She must have been a clever young woman.

Then I see that they decorated one of their rooms with "a large number of carbon prints of celebrated paintings," "the class picture being the most important and costing in the neighbourhood of $100--this is the hunting scene of Ruysdael...." Also they added to their Museum "manufactured articles from abroad illustrative of the habits and customs of foreigners." Now isn't that _all_ incredible after the day that I've had?
Where do the things join?
What's all _that_ got to do with the horrors I've been through to-day, with the Forest, the cholera, Marie, Semyonov....
With _all_ that's happening in Europe?
With this mad earthquake of a catastrophe?
And yet one thinks of such silly things.

I can see them doing _Othello_ with their cheap ermine, bad jewellery and impossible wigs.

I expect Othello's black came off as he got hotter and hotter; and the Rev.I.R.Glass on "Fools"....

There'd be all the cheap morality--"It's better, my young friends, to be good than to be bad.
It pays better in the end"-- and there'd be little stories, sentimental some of them and humorous some of them.