 | CHAPTER IX.
MORE OF THE GRAND FANCY BALL. Tales of the good woman |  |
9. CHAPTER IX.
MORE OF THE GRAND FANCY BALL.
Our hero studied six days and seven nights, for
an idea of a dress to open the ball with Julia
Wingate, and at length fixed upon that of a
Spanish cavalier, which he calculated on borrowing
from a theatrical friend.
And now the day had come, and the night was
approaching which was for ever to be remembered
in the annals of the queen of the west, as the night
of the great fancy ball at the City Assembly Room.
Not the feast of the Centaurs, nor the hunting of
the Calydonian boar, the two great frolics of antiquity,
were ever half so renowned as we intend
this ball shall be, in future mirrors of fashion.
None but the ignoble vulgar slept that night or
the night before. Young gentlemen packed up
their whiskers, and came all the way from Philadelphia,
Baltimore, and Boston; and several young
ladies had their heels frost bitten in travelling
from the uttermost ends of the earth in prunelle
shoes. Bandboxes, the size of bathing tubs, were
under them; the young gentlemen of the
fancy stores had scarcely time to put their hair in
papers, and poor Monsieur Manuel died a few days
after, of the vast exertions he made in reducing
the rebellious curls of young ladies in a state of
nature, to obedience.
It being impossible to convey to the unhappy
reader who was not present at the ball, any idea
of its collective splendours, I shall follow the example
of Homer, and attempt it through the
agency of particular characters and incidents. If
I cannot describe the accumulative horrors of the
fight, I shall relate what damsels conquered, and
what dandies fell on this melancholy occasion.
First, Forcible Feeble, though cased in the invulnerable
armour of indifference, was cured of
an obstinate fit of silence, by the magic influence
of a wedding dress of his grandmother. Next,
Peter Popinjay, who had long declared his determination
not to commit matrimony for love or
money, yielded to the charms of a little Tyrolese,
in short petticoats. There too, fell Nimrod Sparrow,
whose heart had never throbbed before, save at the
sight of a covey of partridges, a horse that could trot
sixteen miles an hour, or a dog at a dead point.
On this occasion, Cupid bent his bow made of the
arching eyebrow of Miss Looqueer, stringing it with
a hair of her silken eye lashes, and shot a ray from
her sparkling eye, that melted the stony heart of
him into a hunter of ladies. There, too, was Colonel
Jiggleton, a gallant son of Mars, translated
into a votary of Venus, by the bad French of a
little Parisian milliner; and there, though last not
least, was the Honourable Garrulous Guzzleton,
who spoke more speeches, and ate more canvass
backs than any single member of the lower house,
west of the Blue Ridge, struck dumb by the incessant
chatter of a beautiful lady, dressed as the
Goddess of Silence, with finger on her lip. But I
will proceed no farther with this bill of mortality,
lest it should make the reader melancholy.
Heartwell had taken with him to the ball, a
young Italian count, whom he had known in Italy.
Count G— was somewhat literary, a great admirer
of the ladies, and zealously musical. He
was a man well read in books, and having seen all
that was worth seeing in the old, had come to the
new world, in search of something new. The
count requested Heartwell to play the Diable Boiteaux
for that night, and take him under his special
protection. Accordingly they strolled about
without joining in the dances, conversing and
criticising as the case might be.
“Who is that lady?” asked the count, “I mean
that rather pretty lady, eating a sandwich with
such approbation?”
“That? O that's a Mrs. Smith.”
“And the one on her left, who is making the
the opposite couple is going through the figure?”
“That is another Mrs. Smith.”
“And the tall, fine looking woman on the left
of the other, eating a jelly? Upon my word, the
ladies cannot be accused of wasting their time!”
“O, that's another of the Mrs. Smiths.”
“Why, good heavens! how many wives has
that Mr. Smith?”
“They are the wives of different Mr. Smiths.
Yonder is another.”
“Good,” cried the count, taking snuff, “I believe
in my soul, your people have all one name,
like the parrots.”
The attention of the count was next attracted
by a young lady of a singularly delicate person,
and an air of fashion about her quite taking.
“Come, Monsieur Diable, do your duty, and tell
me who she is, and what she is thinking about?”
