Monday, June 30th

IT IS COOL and windy after an indecisive muggy day yesterday with clouds blowing up; so a storm seemed certain. But it was blown out to sea before a drop of rain fell. Eleanor Blair was here over Friday night and luckily we had splendid clear warm weather. I enjoyed her visit very much. She is eighty-one, or will be in August, and still gardens furiously, drives her car, even washes the sheets at her little house in Wellesley, and cooks for friends! She is an exemplar for me of how a life can be realized to its utmost without a consuming talent. She has been a teacher, the head of a school, then worked for years at Ginn and Company as a copy editor, and when she was seventy began to take photography seriously (years before, she had partially earned her way through Wellesley taking photographs of her classmates). When she was eighty, she published a book about Wellesley, photographs and text, all her own work. How many people have ever accomplished that at eighty? I felt proud to call her my friend. It was a tonic to see her also because so many of my friends are losing ground mentally, so many that my dream of a happy and fruitful old age seemed an illusion. But here is proof that it need not be so. In many ways Eleanor is more herself than she has ever been.

This afternoon Morgan Mead, that dear boy, is coming for a talk. And tomorrow Judy for a week.