_8th._ Mr. and Mrs. L---- came over in the evening. Sat two hours. Discussed Europe generally and decided _America_ was the _only place for decent people to live in_. _Death_ is all over Europe, an epidemic that has no cure. Death of all moral responsibility. Death of ambition in the way of virtue. Death of all comforts of life. The last man that dies will be carried from the _card table_. In my own recollection of Nice the two men principally mentioned in my mother's diary, Khalil Bey and Admiral Farragut, stand out strikingly. Khalil Bey was a fabulously rich Turk who spent his life wandering luxuriously over the face of the earth with a huge retinue of retainers nearly as picturesque as he was. He was a big, dark, murderous looking creature, not unattractive in a sinister, strange, and piratical way. He had a wild and lurid record and was especially notorious for his reckless gambling, at which his luck was said to be miraculous. He was an opera enthusiast, having heard it in every city in Europe, and was one of Adelina's admirers. My mother disliked him exceedingly, declaring he was like a big snake. But my mother never had any tolerance for foreign noblemen. There were many of them at Nice and her comments were caustic and often apt. I remember her casual summing up of the Marquis de Talleyrand (the particular friend of Mrs. Stevens, an American woman from Hoboken whom he afterwards married) as "a young man belonging to some goose pond or other!" Admiral Farragut, who was in the harbour with his flagship the _Hartford_ and several other American battle-ships, was greatly fêted, being just then a great hero of the war. The United States Consul gave a reception for him which he explained in advance was to be "characteristically American." The only noticeable thing about the entertainment seemed to be the quantity and variety of drinkables that were unceasingly served by swift and persuasive waiters. The Continentals must have had a startling impression of American thirst! The Admiral himself, however, was hardly given time to swallow anything at all, people were so anxious to ask him questions and to shake hands.