Chapter CCLXIX: PARIS, Friday, December 12, 1863

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....