Mamma says that she sometimes feels, and I do too, that she would rather have papa depend on his writing for a living than to have him think of giving it up.
[_Dictated, November 8, 1906._] I have a defect of a sort which I think is not common; certainly I hope it isn't: it is rare that I can call before my mind's eye the form and face of either friend or enemy.

If I should make a list, now, of persons whom I know in America and abroad--say to the number of even an entire thousand--it is quite unlikely that I could reproduce five of them in my mind's eye.

Of my dearest and most intimate friends, I could name eight whom I have seen and talked with four days ago, but when I try to call them before me they are formless shadows.

Jean has been absent, this past eight or ten days, in the country, and I wish I could reproduce her in the mirror of my mind, but I can't do it.
It may be that this defect is not constitutional, but a result of lifelong absence of mind and indolent and inadequate observation.

Once or twice in my life it has been an embarrassment to me.