New Orleans was a real revelation. It was then still an absolutely French city. I was invited to dinner at several delightful Creole families and French was the language at table. The old Creole restaurants were at the height of their glory, and such delicious crabs, pompano, and shrimps I had never eaten before. Alas, their nice sanded floors have been replaced by dancing parquets, and noisy ragtime bands and wretched cooking are but poor substitutes for their past glories. THE MUSIC FESTIVAL OF 1881 During the summer of 1880 my father conceived the idea of giving a monster music festival in May, 1881, which was to last a week and for which a chorus of one thousand two hundred, of which the Oratorio Society should be the nucleus, was to be trained in sections during the entire winter. He conferred with some of his friends, outlined his project to them, and a Music Festival Association composed of the directors of his Symphony and Oratorio Societies was formed. Other prominent New York citizens were added and a guarantee fund was provided, ample to protect the project financially. Although I was only eighteen, my father deemed sufficiently advanced to intrust the drilling of a great portion of this chorus to me, a confidence of which I was very proud. The entire summer of 1880 I spent in the little New England town of Amherst. A very remarkable Frenchman, Doctor Sauveur by name, had perfected a new system of teaching French and Latin, and Amherst College had turned its buildings over to him for a summer course. It seemed to my father and me that this was an excellent opportunity for me to acquire the rudiments of these two languages. I accordingly arrived in Amherst armed with a grand piano, reams of music paper, and the orchestral score of the great Berlioz’s “Requiem,” which my father had selected as one of the works to be performed at the Festival. There was no piano score in existence and, to my joy, my father intrusted me with the task of making one from the original orchestral score. I obtained a lovely bedroom from a farmer on the main street for the opulent price of two and a half dollars a week, and my grand piano was installed in the parlor, of which I had the entire use for four hours a day to practise. My meals I got at the principal little hotel for six dollars a week and when the genial proprietor saw me consuming my first dinner he said: “Ef I had known you et that hearty I would have charged you more. I won’t make nothin’ out of you.” The meals were certainly delicious, and at eighteen one’s capacity in that direction is unlimited. When I arrived in May the college was still in session and I was made welcome by several of the students, among them Lawrence Abbott, now editor of _The Outlook_, and John Cotton Smith, now rector of St. John’s in Washington.