nd a prominent member
of a socialist club.

I first came to know him well when Madame Sontag was singing in Boston.
We met often at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Schlesinger-Benzon, a house
which deserves grateful remembrance from every lover of music who was
admitted to its friendly and aesthetic interior. Many were the merry and
musical festivities enjoyed under that hospitable roof. The house was of
moderate dimensions and in a part of Boylston Street now wholly devoted
to business. Mrs. Benzon was a sister of the well-known Lehmann artists
and of the father of the late coach of the Harvard boating crew. She was
very fond of music, and it was at one of her soirees that Elise Hensler
made her first appearance and sang, with fine expression and a beautiful
fresh voice, the air from "Robert le Diable:"--

"Va, dit-elle, va, mon enfant,
Dire au fils qui m'a delaissee."

These friends, with others, interested themselves in Miss Hensler's
musical education and enabled her to complete her studies in Paris. As
is well known, she became a favorite prima donna in light opera, and was
finally heard of as the morganatic wife of the King (consort) Ferdinand
of Portugal.

Madame Sontag and her husband, Count Rossi, came often to the Benzon
house. I met them there one day at dinner, when in the course of
conversation Madame Sontag said that she never acted in private life.
The count remarked rather rudely, "I saw you enact the part of Zerlina
quite recently." This was probably intended for a harmless pleasantry,
but the lady's change of color showed that it did not amuse her.

Before this time Dwight's "Journal of Music" had published a very
friendly review of my first volume of poems. It did not diminish my
appreciation of this kind service to learn in later years that it had
been rendered by Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney, then scarcely an acquaintance of
mine, to-day an esteemed friend of many years, whom I have found
excellent in counsel and constant and loyal in regard.

During the many years of my life at South Boston, Mr. Dwight and his
wife were among the faithful few who would brave the disagreeable little
trip in the omnibus and across the bridge with the low draw, to enliven
my fireside. I valued these guests very highly, having had occasion to
perceive that Bostonians are apt to limit their associations to the
regions in which they are most at home. Speaking of this once with a
friend, I said, "In Boston Love crosses the b