WASHINGTON.

The grass on our small plot has reached the last limit of endurance and greenness, and is sprouting weeds at a great rate; also our one bush, though still full of chirpiness, is beginning to show signs of depression.

We were invited to a spiritualistic seance at the L——­’s salon.  The Empress Josephine has consented to materialize in America after having visited the Continent.  We saw her, and a more unempress-looking empress I cannot imagine.  To convince a skeptic she displayed her leg to show how well it had succeeded in taking on flesh.  I have no patience with people who believe such nonsense.  The famous spiritualist Poster is also here in Washington.  He is clever in a way, and has made many converts simply by putting two and two together.  We went, of course, to see him, and came away astounded, but not convinced.  He produced a slate on which were written some wonderful things about a ring which had a history in J.’s family.  J. could not imagine how any one could have known it.  Foster said to me:  “I had a premonition that you were coming to-day.  See!” and he pulled up his sleeve and there stood “Lillie,” written in what appeared to be my handwriting in gore, I suppose—­it was red.  I urged Baron Bildt to go and see him, knowing that he liked that sort of thing.  The moment he appeared, Foster, smelling a diplo-rat, said, “Madame Hegermann sent you to me,” upon which Baron Bildt succumbed instantly.

Teresa Carreno, the Wunderkind, now a Wunder-maedchen, having arrived at the age when she wisely puts up her hair and lets down her dresses, is on a concert tour with Wilhelmj (the famous violinist).  He is not as good as Wieniawski, and can’t be named in the same breath with Ole Bull.  They came here to lunch, together with Schloezer, who brought the violin.  I invited a good many people to come in the afternoon—­among others, Aristarchi, who looks very absorbed when music is going on, but with him it means absolutely nothing, because he is a little deaf, but looks eager in order to seize other people’s impressions.

Wilhelmj played, and Teresa Carreno played, and I sang a song of Wilhelmj’s from the manuscript.  He said, “You sing it as if you had dreamed it.”  I thought if I had dreamed it I should have dreamed of a patchwork quilt, there were so many flats and sharps.  My eyes and brain ached.

After a good deal of music Wilhelmj sank in a chair and said, “I can no more!” and fell to talking about his wines.  He is not only a violinist, but is a wine merchant.  Schloezer and J. naturally gave him some large orders.

Washington is very gay, humming like a top.  Everything is going on at once.

The daily receptions I find the most tiresome things, they are so monotonous.  Women crowd in the salons, shake hands, leave a pile of cards on the tray in the hall, and flit to other spheres.