erted mine. I would so
gladly have spoken to Mademoiselle Kramer. She has become quite aged.
She was carrying a book with the yellow label of the circulating
library. How many thousands of books the dear old woman must have read!
She reads book after book, just as men smoke cigars.

I went to Gunther's house. The courtyard gate was open. There is now a
factory there, and the lovely trees have all been felled.

On the head of the figure of Victory at the arsenal, there sat a pigeon
with glossy plumage--Although without eye-glasses, I could see the
figure quite distinctly.

*

The evening afforded me pure delight--the purest I ever knew, or, as I
firmly believe, ever will know.

Mozart's "Magic Flute" was performed at the theater.

I went there with my little pitchman. We sat in the uppermost tier. I
saw no one, although the crowded house must have contained many whom I
knew. All my senses were held captive by music's magic spell.

It is past midnight. My little pitchman and I are stopping at a
teamster's inn. I cannot rest until I put my feelings into words.

Mozart's "Magic Flute" is one of those immortal creations that dwell in
purest ether, in a region beyond the passions and struggles of mankind.
I have often heard the text objected to as puerile, but, at that
height, all action, all understanding, all personages, all
surroundings, must needs be allegorical. All that is hard and narrow is
cast aside, and man becomes a bird, his life pure and natural, full of
love and wisdom. The childlike or childish character of the text is
singularly true to nature. It is only the _blase_ who can find it dull
and insipid.

It is Mozart's last dramatic work, and in it he appears at his best, in
all the fullness of his genius, as if already transfigured. His various
figures pass before him in review, created anew, as it were; less fixed
and individualized, but all the more pure and ethereal. Using the word
in its best sense, there is something supernatural in the way in which
he has here gathered and combined the chords that else were scattered,
into one harmonious whole.

The opening chorus of priests is the march of humanity, and the "O
Isis!" is full of the sunshine of blissful peace. This is the fabled
paradise--a life above this, in the free ether, beyond the reach of
storm or tempest; a region to which music alone can transport us.

For hours, I felt as if thus transported, and kn