_Bayreuth,
July._
Such a heavenly day! Aunt and I are sitting on the balcony and
resting. The opera begins tomorrow. Most of the people are in church
and the street is quite quiet, and empty save for a few pretty peasant
girls in gay colors walking the streets. Lots of things have happened
since I last wrote; we drove over to a fair in a little town yesterday
which was very amusing,--cows and pigs, boots, pipes, and all kinds of
things for sale. Then we went into a little inn and had beer and
danced with the peasants. It was lively, but rather different from my
last ball at the American Embassy after the big dinner served on
silver and gold plates, and dancing with “Dips” and princes.
Aunt, my dear old cart-horse, tired me all out in Venice. She
instructed me properly like a well-brought-up American girl, and took
me about sightseeing with the Red Book in her hand, every minute you
were not there, into all the old churches until I feel I never want to
go to a sanctuary again.
You ask me what I liked best in Venice. Well! After you, sir, perhaps
the marvelous bronze horses. I never got tired of looking at them, the
most perfect ones in the world, and I adore horses. Did you know they
were first known to have crowned one of the triumphal arches in Rome?
They journeyed to Constantinople in the time of Constantine for the
Hippodrome, but Doge Enrico Dandolo brought them back to Venice when
he conquered Constantinople in 1204. But this was not all. Napoleon
wished them for his Arch in the Place du Carrousel and not until 1815
were they returned to San Marco by Francis I of Austria, to whose
portion Venice fell in the settlement. Now can you say the
humming-bird has not been sucking wisdom instead of sugar from the
flowers of Venice! And next best, perhaps, I enjoyed the paintings,
especially the auburn-haired Tintorettos, because Aunt too, has just
such beautiful hair.
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