Yet read what the critics said about it. The musicians picked it to pieces, of course, and so did the critics, much as the German reviewers did Wagner's music dramas. The public came, however, packing the houses to more than their capacity. People paid seven and eight dollars a seat to hear that opera, an unheard-of thing in those days when two and three dollars were considered a very fair price for any entertainment. Furthermore, only the women occupied the seats on the _Faust_ nights. I speak in a general way, for there were exceptions. As a rule, however, this was so, while the men stood up in regiments at the back of the house. We gave twenty-seven performances of _Faust_ in one season; seven performances in Boston in four weeks; and I could not help the welcome knowledge that, in addition to the success of the opera itself, I had scored a big, personal triumph. [Illustration: =Clara Louise Kellogg as Marguerite, 1864= From a silhouette by Ida Waugh] As I have mentioned, we took wicked liberties with the operas, such as introducing the _Star Spangled Banner_ and similar patriotic songs into the middle of Italian scores. I have even seen a highly tragic act of _Poliuto_ put in between the light and cheery scenes of _Martha_; and I have myself sung the _Venzano_ waltz at the end of this same _Martha_, although the real quartette that is supposed to close the opera is much more beautiful, and the _Clara Louise Polka_ as a finish for _Linda di Chamounix_! The _Clara Louise Polka_ was written for me by my old master, Muzio, and I never thought much of it. Nothing could give anyone so clear an idea of the universal acceptance of this custom of interpolation as the following criticism, printed during our second season: "The production of _Faust_ last evening by the Maretzek troupe was excellent indeed. But why, O why, the eternal _Soldiers' Chorus_? Why this everlasting, tedious march, _when there are so many excellent band pieces on the market that would fit the occasion better_?" As a rule the public were quite satisfied with this chorus. It was whistled and sung all over the country and never failed to get eager applause. But no part of the opera ever went so well as the _Salve dimora_ and the love scene. All the latter part of the garden act went splendidly although nearly everyone was, or professed to be, shocked by the frankness of the window episode that closes it. It is a pity those simple-souled audiences could not have lived to see Miss Geraldine Farrar draw Faust with her into the house at the fall of the curtain! There is, indeed, a place for all things. _Faust_ is not the place for that sort of suggestiveness. It is a question, incidentally, whether any stage production is; but the argument of that is outside our present point. Dear Longfellow came to see the first performance of _Faust_; and the next day he wrote a charming letter about it to Mr. James T. Fields of Boston. Said he: