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With all their disadvantages the natives seem to extract a good deal of enjoyment out of existence. They are very fond of singing and dancing to the rude strains of a drum and harp, and usually prolong their revelries far into the night. Taken as a whole, the native character has many fine traits; and from the civilization and development of this part of her population, Liberia has much to hope.
It is conjectured that these festivities, with their nonsensical ceremonies, were of pagan origin, and probably the celebration of the Carnival is derived from the same source; many attempts were made to abolish so disgraceful a custom as the continuance of the Fêtes des Fous, with the absurdities incidental to its revelries, but it was not until the Parisians became more enlightened that any monarch could succeed in its entire suppression.
Liberals, Economists, Utilitarians enough I see marching with its bier, and chanting loud paeans, towards the funeral pile, where, amid wailings from some, and saturnalian revelries from the most, the venerable Corpse is to be burnt.
All of these persons are here for a legitimate purpose; that is, to sit as models, for a given sum per hour, and to this object they honestly adhere. It probably derives its name from the Pincii family, whose estate it belonged to in the period of the Empire. Hereabouts, of old, were the celebrated gardens of Lucullus; and here Messalina, wife of Claudius, indulged in revelries.
A group of those men famous in the world of art and letters under the influence of the wine they had taken so freely, laughed loudly at some coarse jest. Others, thinking, perhaps, if they could be said to think at all, that their host's attack was not serious, renewed conversations and bravely attempted to restore a semblance of animation to the interrupted revelries.
The nocturnal revelries of Goldy and his intimates are happily described in Mr. Forster's biography. Supper-parties were frequent, "preceded by blind-man's-buff, forfeits, or games of cards, when Goldsmith, festively entertaining them all, would make frugal supper for himself off boiled milk." Seguin," the wife of an Irish merchant.
Some one said he was too great a barbarian, and so he was. His sports and revelries had been on a wilder, ruder, more violent scale, such as made these seem tame. He did not understand mere trifling for amusement's sake, still less how money could be thrown away for it and for fashion, when it was so cruelly wanted by real needs; and even Dermot was made uncomfortable by his thorough earnestness.
Lord Greville, whose parents were zealous supporters of the royal cause, had himself shared the banishment of the second Charles; had fought by his side in his hour of peril, and shared the revelries of his court in his after days of prosperity.
There were many, highly-colored accounts of all-night revelries; expense accounts, of which every second item was champagne and every fifth bromo-selzer, etc., etc. Of course but a limited number of papers with this extraneous sheet were printed and those distributed only at the dinner. One, however, was sent to the Eastern magazine which had dispatched our muckraking hero to the Golden Gate.
Have they the means for cultivating social refinements, for practising the fine arts, and for intellectual and moral improvement? Add to this, the mental ignorance, and moral degradation; the daily separations of kindred, the revelries of lust, the lacerations and baptisms of blood, sanctioned by the laws of the South, and patronized by its pubic sentiment.
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