limitable; that air of superior knowledge and style; that dash of
sentiment; that calm and somewhat haughty judgment.

I am always impressed at such an entertainment with the good-humor of
the American people, no matter what may be the annoyance and discomfort.

In all the push and thrust and confusion, amid the rending of trains,
the tearing of lace, the general crushing of costumes, there was the
merriest persiflage, laughter, and chatter, and men and women entered
into and drew out of the fashionable wreck in the highest spirits. For
even in such a spacious mansion there were spots where currents met, and
rooms where there was a fight for mere breath. It would have been a tame
affair without this struggle. And what an epitome of life it all was!
There were those who gave themselves up to admiration, who gushed with
enthusiasm; there were those who had the weary air of surfeit with
splendor of this sort; there were the bustling and volatile, who made
facetious remarks, and treated the affair like a Fourth of July; and
there were also groups dark and haughty, like the Stotts, who held a
little aloof, and coldly admitted that it was most successful; it lacked
je ne sais quoi, but it was in much better taste than they had expected.
Is there something in the very nature of a crowd to bring out the
inherent vulgarity of the best-bred people, so that some have doubted
whether the highest civilization will tolerate these crushing and
hilarious assemblies?

At any rate, one could enjoy the general effect. There might be vulgar
units, and one caught notes of talk that disenchanted, but there were so
many women of rare and stately beauty, of exquisite loveliness, of charm
in manner and figure--so many men of fine presence, with such an air
of power and manly prosperity and self-reliance--I doubt if any other
assembly in the world, undecorated by orders and uniforms, with no
blazon of rank, would have a greater air of distinction. Looking over it
from a landing in the great stairway that commanded vistas and ranges
of the lofty, brilliant apartments, vivified by the throng, which
seemed ennobled by the spacious splendor in which it moved, one would be
pardoned a feeling of national pride in the spectacle. I drew aside to
let a stately train of beauty and of fashion descend, and saw it sweep
through the hall, and enter the drawing-rooms, until it was lost in a
sea of shifting color. It was like a dream.

And the centre of all