Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1871-04-25
How a Peri, Pure as a Pearl, Became
Transformed into Bacchante.
washington Correspondence New York rribun

Washington Correspondence New York Tribune.
Perhaps the President was in the
smoking-room, and two or three of
his Cabinet Ministers 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-going; there were distin
guished strangers and world-known
women but the ball was given for none
ofthem; not for any enjoyment of wis.,
dom or learning or wit-these people
were but accessories along the wall
it was given for the display of beauty
and toilet it was a booth in Vanity
Fair, as | said, for the sale Of its
wares. Numberless beautiful shapes
fitted by you-you bewildered as
some Mohammedan just let loose
among the hours of his heaven.
Your eye rested on one, perhaps, a
face as pure as pearl it may have
been, yet lovely only with the love-
illness of youth, its dewy eye, its
downy skin, its happy smile but the
toilette was an allurement in itself,
with its delicately tinted silk, its
hoar-frost of lace, its pearls and dia-
monds the maiden moved so serene
ly along, so native to the air, as it
were, that it seemed as if such scenes
were the only ones in which it was
fit she should be found. But you
watched her for a while, saw her,
warm from the dance, as she took
her ice, while her bare white shout
ders were in the draught that sway
ed the curtain behind her; presently
she went further into the great sup
per-room. eating there-like locust
with the appetite of youth and
dancing; she ended by swallowing
the little bird moulded of pate de foie
grdS, and Nesting in jelly so strong
ly seasoned as to drive the blood to
her temple; she slipped potation
into which nothing entered but old
spirits and fermenting fruit juices,
and then her partners arm was round
her waist, her head was on his shout
der. and she was plunging at the sig
nal into the German, whirling to de-
licious measures, presently clasped
in a new embrace, flying from that
mans arms TO another's, growing
wild with the abandon of the figure,
her hair flying, her dress disordered,
her powder caked, her face red, till
pausing one instant for the cham-
Dagne in n servant's hands Vour GIRL
with face as pure rs pearl, seemed
nothing but deirious Bacchante.
If you pursued observation further,
you found that she went home at
day break, that still throbbing with
excitement she could find no sleep,
but that knowing if she did not
sleep she would be unfit for the next
rout, she dosed herself with sooth-
ing drug, and was soon lost in dreams
as wild as the night had been-a ire
mendous drug, as yet unknown in all
it's powers TO it's discoverers-whlch
burns and paralyzes her eyelids, and
and blinds her eyes and makes her
brain for many day as useless as
her hands, resting her nerves and
weakening them, aud leaving them
all ready, with the next strain, for
foamlng and torturing Mysteries and
idiotic epilepsy and yen acknowl-
edge that Lent came none too early,
unless she and all her kin wished
death to take them "where they new
er see the sun"