A Book and Author Lunch at Dartmouth College. It was foggy but by the time I was out in the country the fog was only making Chinese paintings with its swirls on distant hills, and I came home drunk all over again with the beauty of this New England. Everything I see now is seen freshly because I have been away so little for nearly a year. But the soft yellows, oranges and sudden scarlet of swamp maples—the secret ponds and lakes hidden away in the hills, and the old gentle hills themselves—it made me homesick for New Hampshire. It is a relief to have this first hurdle of public appearances behind me, although at first I felt like another attack by the gremlins that seem to be attending me lately, for I thought the dinner preceding the festivities was Thursday, and it turned out to have been Wednesday! Nardi Campion called on Wednesday evening as I was getting my supper—very relieved to find I was all right. Kind of her not to be cross, but I began to think I must be crazy—so it was a bad night, especially as Pierrot was nowhere to be found till after nine and I was stupidly anxious.
