The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1868-03-10
THE PuRIM.
A Night With the Prince Carnival-The
Princes Last, Gayest and Most Fantastic.

~o->~~~~>~-~~~~~~~~>~>~~
A Night With the Prince Carnival-The
Princes Last, Gayest and Most Fantastic.
The Purim bali, last, grandest and gayest Of all
freaks Of the Prince Carnival came on last night at
Pixies Opera House, corner Of Twenty-third street
and Eighth avenue, and proved to be, per-
hans the most stylish and fashionably Sc
lect Of the wnvs season. the IisaaS
having expended the inspTation Oh mo mos.
brilliant and fantastic whms upon the festival Of his
leave taking OF the metropolis, For three weeks the
Prince had puzzled his wits for novelties of design;
for three weeks sought out In the remoest crannles
of his disonted imagination for that which should
represent the climax OF his fantasy; and, firstly, to
give the color to humOr OF his within and Undue it
with vitality, the old Prince caused the Opera House
to be transformed into a sort OF Persian
palace In which strange figures crept on the
wall and moved to and fro thereon strange faces, as
If the wind fell upon them and caused them to take
all the humor and comedy OF life. And that there
might be nothing smacking OF the theatrical in his
pageant the old Prince caused the stage to be oored
over and walls to be erected from column to col
umn which showed whatsoever might have been
visible OF the ordinary painted appurte-
nances of the opera; for the Prince was
novel in his whims and oftentimes expensive, and
he spared and would permit to be spared no pains or
expense to render the building within true tran
script and symbol Of the odd, ideal dreams which
forever haunted his lunacles. Not however that the
Prince was altogether lunatic. There was on the
other hand, vast deal of methodcal magnihcence in
the quaint grandeurs with which his humor enveloped
all things. There was more method than madness
In his Freaks and though the creations of whm had
a sort OF CHASTITY magnfcence about them, they were
far from wanting in sort of grotesque regularity
NJ Oyyn xya rd ron ha tharaf n
weird figures to be painted on the WALL and that
they might seem to be forever in notion the colors
were blended that 1t was difficult to per-
ceive where the one color ended and the
other began. Then the white columns of the Opera
House, with gilded capitals, he caused to be so
wreathed as to metamOrphOse them into white shafts
UNFOLDING capitals of Oriental blossoms Of every sort
Moreover, as the Prince was fond Of ghastiness Of
effect, he made Of some colors which no artist
would have made Of in his sober Senses and thus
succeeded in producing a sort OF Dore-esque
intensity Of the odd, exceeding all previous
efforts Of his whimsical brain. Furthermore,
and to Undue the whole with flavor Of
allegory, the Prince caused huge turret to be
erected near the entrance to his palace, ana upon
this set huge windmill In sort of mockery, as
the old gentleman expressed It, OF the instability OF
human affairs and the general way In which men
veer to the wind. This done, the humor of the
Prince was satisfied, and he turned his attention TO
in such way as to spell the word
PURIM
in rather grotesque capitals OF fire: and here the
Prince, having expended some $40, 900 in the way OF
whimscalities, declared himself satisfied with the
decorations of his palace for night and proceeded
to the elaboration OF other details.
At eight O'Clock blaze of fire crept over the
swinging gilt baskets Of white tapers set In pyramid
and an uneasy flicker of light was let in upon the
scene Hereupon the Prince declared himself ready
for the reception of his guests only stipuatng that
even in their attire should be reproduced grotesque
maginings OF his own, so that they should
seem to be, not men and women but strange
harmony with the odd figures on the waH ana the
odd fantasies which he had everywhere fashioned as
the furnishing OF his palace. They came-mockeriey
asseMbage who lent for the time utter allegiance to
the grotesque liege who had evoked Them. It was q
palace of whim, peopled with creatures OF whim and
governed by the most whimsical Prince whose fancs,
ever conceived festival. No meaning in it-there
was no meaning meant; and the few spectators who
looked for meaning looked for meaning where IT was
not. 1t was simply farewell imaginative freak OF
the ruler OF the seasonodd enough, to be sure, but
meaning nothing by its oddly except to amuse the
strange guests in mask, as odd and gro
tesque every one of them as Prince Car
nival could well have wished had they been
his own natural progeny begotten OF the humors
which infected his own oyerheated fancy. They
came and, one by one and couple by couple they
any OF the odd things exhumed in Mr.. Layard's eX-
cavations ut Nineveh. With the Arion and
dSa the and Would haS noe Of
Of them-mockeres and travesiies Of oriental deni.
zens; and as gay pilgrimage they made unto the
regning deity Of the occasion land as faithfully ever
made Moslem to his Mecca or Greek to his Dephine
oracle they % ancv 81 ss ere %
satisfied and he complimented them all on
their exceeding fitness Of personnel for for
was filled with buzzing masks, which
muttered and kept muttering low monody and
understood by nobody except the particular mask to
whom 1t was addressed. Low, singular sounds, In
sort of strange tremolo they uttered as they swung
Prince had impressed Mr.. Theodore Thomas into his
service for the evening-and then, as by
ng ana beaan tSe dsnce stranSe music
of goblin sort, well BETTING the peculiarly odd
and il-assorted magniicence Of the OCCASION broke
in from gallery stand upon the hum OF asett0 voices,
and thus begun the festival. Here the Prince
took occasion, with wink that meant something, to
declare that he had typined human life in his odd
sort OF festival and that he had simply shifted the
outside to the inside for a night, exhibiting
man as he was Within. and not as he
was without; for, observed the Prince, there
IL more Of masquerade in human affairs
they in what men call real life than in this
which men call masquerade; only in real life men wear
their masks so well that none know where the mask
ends and the real begins And thus, In his own
peculiar reasoning, the Prince demonstrated that
real life Is only masquerade after ALL in which the
dancers wear their masks so naturally that the man
and the mask are one.
The Prince might have lectured till doomsday had
II not been that IL no prncey courtesy to neg
ec his guests, and accordingly he set himself TO the
task OF manufacturing gayetes for every hour OF the
festival. And first, TO some sort OF creaS.ng
music. the rl,uce set himself to illustrate the
subject OF reconstruction, and, that which needed
reconstruction most Of all he selected Barnum's
Museum a. the institution TO be reconstructed. IL
pageant OF oddly only equalled by the original
museum; for not even Barnum could manufacture
mermaids with the Prince and az to imaginary beings
OF all sorts, the Prince could manufacture faster
than Barnum could import And this in the
course OF the pageant he proved; for the
plan OF the presiding god OF the occasion,
though triie funny aud carcatursh, was
not more so than the original II represented. Then
came the Iron Man on Broadway-an invention IN
which the genius OF the night displayed his oddities
of conception to the best advantages: and still fol-
lowed side pageants OF every sort, which were en-
acted by masks and mimcked real life which TO
mimic was one of the old mans humors.
" was now nearly midnight and the Prince had
prepared little joke ~ the expense OF his guests
Ihis was no other than sudden exit, leaving the
jewellers of the night without n master of the rcNc