The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1881-03-14
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That Inauguration Ball.
Reportorial English Run Mad.


washington Republican,
And now in the mad whirl and intoxication
OF the dance the scene grew bewildering in its
beauty, till every heart was stepped in the spell
OF romance, and the sombre soberness of prosa
&c life was for the while shimmered over with
the sheen OF sentiment. In and out of the
arches, adown every vista that cleaned in the
soft radiance of the light, the dancers writhed
and glided and turned like shadows from sway
ing, swinging vines in the fitful breezes of a
moonlight night. The intense, penetrating,
yet softened and mellowed glow of the electric
light flooded the whole area with wave on
wave of scintillating splendor, as brilliant and
beautiful as starlight sparkling on SUBMITS of
snow. In its chaste, permeating radiance, the
lime white sheen of the calcium lights wa3
robbed OF its CHASTITY glare, and they shone
with suodued gleam, giving picturesque force
to the view All salient angles were softened.
and all points transfused with the mellow tints
of fairyland. Crowds of beautiful women.
stimulated by all the accessories of the dance,
were resplendent in elegant and tasteful toi-
lets, that were bright with color, sweet with
perfume, and rich in costly and delicate fab
RIGS.
THE People
were varied and interesting in the extreme.
and each one seemed cast in his happiest, most
genial mood. The splendor and color of dress
were superb, the beauty of ornament magnif-
cent. There was tie glitter of gems, the spar.
kle OF diamonds, the deep passionate flush of
rubies, the purple simmer of amethysts, the
milk-white CLEAN of pearls. There was a
softly-fashing lust-e of eyes which outshone
the diamonds; there was the snowy hue of
arms that shamed even pearls into dinginess
there was the merry and happy rustic of voices
free and tender and melodious with love and
pleasure and joy; and Sousa never before
produced such music as the waves
OF his baton caused to tremble on
the palpitating air. All the poetry of the
American soul was there, materialzed in mo-
uon and symphonied out in sound. All the
glory, all the wild, delicious dreams of mirth
ana Joy that sluH,b boz IA, tho Iaao1aary of tAo
dance were wakened into melodious murmur
and movement. The indescribable murmur
winch seems born of the magnetism of
JOYOUS CROWD,
which is indescribable in itself, whose subtle
grace and sweetness elude the most minute
analysis and which forms one of the chief ele-
ments OF the dance fascination, kept time with
the melody OF the musicians and the motion of
the dancers as if it were a part no less of one
than the other. But the dancers! How shall
they be described? They were foam. caps on
the spray of schottches, dewdrops glistening on
the web of waltzes, flakes of feathery down
hoatlng amid the Drouttes Of polkas cotton
seeds. carelessly cast on the caracoles of cotil-
lions, glints OF glitter cleaning in the gyrations
OF galops. Like dreams stiff frozen as they
stood in the pauses of the music like dreams
lnextrlcably meshed and mingled in may mo-
ton when the music resumed its sway, shad-
ows glaneing on rippling waters through wind
stlrred foliage, in breezy moonlghts, shadows,
rising and falling and writhing with every
breath of melody, knowing no law but har-
mony, having no aim but grace. living no
life but JOY, these dancers transformed the
scene into courts of Elhand, and living men
and women into veritable fays and trolls.
rive thousand persons at one time moving rest
lessly but tlmefully and tunefully in mazes
that seemed hopelessly inextricable, till the
eye grew dazed with watching their labyrin-
thine glides, till to stop and describe them
were as idle and pedantic as to refuse to re-
ceive enjoyment from the shimmering of
star because we did not know its name or to
refrain from inhaliEg the fragrance of a flower
because its botany was unknown to the breath
er The American beauty in its bloom and
blush was there, and to the poets heart no
fuller or fairer description is to be sought or
desired. But, as on clear summer nights,
there are stars of the first magnitude that burn
grandly in the summer skies over all their
brilliant rivals, SO we're there here this night
THREE WOMEN
whose faces shone over that sea of spendor
like stars on the waste of a tropic wave, serene,
splendid, superb. Do not ask the names.
The landscape that charms us is not labeled,
nor IS the sunset that sleeps us in shining
splendors never to be forgotten any the less
lovely because it is not photographed and
slowed away in our albums. Landscape and
sunset pass away with the gaze, leaving be-
hlnd them memory that sweetens life's Bit
terness and smooths away many of lfe's as
perities. But the memory is indeed the re-
membrance of sunset that has faded and
landscape that is gone. But the crash of the
music and the whirl of the walters come fast
er and faster, the chords of the melody flow on
freer and fuller, till at last, in one grand burst
OF whirl and harmony, the last waltz is ended
and the dancers float away-like dream that
is broken or a ball that is done