So far this story seems a wonderful example of virtue triumphant and vice defeated, but, alas, life’s problems do not always work out that way! During the day my dramatic soprano who was to have sung _Isolde_ became hoarse and the opera had to be changed, so that all my carefully reared structure of righteousness and meting out of punishment to the guilty one fell to the ground with a very dull thud. This is only one of many such instances, some of them childish and others really wicked. But the most unmoral thing about it is that when the culprits were great artists, no matter how much they enraged me by their wickedness, after they had appeared again triumphantly as _Siegfried_ or _Isolde_ I would often become so enthusiastic over their work that their slate would be washed clean and I was ready to forgive them again and to begin anew. Such is the power of art, and a grateful public will always be willing to remember only the artistic uplift which they have received from the artist and forget his personal weaknesses. Naturally my strictures apply only to certain of the singers. There were many who were always honorable in their relations with me. Among the most devoted of the members of my company I should mention the singers of the chorus. Many of these had been at the Metropolitan in the German opera days. Their salaries were small, but if one of their number fell ill or suffered other misfortune, none so quick as they to help, and they always endured the hardships of travel with great good humor and unfailing courtesy and decency toward me.