“Only people like M. de Flotow, author of _Martha_, have panegyrists. His dull opera is sung in all languages, all theatres. “I went to hear that delicious little Patti sing _Martha_ the other day; when I came out I felt creepy all over, just as if I had come out of a fowlhouse--with consequences! “I told the little prodigy of a girl that I would _forgive_ her for making me listen to platitudes--that was the utmost I could do! “But that exquisite Irish air, ‘The Last Rose of Summer,’ is introduced, and she sings it with such poetic simplicity that its perfume is almost enough to disinfect the rest of the score. “I will send Louis your congratulations; he will be very pleased. He has read your letters and thinks me fortunate in having such a friend as you. Good-bye.” _To_ MADAME ERNST. “PARIS, _14th December 1864_.--You are really too good to have written to me, dear Madame Ernst, and I ought to reply in a sleek, smooth style, mouth nicely buttoned up, cravat well tied, myself all smiles and amiability. Well, I can’t! “I am ill, miserable, disgusted, bored, idiotic, wearisome, cross, and altogether impossible. It is one of those days when I am in the sort of temper that I wish the earth were a charged bomb, that I might light the fuse for fun. “The account of your Nice pleasures does not amuse me in the least. “I should love to see you and your dear invalid, but I could not accept your offer of a room. I would rather live in the cave under the Ponchettes. “There I could growl comfortably alongside Caliban (I know he lives there, I saw him one day), and the sea does not often come into it; whereas with friends, there are all sorts of unbearable attentions. “They ask how you pass the night, but not how your _ennui_ is getting on;[31] they laugh when you say silly things; are always mutely trying to find out whether you are sad or gay; they talk to you when you are only soliloquising, and then the husband says to the wife, ‘Do let him alone, don’t bother him,’ etc., etc. Then you feel a brute and go out, banging the door and feeling you have laid the train of a domestic quarrel. “Now in Caliban’s grotto there is none of this. “Well, never mind! “You stroll on the terrace and along the shady walks? And then? “You admire the sunsets? And then? “You watch the tunny fishers? And then? “You envy young English heiresses? And then? “You envy still more the idiots without ideas or feelings who understand nothing and love nothing? And then?... “Why, bless you, I can give you all that!