“That young lady,” said Heartwell, “belongs
to an old and somewhat decayed family, which is
still proud of what it once was. But for all that,
she will marry the son of her grandfather's cobbler,
who is very rich. The young man wants
blood, the young lady money; both parties will be
suited. She has just settled the matter in her
own mind.”
Here the soul of Heartwell flashed into his eyes,
on seeing our old friend Sopus, who dressed in a
superb Spanish suit, he had borrowed from his
with all his might, and to give him his due,
exceedingly well. The young lady seemed delighted
with her partner, and performed her part
with infinite grace and vivacity, listening between
whiles to the compliments of our roué, with great
appearance of condescension. The truth is, she
was a little piqued at the neglect of Heartwell,
who had been in the room at least twenty minutes,
without speaking to her. Now when young ladies
are piqued, ten to one, they do exactly what they
ought not to do. Julia flirted with Sopus, whom
she despised, only to mortify the man she adadmired
and respected beyond all others. Heartwell
saw all this, and though he believed in his
heart that Julia must in her heart despise the roué,
yet he grew at once violently jealous. Such is
man when he is in love, and his vanity and affections
are unnaturally overheated. The count
twitched his elbow, “You play Monsieur de Diable
badly. Who is that lady with her mouthful,
talking to the gentleman in blue whiskers?”
“That? O that is Mrs. Copper Smith, who
does the honours of the city to all strangers of distinction,
very much to the credit of good society.”
Heartwell was every moment getting more ill natured,
as he looked at Sopus and Julia.
“Her husband,” continued he, “is a plain, honest
old man, such as no sensible person would dare
to laugh at, except when he is playing the fish out
foreign minister. He received a liberal education,
that is at the expense of other people, and
got rich by getting and saving. If you go to
make a bargain with him, he will cavil for the
ninth part of a hair, and then if you are a great
man, he'll give you a dinner that costs a hundred
pounds. In short, though he gets his money like
a negro, he spends it like a gentleman. The
family,” continued Heartwell, looking like a savage
at Sopus, “the family put themselves forward
on all occasions; call on all strangers of
note; impose themselves as the best company of
the city; stuff them with good eating, and tire
them to death with caricatures of fashionable frivolity.
The consequence is that the really well
bred people, who might feel inclined to be civil
to strangers, shrink from them while beset by
these obtrusive vulgarians, and thus strangers go
away with an impression that there is no more
refined and intelligent society in the city.”
“Only a little spice of liberty and equality,”
said the count.
“I understand you,” replied the other, “but
there is no equality in manners; political privileges
have nothing to do with drawing rooms. The end
of social intercourse is pleasure and improvement.
Now there can be neither one nor the other, where
one half of a company is composed of ignorant
vulgar, the other of refined and well educated persons.
the other will only become more vain by
comparison.”
“Heavens!” cried the count, “what a mouthful,”
as the pretty Mrs. Copper Smith discussed
a huge pickled oyster. “But now I think of it,
I am sure I've seen the lady eat before. I have
it. They invited me last summer to what they
called a French breakfast in the country, and
nearly killed me with a fricassee of Guinea hens.”
Heartwell laughed a very little at this; for just
then Julia gave Sopus a tap with her fan. It was
in fact a most equivocal laugh.
“But you say true,” continued the count, “such
people are highly useful and respectable in their
proper sphere; but when they thrust themselves
forward in fashionable society, and when they do
they are almost always the most noisy and obtrusive,
they throw ridicule on the whole city. You
should serve them as we do in Italy. Treat them
with such profound respect, and insuperable gravity,
that they feel uncomfortable, and never come
again. But come, show me now a specimen of
what you call really well bred.”
“Look round,” said Heartwell, “make use of
your free masonry.”
The count looked round, and at length fixed on
a young lady apparently quite plainly dressed,
and who was quietly conversing with her brother.
“She does honour to your sagacity. Observe
young women about town. Neither spoiled nor
likely to be. She is rich in her own right; she
dances with a delightful and chastened grace;
sings in the first style of expression; possesses a
mind highly cultivated; reads better than any
body I ever heard; is endowed with the best principles,
tastes, and habits; and yet nobody knows
all this except her immediate family circle.”
“But how? how comes it she is not surrounded
by a hundred admirers?”
“She is modest and retiring,” answered Heartwell,
with a bitter sneer; for Julia was still flirting
with that “puppy, Sopus.”
