Beaumont is a charming painter, and a friend of Henry's. When he comes
here, as he does very often, he puts us all in a good-humor; even my
father-in-law forgets to grumble at the reduced price of stocks and the
increased rate of exchange. His picture of Circe charming the pigs is very
pretty. Helen and I are both in it; he wanted her ear and hair and my eyes
and hair. I am not Circe; I only stand in the background admiring a pig.
To reward us he painted a fan for each: mine has arrows, doves, my
initials, "Beware," and cherubim all mixed up, making a lovely fan.

Baroness Alphonse Rothschild sent me her box for the opera, and I asked
the Metternichs and Herr Wagner, the composer, who was dining at the
Embassy, to go with me, and they accepted. The Rothschilds' box is one of
the largest in the opera-house. The Princess Metternich created a
sensation when we entered--she always does--but Herr Wagner passed
unnoticed. He sat behind and pretended to go to sleep. He thought
everything most mediocre. The opera was "Faust," which I thought was
beautifully put on the stage, with Madame Miolan Carvalho as Marguerite
and Faure as Mephistopheles. They both sang and acted to perfection; but
Wagner pooh-poohed at them and everything else. _Abscheulich_ and
_graesslich_ alternated in his condemning sentences. Nothing pleased
him.

He fidgeted about and was very cross during the fifth act, where the
ballet is danced.

"Why did Gounod insert that idiotic ballet? It is _banal_ and _de trop_."
(France is the only place where this fifth act is performed.)

"You must blame Goethe for that," retorted the Princess Metternich. "Why
did he make Faust go to the Champs Elysees if he did not want him to see