Some years ago I underwent the sorrow of hearing the noblest opera of modern times, Gounod's "Faust," so carved, clipped, and mangled as to be almost unrecognisable. It was, in fact, a mere abridgment of the original work — not only were whole scenes left out, and others amalgamated or fused down into one another, to the utter destruction of the unities, but Niemann (Faust) cut out the second part of " Salve dimora," and Mdlle. Baumgarten (Marguerite) omitted more than half of the jewel song, and a whole verse of the " Ré di Thule." For such whole-sale and unscrupulous barbarism I was altogether unprepared in Berlin, which is ever being vaunted by its inhabitants as "die Hauptstadt der Intelligenz."