A few determined revellers would lose no opportunity of enjoying the
delight of dressing themselves up in costumes, which they deemed
specially adapted to show off to advantage either their physical
perfections or their intellectual and social pretensions. Sometimes,
as may have been observed by those who have witnessed such
revelries, it unfortunately happens that both the above desirable
results are not quite compatible. Our friend the Conte Leandro, for
instance, having determined to appear at the Circolo ball in the
character of Dante--which, for a poet at Ravenna, was a very proper
and natural selection--presented himself at the Palazzo Castelmare
in that of Apollo--an equally well-imagined presentation; had it not
been that the happy intellectual analogy was less striking to the
vulgar eye, than the remarkable exhibition of knock-knees and bow-
legs resulting from the use of the "fleshings;" which constituted an
indispensable portion of the god's attire.
He carried in one hand what had very much the appearance of a gilt
gridiron; but was intended to represent a lyre; and in the other a
paper, which was soon known to contain a poem of congratulation
addressed to the host, on the announcement which, all the city well
knew by this time, had been made to him that morning.
The rooms were thronged with black dominoes, and white dominoes, and
pink, and scarlet, and blue, and parti-coloured dominoes.
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