever find time and inclination
for its kind, I believe you would
enjoy it. But I wouldn't have you read
the last chapter. That drops decidedly in

style to my notion, and the climax
having been already reached, its few
important facts could be had from anyone
who has read the book. — My chief reading,
however, for six months, has been along
the line of hypnotic suggestion, telepathy,
and kindred subjects.

I must make a lump of the thoughts
of your work and life and the mode of
fellow-interest which this letter has by no
means exhausted, and close at once. I appreciate
Miss Van Sant's seconding of your
invitation for me to enter your home, and
wish you would assure her of this, as well
as of my sincere hope that I may some day
do so. If you are able to write me soon,
address me here : if not, at Cedar Rapids, and
my Father will forward if need be. — Good fortune
and good cheer to you and in abundance. My
remembrance also to your mother and sister

Sincerely,

Paul F. C