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Updated: June 1, 2025
Not that the loss was material to him; he was too rich for that; but the provocation of his fifty thousand dollars going to a parcel of Mexican ladrones, after buying an opera-singer for a Frenchman on its way, was enough to rouse even Dutch human-nature to the swearing-point. He could not abide either Frenchmen or opera-singers, all the rest of his life. And, by Jove, I don't wonder at it!"
The gaily attired, good-looking, flower-decorated crowd, of some seven or eight hundred people, all chatting and laughing, and some staring at us but not rudely looked much more like a chorus of opera-singers, dressed for their parts in some grand spectacle, than ordinary market-going peasants. Whichever way one turned, the prospect was an animated and attractive one.
In the same class must be ranked, some both of the gravest and most important, and some of the most frivolous professions; churchmen, lawyers, physicians, men of letters of all kinds; players, buffoons, musicians, opera-singers, opera-dancers, etc.
She seemed to breathe a new life as she approached her brother's dwelling. Here there would be the free reckless utterance of minds that harmonised, of souls that sympathised: instead of stereotyped little scraps of gossip about the great world, or arid discussion of new plays and famous opera-singers. She did not stop to ask any questions of the complacent porter. It was not her habit to do so.
"Once in a while our Italian opera-singers bring to our shores those glorious physiques which formed the inspiration of Italian painters; and then American editors make coarse jokes about Barnum's fat woman, and avalanches, and pretend to be struck with terror at such dimensions.
For talking is the great equalizer of positions, turning the humble, the painfully immature, into judges with rope and torch; and in a kindlier way allowing the totally obscure to share the life of kings, and queens, and generals, and opera-singers; which is the reason that items of Court news or of "dramatic gossip" are so frequently exchanged in omnibuses and at small, decent dinner-tables.
"You throw up an engagement just like that because the audience doesn't laugh?" She had heard vague fairy-tales of pampered opera-singers acting with such Olympian independence; but never a music-hall artist on tour. He must be very rich and powerful. Lackaday read the thought behind the wide-open eyes. "Not quite like that," he admitted honestly. "It did not altogether depend on myself.
But shouldst thou ever, my Infelice, grace my home with thy loved presence, as thou hast cheered my hopes with thy smile, thou wilt conquer all hearts with thy prevailing gentleness, and I will show the world what Shakespear's women were! Some gallants set their hearts on princesses; others descend in imagination to women of quality; others are mad after opera-singers.
It was that period of the year when, to those who look on the surface of society, London wears its most radiant smile; when shops are gayest, and trade most brisk; when down the thoroughfares roll and glitter the countless streams of indolent and voluptuous life; when the upper class spend, and the middle class make; when the ball-room is the Market of Beauty, and the club-house the School for Scandal; when the hells yawn for their prey, and opera-singers and fiddlers creatures hatched from gold, as the dung-flies from the dung-swarm, and buzz, and fatten, round the hide of the gentle Public In the cant phase, it was "the London season."
Fancy this morbid, conceited, self-doubtful, violent, moody Alfieri accepting literary sympathy in a room full of small provincial lions sympathy which had to be divided with half a dozen others; learned persons who edited Latin inscriptions, dapper poet priestlets, their pockets crammed with sonnets on ladies' hats, opera-singers, canary birds, births, deaths, and marriages, and ponderous pedants of all sorts and descriptions.
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