The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1871-03-16
SOCIETY IN WARRINGTON.
The Season and Its DIssipations-Who
and How-Lent Welcome Relief.

The Season and Its sDIssipations-Wh
and How-Lent q Welcome Relief.
A chatty correspondent of the New York
Tribune, sketching the effect Of Lent upon the
social gayeties of the national capital, says:
If any one entertains doubt as to the virtue
of certain regulations of the Holy Catholic
Church, winter In Washington would go lar
cluded that period when the festivities, raging
at their highest, are suddenly reduced to
ashes by the eXtlngusher OF Lent, IN which
case the forty days Of fasting and prayer Will
be seen to lose half their ritualisic significance
and become sanitary provision. And GER
taiAly no Lent was ever more needed than
this one has been; for the season has not been
short one, and its eXactions have been se-
we're. Matrons, martyrs to the morning visit
to the extent OF TIVE hundred OF three hundred
week, have foresworn home and taken, not
/ to their beds, but to their coaches, so long as
1t lasted. The doctor has become the bosom
friend of halt the world, and m0ttneeS dan
santes and receptions have fed Its flame furi-
ously; while rs It's end approached, as the Gus
tom is, 1t blazed like little Gehenna.
You think the term Is strong; but to-what
better can one compare thing that aosorbs
life and strength and beauty AND health, INTO
which mothers fling their daughters as they
used to fling them into the fires OF Moloch,
from which the blooming girls come out too
often little different from painted beldame,
and which ia The kinder OF fevers and fits and
the wh0le>tfain.of cataleptc and nervous dls-
eases The Washington season. Is iadeed
generic thing. Women come to the place for
She sake of It, as they 70 to no other city. The
ridiculous assumption that the wives OF poll
ticians have no right to any privacy renders
official society accessible to all, while he.in-
Productions obtained there. to people OF the
more select circles, when fortified by wealth
and pertinacity, open the whole charmed
with single public reception, and enticed 10
venture tufther, one is soon plunged In three
and and ears m the last half dozen. Not to
be seen at Mrs. !Carisle's evenings Is to
be parvenu not to attend Mrs. Bryan's
dancing afternoons Is to be plebelan; to have
been absent from Lady Thornton's parties was
to have been ignobly uninyited; not eo hare
.been part OF the Peruvian Freyre's ball was
vulgar unacqualntauce with the diplomats;
and if you went 10 The Pemeroys, where the
dining-room of the Arlington was the only
place large enough to banquet the guests, bow
could you refuse to 60 to the Hallldays on the
same night, where daughter Of tae ne1laa mouse
had lust become countess, and, meanwhile.
the hops at the hotels, the theatres, anu the
dinners, hurrying on
.BaIlg and masks begun at midnight, burning
ever TO midday.
When they made up fresh adventures for the
morrow, dc you say -
as IL time were to be no more Pleasant things
these balls, too; one must be anchorite TO
deny It ;;Ipiightful booths for the waylarer
through Vanity Fair When you entered thelr
atmosphere you found 1t something vastly
other than that OF the real matter.of-faet life OF
every day that pursued you outside; 1t was
region OF enchantment; the staircases, from
basement to roof, wound with Towering shrub,
where art concealed everything but the branch
and blossom wreaths and balls and baskets OF
flowers swipgng.from Intel and window and
picture and bracket roses crowning the stat
ues sprays of dropping vines Wreathing the
chandeliers that shed the soft brilliance. of wax
lights overhead mantels covered with moss
and bedded with violets tall vases on precious
pediments lifting an overhowing wealth OF
azallas and heliOtropes, and rare clusters or
scarlet passion.f flowers, and cold canelias. and
burning geraniums, and great white orchids
hiving huneyed breath In their golden hearts,
and daphnes dying oil their own sweetness,
encircllng the tern-hlled basins where tiny
fountains cooled the air about them music
murmured there too; stream OF gorgeous
hues and tissues, bare bosoms and blazing
levels, ascended and descenied the. stairway
down one vista dancers flashed in and ont
their mazes, down another the crystal and
gold and silver OF table shope, red with Bur
Tnpdy and Bordeaux, tempting with terrapln
and truffies. with enOrmfties OF spiced meats
and pastries and contections and fruits.
Perhaps the President was In the smoking
room, and two or three OF his Cabinet minis
tiers were not far away; the general OF the
army, the admiral Of the navy, were sure to
be among the guests There were the.foreign
ministers, whose whole life is In party-goinSi
there were distinguished strangers and world
known women, too; but the ball was given for
none of them, not for any eD3oymentof Wis.,
dom or learning. or wit-thcse people were
for the display Of beauty and toilette; 1t was q
booth in Vanity Fair, as said, for the sale of
Its wares Nulnberless beautiful shapes fitted
by you-you, bewildered as some Mohanme-
dan inst let loose among the holris OF his
heaven. Your eye rested onOne, perhaps,
lovely only with the loveliness of youth, It's
dewy eye, Its duwny skin, lis happy
emrte: but the toilette was an allurement
In itself, with its delicately-tlnted silk, Its
hoarfrost OF lace, its pearls and dia-
mends; the maiden moved so sereneiy
along, SO native to the air, as 1t weres that 1t
seemed as If such scenes. were the only ones.1
in which it was fit she should be fe,rRd But
YOU watched her for a while, saw her, warm
from the dance, as she took her Ice, while her
bare white shoulders were in the drauSht that
swayed the heavy curtain behind her; present.
ly she went further into the great supper
room, eating there-like O locust-Wth the
appetite of youth and dancing; she ended oy
swallowing the little bird moulded pdte de tOtS
gras, and nesting jelly go strongly seasoned,
as 10 drive The blood to her temples, she SIP.
ped a potaion into which nothing entered but
old spirits and ferpenting fruit;julces, ana
then her partners arm was round her Waist,
her head was on his shoulder, and she was
plunging at the signal into the German,
whirlng to delicious measures, presently
clasped in new embrace, flying from that
mans arms to anolher's, growing wild with
the abandon of the figure, her hair ny
ing, her dress disordered, her powder
caked, her face red, till palslng one
instantfor the champagne in a servants hands,
your girl with the face as pure as pearl, SEEM
ed nothing but delicious Bacchante II you
pursued observation further, you found that
She went home atdaybreak, that still throbbiag
with excitement she could find no sleep, but
that knowing ii she did not sleep she would be
unfit for the next rout, she dosed herselt Win
a soothing drug and was soon lost in'dreams
as wild as the night had been-a tremendous
drug, as yet unknown in all its powers to lts
discoverer-which burns and paralyzes ner
eyelds, and blinds her eyes. and makes hef
brain for many day as useless as her hands,
resting her nerves by weakening them, lnd
leaving them all ready, with the next Strain,
tor foaning and torturing Mysteries and idlotlc
epilepsy; and you acknowledge thaI Lent
came none too early, unless sne and all her KIN