In my notebook of this time I find these entries:

March 31, 1931: She has returned from a brief stay at Atlantic City. “I read ‘Arrowsmith,’” she said. “I think it a fine book.

“I remembered something while I was there: something from my childhood: I remembered Papa taking Dorothy and me there, once; I think we stayed there overnight. I know we paddled in the water on the beach. How strange, when my memory is so poor, that this should come back to me, after all these years. I think we went from New York, so it must have been just after Baltimore, when I was about five.”

No date: How tolerant she is! Whatever her belief or habits, she never urges them upon others, or tries to disintegrate theirs. She never smoked a cigarette in her life, but for years she has lived in a drift of tobacco, without objection or criticism. She drinks nothing stronger than mild wine, but provides generously for her guests.

April 5: Artists are always wanting to paint Lillian. Just now she is posing for Sorine, the distinguished Russian painter who did the Pavlowa which hangs in the Luxembourg. Lillian’s portrait is to hang there, he says, and some day in the Louvre. I saw it today, with her. It is vividly, delicately done.

No date: Today she said: “I attended a symphony concert, last night, with some friends. In the box with us was Gabrilowitsch. I thought of what the music meant to him that it did not mean to me. What he heard that missed me entirely. Musicians have an entire world of their own. No other art has that in the same degree. Science has it, I suppose. But music seems different,—of a world still farther removed.”

April 15: How does she find time for all the things she does? She has no secretary, now, yet somehow keeps up conscientiously with her letter answering—of itself a heavy task. Then, home duties, social demands, this posing every day for Sorine; also, for a young German girl, FrÄulein von Bismarck; reading plays; this work of ours, which takes no end of time, and thought. I don’t see how she manages it all—but she does.

I suppose things trouble her, but she remains serene. There is about her a detachment from the worries of life that suggests Karma Yoga, and is that, I have no doubt, for she is versed in Eastern Philosophy.

Whether she “suffers fools gladly,” or not, I do not know. I only know that she suffers them—without complaint.

She reads omnivorously, but always, as I think, seeking the best, and apparently reading with care and reflection.

A few days ago I lent her Brand Whitlock’s latest book, “Narcissus,” which tells a Belgian legend of Van Dyck. Today she said: “I read it twice—for the story, first, then for the beauty of it—the style. It has great charm. I want to read it again.” Then she told me a story of Van Dyck and Frans Hals, which somewhere she had read, or heard.

April, 1932. Something has happened, or is in the process of happening. Since the conclusion of “Uncle Vanya” Lillian has given little serious consideration to theatrical matters, putting aside as unsuitable a variety of offered parts. A new prospect now presents itself—one that appeals to her taste and imagination: a group of influential citizens of Denver, Colorado, headed by Mr. Delos Chappell, propose to refurbish and reopen the ancient Opera House of the little “ghost mining town” of Central City, with a week’s presentation of “Camille,” at fancy prices, for the benefit of the University of Denver. Robert Edmond Jones is to stage and direct the production, with Lillian as Casting Director, herself in the title rÔle. She is deeply interested—has secured Raymond Hackett for the part of Armand, the rehearsing to begin at once.

Denver, Col., July 16.—In an impressive ceremony, amid the merry laughter of “pioneer” belles and gay young men, and at a cost of $250,000, the famous Central City Opera House was brought to life tonight after a silence of fifty years.

Men, women and children from the Atlantic Seaboard and the Pacific Coast came to this “phantom” village, once the miners’ capital. Daughters and sons, granddaughters and grandsons of pioneers who once made those same walls vibrate with their applause were there for the gala opening of the revival, in dress such as their ancestors wore at the theatre when it was new. Some of the gowns, handed down through the fifty years, were once heard to rustle down those same aisles. Every person in the audience represented some famous character of the time when Central City was the centre of Colorado’s gold mining industry. “Camille” typified to perfection the taste of the ’80s in the theatre.

Miss Lillian Gish, as Marguerite Gautier, takes the leading rÔle, with Raymond Hackett playing opposite her as Armand. It was the first time “Camille” has played in the old opera house in fifty years.