We arrived Thursday evening from Nuremberg in a pouring rain, which continued all day Friday, and detestable it was--streets crowded, everybody's umbrella running into one and catching in your veil (really twice in mine), mud everywhere, carriages scarce and dear. Our rooms are comfortable, Mary de Bunsen got them for us, a good-sized salon (with a piano), three bedrooms, and two maids' rooms. We have our early breakfast and supper, but dine out. Our experience at the Sonne was not very agreeable--a long, hot dining-room, quantities of hungry people and no servants to speak of. I was rather interested in my neighbour, a long, thin American, a Western man from Iowa I think, a school-master. He told me he had been saving for years to get money enough "to come across" (as he said) and hear "Parsifal." He had taught himself German in the evenings when his class was finished. The man was in such a quiver of delighted anticipation that it was a pleasure to see him. I told him I was sure he would not be disappointed, as Van Dyck was to sing "Parsifal." There were quite a number of priests at table, and one heard a little French, but the talk was principally German and English. We got up to the theatre easily enough, as carriages were going backward and forward all the time. The opera, "Parsifal," was beautifully given--Van Dyck as good as ever. I always think he stands so wonderfully in that scene where he has his back to the public and is absorbed by all he sees. He told me it was one of his most difficult parts. We had great difficulty in getting our coffee between the acts, and greater still in finding our carriage at the end. The crowd, and scramble, and mud were something awful. [12] Waddington died in 1894. Hence the interruption in the series of Madame Waddington's letters from 1893 until 1897. Friday, August 6th. We are leaving this afternoon, having had an enchanting week. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, the whole Ring beautifully given. All the music is racing through my brain, from the lovely wave chorus of the swimming Rhine maidens to the magnificent end of the "Goetterdaemmerung" with all the different motifs worked in. They played the funeral march of "Siegfried" splendidly. It is a curious life one leads here. In the morning everybody walks about the town--the streets are narrow and it is amusing to be hailed from windows over small shops, grocers', bakers', watchmakers', by friends who are lodging there. About 3 a sort of restless excitement is in the air and one sees a long procession mounting the hill to the Opera House, everyone absorbed by the one idea. There are quantities of people we know. I didn't go and see Mdme. Wagner this time, as Henrietta and Pauline don't know her. Her evenings, the off night, are very interesting. One sees all the distinguished people of any kind at her house, all the artists, critics, etc. Of course no one ventures to criticise the _music_--merely the execution.