Drum taps collection.  Outside the wind was rising and roared thru the shining black trees – it was a fine day.  In the middle of the afternoon Bertha brought down a beef sandwich and a glass of milk.  Great!  When the twilight, premature even for November came, I went up and we had dinner.
                 Dec. 23, 1924
     When I was yet a student in school and shortly afterwards too, I used to get into discussions as to whether an artist could be vain and arrogant or conceited and still produce great art.  Wagner, St. Jandino, and Cellini used to be cited as examples to prove the affirmative and, enthralled as I was then with Wagner’s music, his name seemed conclusive proof.
     Immutability was then a virtue.  With my ideals shining before me, I said iconiclastically “I will always seek these ideals of mine unchangeable
     Never deviate from them, a hair’s breath – that is the only safety.”  But a few years show some of them to be covered with tinsel, others needed to be dropped and still others enlarged – purified-
     Lately I have had opportunity to recast my opinion of Wagner and Beethoven