“Upon my word,” said the other, “you do the
young gentlemen of your city great honour. I
should suppose they would at least have found out
the money.”
“They are apt to have an instinct for that,”
observed Heartwell.
A lady now swept along dressed in a load of
discordant and atrocious finery, the vulgar characteristic
of the day, and was accosted by Heartwell
with—
“My dear Mrs. Smith.” “Another Mrs. Smith!”
ejaculated the count, with uplifted hands.
“My dear Mrs. Smith, what a beautiful dress
you have got!”
“Do you think so,” answered she, her very feathers
quivering with delight. “Do you know
the Dutchess de B— wore at court last
Christmas. It cost me—”
“Hush!” said Heartwell, solemnly.
“Why, what is the matter?” asked the alarmed
lady.
“Your bish—what do you call it, is hind part
before,” whispered he.
“Ah!” screamed Mrs. Smith, and ran into the
attiring room to examine into the matter.
“What did you frighten the lady for?” asked
the count.
“O, I did'nt want to hear the history of that
intolerable dress. I have heard it forty times, at
least; and yet never the true one, for I'll swear
'tis an old dress the Dutchess de B— gave to one
of her maids of honour; who gave it to one of her
waiting maids, who sold it to a little milliner who
was making up a cargo of second-hand finery for
our market.”
In strolling about the room, Heartwell chanced
upon a young married lady, who had been brought
up in the country, whom he found in tears, by the
side of her husband. She was dressed as Euphrosyne.
“My dear Mrs. Gocarty,” said Heartwell, “I
hope you've heard no bad news from the country?
What is the matter?”
“I want to go home to ma,” cried the lady,
again bursting into a torrent of tears.
There was no comforting a lady who came to a
fancy ball to weep, and so they passed on.
“Your ladies must be very fond of home,” observed
the Italian.
“Very,” answered Heartwell, just at the moment
Julia gave her hand to Sopus for a third dance.
“Very—one half of their time is spent at home
in dressing, the other in showing off abroad.”
“What more can be reasonably required,” said
the other.
“La!” cried Miss Macfaddle to Miss Maccubbin,
“If here is'nt Fanny Fitzpoisson, dressed after all
as fine as a fiddle—hem—I wonder where the
money is to come from.”
“A very considerate person,” said the count,
who had overheard her, “what is the name of this
lady who looks so far into futurity?”
“One is called Miss Maccubbin, the other Miss
Macfaddle, and she of the blue satin and feathers,
Miss Fitzpoisson.”
“What horrid names!” cried the count, “How
can you expect any thing like genteel society with
such names? If you could only add lord and
lady, or honourable, it would be something. But
Miss Macfaddle, and Mrs. Jenks, and Mrs. Hobbs,
—ah! it wont do. You must ennoble these people
or you will never arrive at high life, depend
upon it. Now what do you think my title which
at once elevates me into ton, comes from?”
“From a bridge, I should imagine.”
“You are right; there is a very ancient and
good for nothing bridge, in the Dutchy of Tuscany,
which whoever owns is called Count of —, and
I—I am Count of the Mouldering Bridge, at your
service. But in truth,” resumed he of the mouldering
bridge, “it is inconceivable how much depends
upon this. I have lately read a number of
English novels, in the shape of tours, travels, recollections,
memoirs, adventures, &c., all professing
to give a picture of high life, as if high life
was not every where and at all times nothing more
than the association of well bred, well educated
people, such as are to be found in all civilized
countries. Be assured my friend, for I solemnly
swear to it—that these books have no more of high
life in them, than the Newgate Chronicle. Yet
you honest republicans, who so hate aristocracy,
relish these Grub-street delineations, and believe
them all genuine, merely because the actors
and actresses are dubbed with titles by the
authors. My lord and my lady may be as vulgar
as they please, and though you ought to know
better, you adore their high breeding. But,” and
a droll idea seemed to come across him—“But,
suppose now we at one blow make all these Mrs.
Smiths, and Mrs Jenks, and Misses Macfaddles
and Fitzpoissons high ton? Hey!”
“As how,” asked Heartwell.
“By ennobling every soul of them at a single
dash, as the wise king of Spain did a whole province
where they were cutting each others throats
about nobility.”
“With all my heart,” said the other, “you may
consider me as the fountain of honour on this occasion.
