melling a diplo-rat, said, "Madame Hegermann sent you to me," upon
which Baron Bildt succumbed instantly.

Teresa Carreno, the _Wunderkind_, now a _Wunder-maedchen_, having
arrived at the age when she wisely puts up her hair and lets down her
dresses, is on a concert tour with Wilhelmj (the famous violinist). He
is not as good as Wieniawski, and can't be named in the same breath
with Ole Bull. They came here to lunch, together with Schloezer, who
brought the violin. I invited a good many people to come in the
afternoon--among others, Aristarchi, who looks very absorbed when music
is going on, but with him it means absolutely nothing, because he is a
little deaf, but looks eager in order to seize other people's
impressions.

Wilhelmj played, and Teresa Carreno played, and I sang a song of
Wilhelmj's from the manuscript. He said, "You sing it as if you had
dreamed it." I thought if I had dreamed it I should have dreamed of a
patchwork quilt, there were so many flats and sharps. My eyes and brain
ached.

After a good deal of music Wilhelmj sank in a chair and said, "I can no
more!" and fell to talking about his wines. He is not only a violinist,
but is a wine merchant. Schloezer and J. naturally gave him some large
orders.

Washington is very gay, humming like a top. Everything is going on at
once.

The daily receptions I find the most tiresome things, they are so
monotonous. Women crowd in the _salons_, shake hands, leave a pile of
cards on the tray in the hall, and flit to other spheres.

At a dinner at Senator Chandler's Mr. Blaine took me in, and Eugene
Hale, a Congressman, sat on the other side. They call him "Blaine's
little boy." He was very amusing on the subject of Alexander Agassiz
(the pioneer of my youthful studies, under whose ironical eye I used to
read Schiller), who is just now being lionized, and is lecturing on the
National History of the Peruvians. Agassiz has become a millionaire,
not from the proceeds of his brain, but from copper-mines (Calumet and
Hecla). How his dear old father would have liked to possess some of his
millions.

Sam Ward is the diner-out _par excellence_ here, and is the king of the
lobby _par preference_. When you want anything pushed through Congress
you have only to apply to Sam Ward, and it is done. I don't know
whether he accomplishes what he undertakes by money or persuasion; it
must be the latter, for I think he is far from being a rich man. His
lobbying is mostly do