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Venise Feb. 3. 85

My dearest little Emmie,
 
Awfully sorry I could'nt accept your kind invitation to walk to Hyde Park; but will make up for it next summer if I live.  Many thanks for the invitation. 

Sunday night we went to the theatre; dont think there is anything wrong in it for it is quite the correct thing here. 

Well as I was saying we went to the theatre to see Boccaccio.  It was very good but as I have seen it in both English and French I was rather disappointed in the Italian.  One fellow who played an old man's part was very good.  Got off lots of jokes and kept the house in roars all the time; it was very funny (to them) we hardly appreciated the jokes as we could not understand a single word.  The orchestra got the best of the singers every time.  I thought that when the chorus came out they


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might get away with the orchestra but it was no use, the o. was equal to the occasion and drownd the singers deader than a smell.  The theatres had [[our?]] boxes all the way up, the place we call the orchestra only having chairs.  This one had five tiers of boxes; they are quite comfortable if you have the seat that faces the stage otherwise you have to break your neck to see the actors.  

Graves had the best seat and your humble servant has'nt got the kink out of his neck yet.  Hope I shall before I get home as it is not becoming to my style of ugliness.  Coming home we saw the first masker it was a she.  The night was rainy and she was about the loneliest looking specimen I have seen for some time.  She had short clothes on and white and pink stockings and an umbrella, the rain was dripping off the rim and she was hurrying off as