coward, and you will submit to the yoke of family life with a lamblike
docility. But I am here to direct you; you must come to Paris. There
we shall drive the men wild and hold a court like queens. Your
husband, sweetheart, in three years from now may become a member of
the Chamber. I know all about members now, and I will explain it to
you. You will work that machine very well; you can live in Paris, and
become there what my mother calls a woman of fashion. Oh! you needn't
suppose I will leave you in your grange!

Monday.

For a whole fortnight now, my dear, I have been living the life of
society; one evening at the Italiens, another at the Grand Opera, and
always a ball afterwards. Ah! society is a witching world. The music
of the Opera enchants me; and whilst my soul is plunged in divine
pleasure, I am the centre of admiration and the focus of all the
opera-glasses. But a single glance will make the boldest youth drop
his eyes.

I have seen some charming young men there; all the same, I don't care
for any of them; not one has roused in me the emotion which I feel
when I listen to Garcia in his splendid duet with Pellegrini in
_Otello_. Heavens! how jealous Rossini must have been to express
jealousy so well! What a cry in "Il mio cor si divide!" I'm speaking
Greek to you, for you never heard Garcia, but then you know how
jealous I am!

What a wretched dramatist Shakespeare is! Othello is in love with
glory; he wins battles, he gives orders, he struts about and is all
over the place while Desdemona sits at home; and Desdemona, who sees