I was kept away longer than I expected to be when I last wrote you, arriving only yesterday. I am to leave again for a weeks journey Monday. All the engagements which thus keep me from meeting you at Lenox were made before your request was received.

I called immediately on my arrival yesterday on Mr Rotch who told me that you had decided against the upper site suggested. This being understood you will excuse me for saying that I think that you overestimate the importance of another visit from me. The questions to be decided are not complicated, the local conditions not difficult for one accustomed to topographical studies to understand or to retain in memory. There have been already eight visits from my office, three from myself personally, three from my son and two from Mr Manning and I had frequently looked at the grounds from the outside before. After learning your views on the ground I personally made a careful study of a plan over a sufficient topographical map and discussed it with my son, who after calculating grades and quantities and then again visiting the ground, made the drawing sent to you as expressive of our opinion. You have obviously an ideal in your mind and you are disappointed that we do not find that the local topography when studied with exactness, is well adapted to it. I should be glad if it were not so, but it is not a question of liking or disliking that you ask me. It is a question of facts.

I am sorry that I cannot meet you again on the ground but as I cannot [550]

Morris Ketchum Jesup

That is to say, it is extremely improbable that another visit to the ground would give me a different understanding of the essential facts. Taking the facts as they are and using my best judgment in your behalf it is equally improbable that I should give you radically different advice as to the position of the house, the stable or the entrance and approach, from that I have already given you. It was not given without mature consideration and every desire to meet your predispositions, tastes and inclinations. I have not considered the question to be what I would like but what, in the long run, would prove most satisfactory to you.

Yours Truly