“Perhaps you already know that, thanks to the thousand and one annoyances brought upon me by the Conservatoire committee, my _Trojans_ was not performed yesterday. Still, I thank you for the time you have spent in thought with us in the concert-room. My son, who has done well in Mexico, has just landed at St Nazaire. He is first lieutenant of his ship, and, as he cannot come to Paris, I am going to Brittany to see him. He is a good boy, but is, unfortunately, too much like his father, and cannot reconcile himself to the commonplaces and troubles of this world. “We love each other dearly. “My aged mother-in-law, whom I have promised never to leave, takes the greatest care of me, and accepts unquestioningly my gloomy tempers. I read again and again Shakespeare, Virgil, Homer, _Paul and Virginia_, and travels of all kinds. I am horribly bored and suffer agonies from neuralgia that doctors have tried in vain, for nine years, to cure. “When the pains of mind, body and estate grow too much for me, I take three drops of laudanum to snatch some sleep. “If I feel better I go and see my friends, M. and Mme Damcke. “He is a German composer of rare gifts; his wife is an angel of goodness to me. “There I do as I like. If I am in the humour we talk or play; if not, they draw up a big sofa to the fire, and there I lie the whole evening without a word--chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancies. This, madame, is all. “You know that I neither write nor compose, for the present state of art in Paris makes me both sick and sorry--which proves that I am not dead yet! “I hope to have the honour of escorting Madame C. F. and a Russian friend of hers to the Théâtre Italien to hear Donizetti’s _Poliuto_. “Madame Charton will give me a box. “Good-bye, madame. May your thoughts be blest, your heart at rest, and your life serene in the assured love of your children and friends. But send a thought sometimes to the _poor child who is unreasonable_.--Your devoted H. B.” “_P.S._--It was good of you to send the bride and bridegroom to see me. I was so struck with the likeness of M. Charles to Mademoiselle Estelle that, although such compliments are out of place to a man, I so far forgot myself as to tell him so.” Some time later she wrote: “Believe me, I am not without sympathy for _unreasonable children_. I have always found the best way to quiet them is to give them pictures to look at. “I therefore take the liberty of sending you one that I hope, by bringing home the reality of the present, will wipe out the illusion of the past.” She sent me her portrait! My dear lady! And here I stop. Now I can live calmly. I shall write, she will reply. I shall see her, shall know where she is, and shall never again be without news of her.