If he were not exactly a wit, he was
still, however, full of unaffected fun, and threw out the results of a
_roue_ life with considerable ease and point. He had inherited a fair
and peer-like property, which he had contrived to embarrass in so
complicated and extraordinary a manner that he had been a ruined man for
years, and yet lived well on an income allowed him by his creditors to
manage his estate for their benefit. The joke was, he really managed
it well. It was his hobby, and he prided himself especially upon his
character as a man of business.
The banquet is certainly the best preparative for the ball, if its
blessings be not abused, for then you get heavy. Your true votary of
Terpsichore, and of him we only speak, requires, particularly in a land
of easterly winds, which cut into his cab-head at every turn of every
street, some previous process to make his blood set him an example in
dancing. It is strong Burgundy and his sparkling sister champagne that
make a race-ball always so amusing a _divertissement_. One enters the
room with a gay elation which defies rule without violating etiquette,
and in these county meetings there is a variety of character, and
classes, and manners, which is interesting, and affords an agreeable
contrast to those more brilliant and refined assemblies the members of
which, being educated by exactly the same system and with exactly the
same ideas, think, look, move, talk, dress, and even eat, alike; the
only remarkable personage being a woman somewhat more beautiful than
the beauties who surround her, and a man rather more original in his
affectations than the puppies that surround him.
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