forgiveness." Has any one ever described _Carmen_ so well? And there is much more. I pray you, turn to "The Case of Wagner" and read it all ... and perhaps begin to believe, as I do, that aside from _Tristan_ Wagner himself never penned so complete a masterpiece. Before we begin to glance at some of the ladies who have attempted to do justice to the Spanish gipsy it might be well to pause for a few seconds on two descriptions of the _cigarrera_ type. Gautier visited the celebrated Fábrica de Tobacos in Seville, where Carmen was employed until she began to stick knives into her co-workers. Here is what he says of it: "L'on nous conduisit aux ateliers où se roulent les cigares en feuilles. Cinq où six cents femmes sont employées à cette préparation. Quand nous mîmes le pied dans leur salle, nous fûmes assailis par un ouragan de bruits: elles parlaient, chantaient et se disputaient toutes à la fois. Je n'ai jamais entendu un vacarme pareil. Elles étaient jeunes pour la plupart, et il y en avait de fort jolies. Le négligé extrême de leur toilette permettait d'apprécier leurs charmes en toute liberté. Quelques-unes portaient résolûment à l'angle de leur bouche un bout de cigare avec l'aplomb d'un officier de hussards; d'autres, ô muse, viens à mon aide! d'autres ... chiquaient comme de vieux matelots, car on leur laisse prendre autant de tabac qu'elles en peuvent consommer sur place.... La _cigarrera_ de Séville est un type, comme la _manola_ de Madrid." I also append Edmondo de Amicis's description: "The women are almost all in three immense rooms, divided into three parts, by three rows of pilasters. The first effect is stupendous. Eight hundred girls present themselves at once to your view. They are divided into groups of five or six, and are seated around work-tables, crowded together, those in the distance indistinct, and the last scarcely visible. They are all young, but few are children; in all, eight hundred dark heads of hair, and eight hundred dusky faces from every province of Andalusia, from Jaen to Cadiz, and from Granada to Seville. You hear the buzzing that you would in a square full of people. The walls, from one end of the three rooms to the other, are covered with skirts, shawls, handkerchiefs, and scarfs, and, curiously enough, the whole mass of rags, which would be sufficient to fill a hundred second-hand shops, presents two predominating colours, both continuous, one above the other, like the stripes of a flag. The black of the shawls is above, the red of the dresses below, and mixed with the latter, are white, purple, and yellow, so that you seem to see an immense fancy costume shop, or a large dancing-room, in which the ballet girls, in order to obtain more freedom of movement, have hung everything on the wall which is not absolutely necessary to cover them decently. The girls put on these dresses when they leave, but wear old things while at work, which, however, are white and red like the others. The heat being