Fifty favorite operatic arias.

Fifty favorite operatic arias.

Let me assure you, with the candor of an idolized friend, that some of the saddest hours of my life have been spent in teaching you to try to sing a humorous aria from DONIZETTI; and the moments in which I have most sincerely regretted ever having been born were those in which you have played, in my hearing, the Drinking-song from La Traviata.

In that week, by whistling to him in my leisure hours, I taught him to perform almost perfectly that lively aria of Meyerbeer's, 'Folle è quei che l'oro aduna,' and also to mimic beautifully the chirping of a cricket.

Then some one opened the piano, upon which Figaro was lying, and Eugenie began to sing, to the Baron's accompaniment, Susanne's passionate aria in the garden scene.