Mind-reading to smooth relations

Colorized phot of Saran Orne Jewett’s house in South Berwick, Maine, taken in 1910.

Lookout Point, in Harpswell Maine.

— Photo by Kyle MacLea

“We were standing where there was a fine view of the harbor and its long stretches of shore all covered by the great army of the pointed firs, darkly cloaked and standing as if they waited to embark. As we looked far seaward among the outer islands, the trees seemed to march seaward still, going steadily over the heights and down to the water's edge.”

xxx

“Tact is after all a kind of mind-reading.’’

— Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909) in her novel Country of the Pointed Firs, like much of her work set on the southern coast of Maine

Look homeward

The Sarah Orne Jewett House, in South Berwick, Maine, shortly after her death

“What has made this nation great? Not its heroes but its households.’’

— Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909), an American novelist, short-story writer and poet, best known for her works set along or near the Maine C. She’s considered an important practitioner of American literary regionalism. Her most famous book, The Country of the Pointed Firs, seems to be based on summer stays on the St. George Peninsula, where she got to know a lot of the locals. See red map below.