intelligent and has such beautiful theories, and so many of them, that he
takes up about half the time of my lesson talking them over.

This is one of the things he says: "Take your breath from your boots." It
sounds better said in French: _Prenez votre respiration dans vos
bottines._ I don't think he realizes what he says or what he wants me
to do. When I told him that I had sung somewhere unwillingly, having been
much teased, he said: "You must not be too amiable. You must not sing when
and what one asks. There is nothing like being begged. You are not a hand-
organ, _pardieu_, that any one can play when they like." And this sort of
talk alternates with my songs until time is up, when off I run or go,
feeling that I have learned little but talked much. However, sometimes
I do feel compensated; for when, to demonstrate a point, he will sing a
whole song, I console myself by thinking that I have been to one of his
concerts and paid for my ticket.

Yesterday I received the inclosed letter from the Duke de Morny, inviting
us to go with him in his loge to see a new play called "Le deluge." It was
not much of a play; but it was awfully amusing to see. Noah and his three
sons and his three daughters-in-law marched into the ark dragging after
them some wiry, emaciated debris of the Jardin des Plantes, which looked
as if they had not eaten for a week. The amount of whipping and poking
with sticks which was necessary to get them up the plank was amazing; I
think they had had either too few or too many rehearsals. But they were
all finally pushed in. Then commenced the rain--a real pouring cats-and-
dogs kind of rain, with thunder and lightning and the stage pitch-dark.
The whole populace climbed up on the rocks and crawled about, drenched to
the skin, and little by little disappeared. Then, when one saw nothing but
"water, water everywhere," the ark suddenly loomed out on top of the rocks
(how could they get it up there?), and the whole Noah family stepped out