ABSTRACT
We returned to Cornell, with work and students ready to go. There was great pleasure in this homecoming. We had several times remodeled our house, extending the living room at one end and the kitchen at the other. We had a wonderful yard and good neighbors. James dropped into his favorite chair in his study and began writing again, which he always did far into the night. He was especially happy in his study and reveled in these solitary hours of thinking and writing. That was partly simply his nature, but there was a second reason. He was growing profoundly deaf, a condition inherited from his mother. He used a hearing aid, of course, but they were clumsy in those days and had to be stowed somewhere in one’s clothing. The batteries always gave out at crucial times. His seminar did not suffer from this, because his graduate students were of course aware of the problem and always accommodated themselves and their speech to it; it was well worth it to them. Long sessions of communicating with students was exhausting, however, and he truly valued those hours after dinner, which became more and more extended. Fortunately, his disposition was naturally social and he never became a recluse.
