ge tree blossoms, where the breeze is softer and the bird
swifter of wing).

O women, don't pity yourselves, but attend to your homes.

Long instructions might be given. I am content to say: "Make your
house resemble a club as much as possible and treat your husbands
as these ladies, L----and C----, treat them, and you will be happy
and your husbands too."

Now I am calm and I think. O misery of miseries! O despair! What I
have written expresses the best portion of what I feel. O God, have
pity on me. Good people, do not jeer at me. Perhaps I give cause for
amusement, but I am to be pitied. With my temperament, my ideas, I
shall never explain what I feel. I shall never give an idea of my
unhappiness, it is because while dying of shame, of scorn, of rage,
I have the courage to jest. I really do have good health and a good
disposition. Provided that what I have just said doesn't bring me
misfortune!

I have a great many other things to say, but I am tired. I am going
to write in big letters, "I am unhappy," and in letters still
larger, "O God, aid me, have pity on me!"

These big letters represent an hour and a half of rage, tears,
irritated self love, and two hours of prayer!

I have exhausted all words, I have exhausted my energy, I no longer
have patience or strength, yet I still have one resource.

My voice. To preserve it I must take care of my health. Another week
like this one, and good-bye to singing!

No, I will be sensible, I will pray to God. I will go to Rome. I am
desperate, I will implore the Pope to pray for me. In my madness, I
hope for that.

To-morrow I will talk with Mamma about my idea; aid me, my God.

Thursday, December 23d, 1875.

I am sorrowful and discouraged. My departure is an exile to me. I
want to stay in Nice, and it is impossible. We always insist upon
the impossible. The simplest thing, by resisting, gains in value.

Friday, December 24th, 1875.

B---- has been to our house. By a few words in the conversation he
awoke in me so much love for Nice, so much regret at leaving, that I
became unhappy and went to my room to sing--with such earnestness,
such warmth, that I am still weeping from it--that eternal air, and
these delightful words:

"Alas! Would it were possible I might return,
Unto that vanished land whence I was torn,
There, there alone to live my heart doth yearn,
To live, to love, to die."

How I pity those who are not like me! They do not