WASHINGTON, Friday—I signed the final contract yesterday for my radio series and discussed the first few broadcasts. There is something rather exciting about starting a new thing and one's ideas run riot! Any new subject always seems to stimulate so many new ideas. If the day ever comes when someone talks to me about something and it does not at once start a dozen trains of thought, I shall feel that the real springs of life are slowing up and that age is truly upon me!

With this sense of exhileration still upon me, I went to a dentist appointment, and while I received the gentlest treatment I have ever received, I know of no situation more conducive to removing that sense of exhileration. A semi-reclining position with your mouth pried open and no opportunity for interchange of thought of any kind gives one such a helpless feeling!

Her Excellency, the Lady Tweedsmuir, Mrs. Pape, and I started off for the Secretary of Labor's house for a one-thirty luncheon. Our guests enjoyed Annapolis in the morning, and I think the drive down and back must have been comparatively restful. I only regret that spring is not a little further along for the woods can be very beautiful along that road.

After luncheon I took her Excellency and Mrs. Pape to the Folger Memorial Library. Our time was limited but we went through the Library which is completely filled with various editions of Shakespeare and entered the smallest of the vaults where the most valuable early editions are kept. I marvel each time at the beauty of the printing and touch with awe these books that date back, some of them, to the late fifteen hundreds.

When we came to look at the editions of the single plays, I was very much interested in the story that was told us about one little volume. These plays were not even bound originally, just sewed together and sold for a penny. Someone had put a paper around this particular one and some boys wanting a target at which to shoot their bows and arrows, set it up in an apple tree, knocked it down several times and left it there. It was found the next day and sent to be sold. When Mr. Folger finally acquired it he paid a very large sum of money for it.

From there I came home to receive Mrs. Weddell, the wife of our Ambassador to the Argentine, and Madame Quezon, wife of the President of the Phillipines, who is shortly leaving with her daughters for Europe. Later Mr. Leonard Elmhirst and his step-son Michael Straight, and several other people came in for tea. Finally after seeing our Canadian guests off we attended the pageant at Fort Meyer. It was very exciting and really the best pageant I have seen.

A quiet day with no official engagements today.