It is only the skilled enchanter who can stand safely in the magic circle, and compel the spirits that he summons, even if they are evil, to minister to ends in which he foresees a good.
We continue to live here very quietly, and I do not as yet feel the worse for the colder climate.

Indeed, my wonderful doctor, who was recommended to me as American, but is in reality English, assures me that a single winter spent here under his care will suffice for my complete re-establishment.

Yet that career, to the training for which so many years have been devoted, does not seem to me so alluring as it once did.
I have much to say on this subject, which I defer till I can better collect my own thoughts on it; at present they are confused and struggling.

The great Maestro has been most gracious.
In what a radiant atmosphere his genius lives and breathes! Even in his cynical moods, his very cynicism has in it the ring of a jocund music,--the laugh of Figaro, not of Mephistopheles.
We went to dine with him last week.

He invited to meet us Madame S-----, who has this year conquered all opposition, and reigns alone, the great S-----; Mr.T--------, a pianist of admirable promise; your friend M.
Savarin, wit, critic, and poet, with his pleasant, sensible wife; and a few others, who, the Maestro confided to me in a whisper, were authorities in the press.