it sometimes difficult to repress the inclination within becoming
bounds.

About midnight supper was announced; and let it not be forgotten, since
it was of an order worthy the country represented, and our excellent
minister's character for hospitality. After this the party thinned
rapidly, and by half-past one o'clock the ball-room was silent. I
lighted my cigar, and took my accustomed walk up the great avenue to the
Capitol hill, thence surveyed for a moment the silent city, and back to
my quarters at Fuller's, making a distance of full three miles; and so
concluded a busy and right pleasant four-and-twenty hours.

IMPRESSIONS OF WASHINGTON SOCIETY, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE.

I attended several large assemblies at Washington, and must here, after
a second visit, and so much experience as my opportunities afforded,
enter my protest against the sweeping ridicule it has pleased some
writers to cast upon these doings here; since I saw none of those
outrageously unpresentable women, or coarsely habited and ungainly men,
so amusingly arrayed by some of my more observant predecessors. I can
only account for it by referring to the rapid changes ever taking place
here, and to which I have alluded in my introduction to these
"Impressions."

The ordinary observances of good society are, I should say, fully
understood and fully practised at these public gatherings, and not more
of the ridiculous presented than might be observed at any similar
assemblage in England, if half so much; since here I have commonly found
that persons who have no other claims to advance save money or a seat in
the legislature, very wisely avoid _reunions_, where they could neither
look to receive nor bestow pleasure.

It is quite true that many of these members, all of whom are by rank
eligible to society, may be met with, who are more rusty of bearing than
most of those within St. Stephen's; but I will answer for this latter
assembly outfacing them in samples of rudeness, ill-breeding, and true
vulgarity: for it is a striking characteristic of the American, that, if
not conventionally polished perhaps, you will rarely find him either
rude or discourteous; whilst amongst those who, in the nature of the
government, are elevated from a comparatively obscure condition to place
and power, although refinement cannot be inserted as an addendum to the
official diploma, the aspirant usually adopts with his appointment a
quiet formal strain of ceremony,