er done or said is as much above
the present level of public understanding as the Old Man is above the
Waterhead.

We have had the most marvelous weather thus far, and have seen Paris
better than ever I've seen it yet,--and to-day at the Louvre we saw
the Casette of St. Louis, the Coffre of Anne of Austria, the porphyry
vase, made into an eagle, of an old Abbe Segur, or some such name. All
these you can see also, you know, in those lovely photographs of Miss
Rigbye's, if you can only make out in this vile writing of mine what I
mean.

But it is so hot. I can scarcely sit up or hold the pen, but tumble
back into the chair every half minute and unbutton another button of
waistcoat, and gasp a little, and nod a little, and wink a little, and
sprinkle some eau de Cologne a little, and try a little to write a
little, and forget what I had to say, and where I was, and whether
it's Susie or Joan I'm writing to; and then I see some letters I've
never opened that came by this morning's post, and think I'd better
open them perhaps; and here I find in one of them a delightful account
of the quarrel that goes on in this weather between the nicest
elephant in the Zoo' and his keeper, because he won't come out of his
bath. I saw them at it myself, when I was in London, and saw the
elephant take up a stone and throw it hard against a door which the
keeper was behind,--but my friend writes, "I _must_ believe from what
I saw that the elephant knew he would injure the man with the stones,
for he threw them hard to the _side_ of him, and then stood his
ground; when, however, he threw water and wetted the man, he plunged
into the bath to avoid the whip; not fearing punishment when he merely
showed what he could do and did not."

The throwing the stone hard at the door when the keeper was on the
other side of it, must have been great fun for him!

I am so sorry to have crushed this inclosed scrawl. It has been
carried about in my pocket to be finished, and I see there's no room
for the least bit of love at the bottom. So here's a leaf full from
the Bois de Boulogne, which is very lovely; and we drive about by
night or day, as if all the sky were only the roof of a sapphire
palace set with warm stars.

* * * * *

CHARTRES, _8th September_ (1880).
(_Hotel du Grande Monarque._)

I suppose _I'm_ the grand Monarque! I don't know of any other going