y and with a perfect indifference
to exclusiveness, requiring only the hat to be taken off upon entering,
and rejecting only short jackets, cigar, pipe, and meerschaum. A room
of this description, a temple dedicated to fashion, fortune, and
flirtation, requires a pen more current, a voice more eloquent,
than mine to trace, condense, vivify, and depict. Taking everything,
therefore, for granted, let us suppose a vast saloon of regular
proportions, rather longer than broad, at either end garnished by a
balcony; beneath, doors to the right and left, and opposite to the main
entrance, conduct to other apartments, dedicated to different purposes.
On entering the eye is at once dazzled by the blaze of lights from
chandeliers of magnificent dimensions, of lamps, lustres, and sconces.
The ceiling and borders set off into compartments, showered over with
arabesques, the gilded pillars, the moving mass of promenaders, the
endless labyrinth of human beings assembled from every region in Europe,
the costly dresses, repeated by a host of mirrors, all this combined,
which the eye conveys to the brain at a single glance, utterly fails in
description. As with the eye, so it is with the ear; at every step a new
language falls upon it, and every tongue with different intonation, for
the high and the low, the prince, peer, vassal, and tradesman, the proud
beauty, the decrepit crone, some fresh budding into the world, some
standing near the grave, the gentle and the stern, the sombre and the
gay, in short, every possible antithesis that the eye, ear, heart can
perceive, hear, or respond to, or that the mind itself can imagine, is
here to be met with in two minutes. And yet all this is no Babel; for
all, though concentrated, is admirably void of confusion; and evil
or strong passions, if they do exist, are religiously suppressed--a
necessary consequence, indeed, where there can be no sympathy, and where
contempt and ridicule would be the sole reciprocity. In case, however,
any such display should take place, a gendarme keeps constant watch
at the door, appointed by government, it is true, but resembling our
Bow-street officers in more respects than one.

'Now that we have taken a survey of the brilliant and moving throng, let
us approach the stationary crowd to the left hand, and see what it is
that so fascinates and rivets their attention. They are looking upon a
long table covered with green cloth, in the centre of which is a large
polish