Come, here now is the Right Honourable
the Countess of Communipaw—”
“O, no, no! that wont do even for an English
picture of high life. I can't admit such names
into the rank of nobility.”
“Well then, the Right Honourable the Countess
of Mount Garret.”
“Ah! that will do. Mount is high ton. What
of her ladyship?”
“She is too good and respectable to be here,
where she neither feels easy, nor is treated with
the respect she merits. The countess is lately
ennobled into the ranks of the fashionable world,
and the good folks who happened to precede her
a few years, or even months, without half her pretensions,
think themselves quite genteel in laughing
at her.”
“True,” said the count, “one of the last lessons
vulgarity learns, is that there is nothing so vulgar
as laughing at people. I know of no genuine
good breeding and refinement, which does not
essentially consist in a tender regard for the feelings
of another, at least while that other is present.
But who have we here?”
“This? O this is his grace Duke Humphrey, so
called from his never eating dinner, or at least
none of his friends could ever swear to such a
phenomenon. I remember once calling on him
in the country, after five hundred hospitable invitations.
And what do you think? he left his
wife to entertain me, while he went into another
room to eat his dinner; and when he had done,
came and kept me company while she took her
turn. Just as I had my foot in the stirrup, he
begged me to stay and dine; but I saw he had
already dined, for the filthy creature had been in
such a hurry he forgot to wipe his mouth.”
The count shook his head—
“No, no; he wont do even for a duke. I can't
admit him to the privileged order. What are his
merits?”
“He is worth two or three millions.”
“Two or three millions! Duke? he shall be a
king; he can buy a crown for half the money, or
build fifty bridges. I say he shall be a king.”
“With all my heart. King Cole let it be then,
for I see he has forgot to wash his hands.”
“Here comes his queen I suppose,” said the
count, “for I see she too is coloured, but not exactly
after the fashion of his majesty.”
A lady now approached whose cheeks outvied
the rose.
“Is'nt she beautiful?” asked Heartwell.
“Though I have been at Florence and Rome, I
am no great connoiseur in paintings,” said the
count.
“Paintings! why her colour is as natural as that
of the rose. No, no, count; whatever other follies
and foibles our women may commit; whatever
arts they may use to be admired, they are not
yet, thank heaven, so lost to decency as to treat
their faces as we do an old brick wall, or a weather
beaten out house; white wash, or stain it
with red ochre.”
“It may be so,” said the other, coolly helping
himself to a pinch of snuff. “I dare say it is not
universal. I don't think I have seen more than a
dozen or so, this evening.”
“If I thought so I'd forswear matrimony,” said
Heartwell.
“You might do a worse thing. But look now;”
pointing to Julia Wingate, who had danced, and
flirted, and pouted herself into a most enchanting
bloom, “you don't pretend to say that young lady
is not painted?” The count had a little sly malice
in this.
Heartwell, though he was angry with Julia,
could not bear this imputation. He defended her
with such heat that the count was convinced.
“I think I saw her blush just now at something
her handsome partner said.”
Heartwell was angrier than ever at this, and
had a great mind to admit that Julia painted.
“But why so hard upon face painting?” continued
he, “ladies, aye, and gentlemen too,
wear false hair, false teeth, false eyes, eyebrows,
shapes and dimensions, and practice other innocent
deceptions. For my part, I can pardon every
thing false in a woman except the heart.”
“Yes; but count answer me seriously, and upon
your honour, would you like to kiss a lady, I mean
your great grandmother or great aunt, whose face
was painted with red and white paint? oil, verdigris,
sugar of lead, faugh! I'd as soon salute a
painter's pallet.”
“Why upon my honour, though not seriously,”
said the other, laughing, “I would not give a
pinch of snuff to kiss either my great grandmother
or great aunt, painted or not painted; but for
that Miss Wingate I think you call her, faith, I'd
venture even at the risk of a little daubing.”
Here Heartwell bristled like a wild boar. “But
seriously I will allow that there is something gross
and revolting in the deception of face painting,
because it is not only a deception, but a filthy deception.
It indicates an overweening, insatiate
desire for admiration, disreputable to a virtuous
woman, and that more especially in a country
where custom has not sanctioned the practice. It
is one thing to follow a bad fashion; it is another
to set it; and I confess, inured to it as I have
been, I would never consent to unite my fate, or
mix my being with a woman who had accustomed
should fear she would end in cheating me.”
