Dear Friend: I was about to write to you when I received your letter. You complain of having a cold, but you do not know what it means to have one. At this moment, but one person in Paris has a cold, and that person is myself. I spend my time coughing and choking, and if it continues, you will soon have to deliver my funeral oration. I am longing anxiously for Cannes, for it is only under its sun that I shall get well. Before going, however, I must vote on that tedious and involved discourse which our president, so worthy of his name,[31] has composed for our edification.

Do you know Aristophanes? Last night, being troubled with insomnia, I took up a volume and read it through. It was highly amusing. I have made a translation of it, none too good a one, but it is subject to your orders. There are things which will be shocking to your prudery, but they will interest you, especially now that you have learned from Cicero something of the morals of the ancients. Good-bye....

CCLXX

Cannes, January 12, 1864.

Dear Friend: I was seriously ill on my arrival here. I brought from Paris an abominable cold, and it is only during the last two days that I have begun to feel like myself. I do not know what would have become of me if I had remained in Paris, for I see by the papers that you are having snow. The weather here is admirable, with seldom a cloud, and a temperature which is usually at least 14 degrees. Occasionally, the east wind brings us a touch of snow caught from the Alps, but we are in a favoured oasis. They tell us that all the surrounding country is under snow. At Marseilles, at Toulon, and even at Hyères, it is said the ground is covered. I imagine a citizen of Marseilles in the snow as something like a cat walking on ice with nut-shells on his paws. It is a long time, even at Cannes, since such a lovely, mild winter has been known.

I am charmed that Aristophanes had the honour of pleasing you. You ask me if the Athenian ladies were present at the theatrical representations? There are men of learning who say Yes, and others who say No. If you had gone to see Karagueuz when you visited the Orient, you would have found, no doubt, many women there. In Eastern countries to-day, and formerly in antiquity, there is not and there never has been any of the false modesty which you have. One saw at every glance men in bathing costumes, and on every public square were statues of gods which gave ladies an exaggerated idea of the human form.

What is the name of that comedy in which Euripides is dressed as a woman? Do you understand the stage setting, and the part of the Scythian gendarme? What is more extraordinary than anything else is the unceremonious fashion in which Aristophanes speaks of the gods, even on their festival days, for it was at the Dionysia that the play of The Frogs was given, wherein Bacchus takes a singular rôle.

The same thing occurred during the early period of Christianity. Comedy was played in the churches. There was a Mass of the Fools and a Mass of the Ass, the text of which is still extant in a very curious manuscript. The wicked have spoiled everything by doubting. When faith was universal, all was permissible.

Besides the absurdities which Aristophanes throws, like lumps of salt, into his plays, there are choruses of the most exquisite poetry. My revered teacher, M. Boissonade, used to say that no other Greek writer had written better poetry. If you have not read it already, I recommend to you The Clouds. It is, to my mind, the best of his plays that have been preserved. In it there occurs a dialogue between the Just and the Unjust, which is in the most elevated style. I think there is some truth in the reproaches which he addresses to Socrates. Even after having heard him in Plato, one is tempted to forgive him the hemlock. A man who proves to every one, as Socrates did, that he is a fool, is a plague.

I have just read that the conspiracies are beginning again. I have no doubt that those Italian devils, and those no less Polish devils, would like to set the world on fire; and the world, unhappily, is so stupid that it will allow it to be done. I have had letters from Italy which cause me to fear that Garibaldi and his volunteers will in the spring undertake some movement against Venice. It needs but some calamity of that sort to finish us up entirely.