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Updated: June 14, 2025
We now return to Saint-Mande, where the superintendent was in the habit of receiving his select confederacy of epicureans. For some time past the host had met with nothing but trouble. Every one in the house was aware of and felt for the minister's distress. No more magnificent or recklessly improvident reunions.
These brilliant reunions took place in a hall which the ambassador had built for the purpose, and decorated with extraordinary luxury and splendor; and his Majesty, as I have said, consented to honor with his presence a masked ball given by this ambassador, which was to eclipse all others.
Besides the strawberries, there are ice creams and cake and lemonade, and that sort of thing: and one always feels so well the next day after such a diet! But as social reunions, if there are good things to eat, nothing can be pleasanter; and they are very profitable, if you have a good object. I agreed that we ought to have a festival; but I did not know what object to devote it to.
But he had all a true United Presbyterian's loyal affection for the Synod, and a peculiar delight in those reunions of old friends which its meetings afforded. Amongst his oldest friends was William Graham, who although, since the English Union, no longer a United Presbyterian, simply could not keep away from the haunts of his youth when the month of May came round.
Hence the reunions of these people have been characterized by a sprightliness and vigor and spirit that the Anglo-Saxon has in vain attempted to seize and reproduce. English and American conversazioni have very generally proved a failure, from the rooted, frozen habit of reticence and reserve which grows with our growth and strengthens with our strength.
Rudin stood in the middle of the room and spoke, spoke splendidly, for all the world like the young Demosthenes by the resounding sea; our poet, Subotin of the dishevelled locks, would now and then throw out some abrupt exclamation as though in his sleep, while Scheller, a student forty years old, the son of a German pastor, who had the reputation among us of a profound thinker, thanks to his eternal, inviolable silence, held his peace with more rapt solemnity than usual; even the lively Shtchitof, the Aristophanes of our reunions, was subdued and did no more than smile, while two or three novices listened with reverent transports.... And the night seemed to fly by on wings.
There was but one drawback to Grace's pleasure. The thought that she had brought even a breath of sadness to her old friend, Mrs. Gray. There were moments, too, when she experienced a faint resentment against Tom. Must her reunions with her friends be forever haunted by the knowledge that she had made one of the Eight Originals unhappy?
Last night I heard the 'Ode for the Daughters of Dixie. I had a bad time listening to that." "Do you presume to criticise it? Do we criticise your Grand Army reunions, and your 'Marching through Georgia, and your 'John Brown's Body, and your Arlington Museum? Can we not be allowed to celebrate our heroes and our glories and sing our songs?" She had helped me already!
It is a marked peculiarity of the American character that the bitterest foes in party warfare generally meet each other on terms of perfect social courtesy in the drawing-rooms of society; and future presidential candidates, cabinet members, senators, congressmen, jurists, orators, and battle heroes lent the little social reunions of Springfield a zest and exaltation never found perhaps impossible amid the heavy, oppressive surroundings of conventional ceremony, gorgeous upholstery, and magnificent decorations.
Unfortunately, the Empress Josephine did not hold the same views, and being a submissive slave of fashion, liked to prolong her evenings after the Emperor had retired. She had the habit of then collecting around her her most intimate ladies and a few friends, and giving them tea. Gaming was entirely precluded from these nocturnal reunions, of which conversation was the only charm.
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