I will not swear that Heartwell heard all this
long speech of the count. He was looking most
of the time at Julia, who was waltzing with friend
Sopus.
“There, there's another precious importation,”
cried he, with most edifying indignation, “I hate
waltzing almost as much as face painting.”
“O thou last of the Goths!” exclaimed the
count, “Mr. Southey is mistaken certainly in
giving that title to Don Roderick. Is it not a delightful,
graceful, titillating, topsy turvy, top
heavy, luxurious dance, and classical too; it puts
one in mind of the Rape of Proserpine. That fellow
there, has the whiskers of Pluto, and looks as
if he would not be a whit too good to carry that
pretty lady to perdition itself.”
Heartwell boiled with rage and jealousy, but
made no reply.
“Allons!” said the other, “proceed with your
catalogue of nobility. Who is that good lady
with the projecting teeth.” Heartwell roused
himself.
“O, that? you must go and do her homage, for
she is your liege lady. That is the Dutchess of
Tuscany. Go and kneel and kiss her hand, like
a loyal subject. What, you have grown too much
of a republican, hey!”
“Truly my knees are become a little stubborn,”
my homage. What is she good for?”
“Good for, marry? why she is the most economical,
at the same time the most expensive lady
in town. She buys the richest furniture that can
be procured, and quiets her conscience by never
using it. The looking glasses are all veiled; the
carpets protected by green baizes, and the chairs
have all cover-sluts on; there is no doubt they
will last for ever, bating accidents of flood and
fire.”
A respectable old lady, with nothing distinguished
in dress, except a fine diamond cross, now
passed the two gentlemen.
“That,” said Heartwell, “is a lady of one of the
oldest families in the city. She can trace back,
if not to William the Conqueror, at least to Ragman's
Roll, for her great, great grandmother picked
up many a rag in her day. However, she
figured at the court of his majesty's little governor
before the war, and once passed for the belle of a
birth night ball. The old lady is talking at this
present moment, about having once nearly been
run over by a coach belonging to the son of her
father's barber. It is a story she has told without
mercy every day of her life, to every body that
had time to listen, and without doubt it has contributed
materially to her health and happiness,
for the last twenty years. If you'd like to hear it,
I'll introduce you.”
“O no, by no means—I'll take your word for
it,” said the other. “But who come here arm in
arm?”
This is the Right Honourable Miss Lilly Lovell,
who is the greatest philanthropist in the city. She
has a heart for all mankind except married men
and confirmed old bachelors. Her companion is
the Honourable Billy ullalove, a prosing coxcomb
who is eternally talking sentiment, and raving
about some fashionable beauty, although his heart
is nothing but a piece of dry sponge. He is a
general adorer.”
“This puts me in mind of Goethe's famous
novel, Wilhelm Meister, where the hero falls in
love with every woman in the book except Dame
Margery and the good Frau Melina; and where
the ladies equally complaisant all fall in love with
him, with the exceptions aforesaid.”
“By the way what think you of Goethe,” said
Heartwell, “they call him one of the only three
men of genius the world has produced.”
“They might as well say there never were but
three men in the world with noses, because they
happened to have longer noses than other people.
But the truth is there is a great tickling match
going on between Goethe and the English critics.
Goethe is striving how much he can exalt Shakspeare,
and they in turn are repaying him with
hyperbolical praises.”
“Then you don't think much of him?”
“I think a great deal of him—but there have
been such men in Italy as Dante, Tasso, and a few
others. Until Goethe produces something to
equal them, I shall demur to their being shut out
from this trio of exclusives. One thing is certain;
Lord Byron, who has been equally overrated, has
stolen—I mean borrowed without leave—his address
to Greece, commencing with `Know ye the
land,' from Goethe. It is a slavish parody of what
after all is hardly worth parodying.”
“Will you have any more of the court calendar?”
“No; you have given me quite as much of high
life as the English fashionable novels. But stay;
who is that lady yonder in the grand costume?”
“That is Mrs. Gold Smith, so called from her always
wearing a gold chain that cost as she tells every
body, a hundred guineas. Look my lord it comes.”
The lady now approached.
“Who are you madam?” asked he.
