We take Brighton this time
with the Sendalls." And so on. It dribbles for the regulation time, and,
after a sufficient period of mortal endurance, the crowd disperse, and
proceed to scandalize each other or to carry news elsewhere about the
ladies who were looking "remarkably well-l-l."
As for the dreadful crushes, what can one say? The absurd rooms where
six hundred people try to move about in a space meant for three hundred;
the staircase a Black-Hole tempered by flowers; the tired smile of the
hostess; the set simper of long-recked shaven young men; the patient,
tortured hypocrisy of hustled and heated ladies; the babble of scrappy
nothings; the envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness; the
magnificence turned into meanness; the lack of all feeling of home, and
the discontented dispersal of ungrateful people--are these the things to
occupy life? Are these the things to interest any manly man who is free
to act for himself? Hardly.
But our "company" refers to the meeting of human souls and hearts, and
not to the meeting of a fortuitous concourse of male and female
evening-dresses. I have now before me a very brilliant published account
of a reception at George Eliot's house. Those assemblies were company,
and company of the finest kind.
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