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[[underlined in red]] Note: [[/underlined in red]] The following is a fragment from my diary but the date is lost. I think it should be about May 3, 1926 and was inspired by my visit to the Metropolitan Opera in Cleveland a day or so previously and described in my letter of May 3rd to Willie.

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-- and children and friends and entertainment. Others to rooms like myself, to hopes and dreams, and pleasures and struggles, and intimicies and friendships, and books and shows and dates, all to life very intense, very important, -- yes, very important to them, and is not that important? And I saw the houses and the people, and the children and the dogs and the kites. And away, away, the sky again, and the coal tower and the clouds. And I saw life again and marveled at the blindness of those like me who sometimes will not see. I could not imagine myself getting "griped" at Lewis (one of my night men) as I was frequently want to do. I could not imagine myself impatient or uninterested in things at work. I could not see anything that did not seem wonderful and pregnant with intense, vital meaning. The world lived for me; from a vast meaningless panorama of objects and entities, it became a great, teeming, vital, living whole, breathing forth the breath of romance, adventure, life itself. I saw and see a different world, and I rejoice with my whole soul to be breathing the breath of Life again. Life wonderful beyond imagining for those who are in the darkness as I have been.

[[underlined]] To Willie, May 3, 1926: [[/underlined]] One of the most wonderful weekends I've ever spent is now over. Mother arrived here Friday night , going on to Cleveland with Burns and me the next morning. She had to be back in Syracuse Sunday morning so took the sleeper out of Cleveland after the performance, Saturday night. The matinee was "Lucia di Lammermoor" with Marian Talley singing Lucia. I have never heard anything so heavenly in my life! It was marvelous! And more marvelous to think of this 19-year-old girl singing one of the most difficult roles in grand opera so perfectly even the famous mad scene. I'm sending you a program. The Auditorium was packed to the last of its 12,500 seats both afternoon and evening. The size of the place is almost unbelievable and yet it is so well proportioned and so beautiful that it is not ungainly-looking. It is 600 feet long by 210 feet wide and the gallery holds between 5 and 6000 people alone. But the auditorium was of secondary interest to the performance. I have never been so moved emotionally. Music always has a tremendous effect on me in that way but I had never heard anything like this before. It almost swept me away. It seemed sometimes as though I should have to cry out. And you can't imagine a girl of Marian Talley's age singing as she did. Her voice carried to the far corners of that huge place and yet for all its volume, it is as sweet and pure as anything imaginable, and her high notes -- oh, heavenly is the only word to describe them. The sextet got such applause, they sang it again, and after