“Lord, Mr. Heartwell don't you see! I am
Queen Ann Bullen of Scotland. How do you
like me?”
“Madam,” said the other, “nobody can help
liking you, but your costume is not correct. Your
ruff is not high enough in the neck.”
“Lord Mr. Heartwell,” replied the lady, glancing
at her snowy neck, et cetera,—“would you have
me look like a witch?”
“Why not, madam, when you bewitch so many
lady again glanced at the waste of snow that lay
before her, with an air of perfect approbation.
“But would you believe it,” continued she,
“my sister here and I, have both forgot who she
is. It is quite provoking, when I made her repeat
it so often first before we came.”
“The young lady's loss of memory is particularly
distressing,” said Heartwell, gravely.
“O Hel, dear,”—cried the young lady clapping
her hands, “that is it,—that is it,—I knew it was
memorandum or memory.”
The count whispered in Heartwell's ear—
“Do the young republican ladies swear?”
“What do you mean?” said the other.
“Why the goddess of Memory certainly slipt
out an oath just now.”
“O,” said Heartwell, laughing, “her sister's
name is Heliodora, and Hel is only an innocent
abbreviation.”
“What gentleman is that with you?” said
queen Ann Bullen of Scotland.
“Count G—.”
“You don't say so! Ask him to come and sup
with us after the ball,” and away she tript towards
a lady whom she addressed with “My dear, do tell
me if your kitchen chimney smokes; mine is so
bad there is no such thing as living in it.”
“Is supper almost ready?” said the count, “I
they neglect to personate. 'Tis a bore, as
the English say, when they don't know what else
to say.”
“Certainly, almost as great a bore as some of
your masquerades, where I have seen a personification
of ætna belching fire, and a serpent thirty
feet long, hissing like a flock of matronly geese,
when their goslings are insulted. There will be
no supper to night, I have just heard from good
Queen Ann Bullen, who is capital authority.”
“No, alas! what will the innumerable Mrs.
Smiths say to that? Why they have not demolished
above fifty pickled oysters, a dozen jellies, and a
score of ice creams apiece. I pity them.”
“O, by the way, her majesty desired me to ask
you to supper to-night. Will you go?”
“No, no; no more of your fricasseed Guinea
hens. But see, she beckons with her royal hand.
Faith, it is a beautiful hand and arm. Good night,
my lord Duke Humphrey.”
“Good night, my lord Count of the Mouldering
Bridge.”
“One moment more,” cried the count. “Who
is the lady in pink, yonder.”
“The most atrocious man-slayer in town.”
“I thought so, for I observe not one of the
young men leave her without sideling up to the
nearest looking glass, adjusting their cravats, and
contemplating themselves with particular complacency.
he, drawing Heartwell towards a cotillion
party. “Look at that genius. I think I can conscientiously
make oath, that gentleman in the immovable
chin, is one of the John Bulls as they call
themselves, who have lately overrun Italy, and
sacked Rome like another Alaric and his Goths.
Instead, however, of subsisting by plunder as did
that valiant hero, they gain a comfortable livelihood
by writing books of romance under the disguise
of travels; and abusing us Italians for being
so immoral as not to talk English.”
“He certainly is an Englishman,” said Heartwell,
“no mortal man of any other nation or age,
could get through a cotillion without sense or motion.”
“He dances like the stump of one of Orpheus'
trees.”
“Or rather like one of his rocks; he certainly
belongs to the primeval family.”
“He would make a capital corner stone for the
wall of Thebes. And see, what a grace he has
for a partner!”
“Yes,” said Heartwell, “I have observed that
if a man happens to be gloriously deficient in any
one thing, he generally manages with admirable
adroitness, to make it as conspicuous as possible,
by placing himself in direct contrast with some
one who particularly excels. There! there! did
you see that resurrection of a dead caper. I could
the floor. It is now that I see the reason why
Queen Elizabeth made Sir Christopher Hatton her
Lord Chancellor, for his excellence in gestic lore,
since a true born, and true bred Englishman, who
can conquer the natural incapacity of his nation
for dancing, must be equal to any thing. I don't
wonder half so much at Sir Isaac Newton as I do
at Sir Christopher, who I look upon as the greatest
genius England ever produced.”
| CHAPTER IX.
MORE OF THE GRAND FANCY BALL. Tales of the good woman | |