Year: 1866

[
erand-festivities that glow with the spiri,
of genial humanity. Pleasure donned va
rious costumes and was sunniest in each, and
whether she spoke the language Of the Rhine
or our own vernacular, it was her native
tongue for the utterance of enjoyment. Now
turn we away from this, and introduce three
| types of beautiful women drawn in facile out
line by the graceful pencil of the reporter OF
the New York Tribune. They three attracted
his attention amid the hundreds that thronged
the Academy of Music in New York upon the
occasion Of the German masked ball there a
few evening since. Distance lends enchant-
ment to the view. Far be it from us to init
mate that from abroad must be imported
beauty as described. But We had no repor-
ter to sketch the ladies that graced the mas
querade at the Estes House, and they will be
pleased TO meet thus delineated their fair sis.
ters of the Academy, whose fortune it was to
act upon wider stage and amid more bril-.
liant surroundings:


All women are beautiful by courtesy, but
none in fact; for beauty expresses more than
nature is willing to allow to humanity.


lnasmuch, however, as beauty has grown to
be conventional substantive applied to the
gentler sex, meaning merely comelinees,
handsomeness, or attractiveness, we shall
permit our head line to remain, for the sake
of ALTERATION, if for no other reason


There were many fair women among the
gay maskers last evening, and such variety
of styles, too, that all lowers of feminine
aesthetics must have been grati6ed. Conspic-
uous among the many were three who partic-
ularly attracted our attention and awoke our
admiration.


We know not, We care not, who they were.
They were women, and they were lovely
That is enough for the ideal The simple
fact furnishes the theme for poesy and the
purple groundwork of a romantic vision.
One OF them must have been German. from
her fulness OF outline.-not too full for spir-
ltuality and elegance-her rich faxen tresses
and soft, deep blue eye. She was a genuine
blonde, one ofthe women Goethe delighted to
draw, and Schiller 10 blend with his affluent
rythm of his most tender verse. She seemed
TO have something Of Fredereika and Of
Thekla in her form and voice and manner
Soft and arch and piquant, yet intense and
earnest and passionate, she moved along like
dream shape, and cast the sunshine of her





tulness were in every feature and moyem mt,
and one conld imagine her fresh from the
valleys of peace, and that she saw in the pres
ent the Eden of her highest hopes. She wore
no mask, believing, doubtless, that
Beauty is its own excuse for being"


and as she foated across the floor all eyes
followed her, and the giddy throng paused in
its revelry to admire the woman who appeared
to have wandered all her life amid the roses
untouched by the thorns.


The second Hebe of the hour was 1.-THE and
lissome. evidently an American from the in
telectual, intense, pale, eager face that riyet
ed the gaze wherever It's luster fell Brunette
with somewhat of Italy and southern France
in her eye and lip. and in the fine sensuous-
ness she rather suggested than seemed 10
possess. The mouth was vouptuous poem
IN itself. In its rosy labyrinths the soul
might easily have been lost. So rich and
pouting the lips the bees of imagination how
cred about and reveled in their sweetness,
drinking the honey dew of their exhaustless
fragranc and never sated with the nectar
Her voice was voluptuous and thrilling, and
yet all her outgiving was through the mind to
the heart, through the spirit to the sense.


What was her name?


Why ask?


We do not consult the Botany when the
breath of the rose garden greets us, nor turn
to Astronomy while the stars shine calmly
and give repose to our troubled souls.
But that lovelier, because sadder, face,
which to see was not soon to forget, haunts
us like deliciously pensive dream. She to
whom the face belonged was type of the
genuine gentlewoman all the world over
elegant without ahectation, dignifed without
stiffness, easy without familiarity. She seem
ed to have known the touch of sorrow, and to
have learned the meaning of regret. Her
features were..not regular; she was not hand
some to look upon, but beautiful to remember.
Her face expressed what she was not in form.
and appealed to the imagination mere than to
| the senses.


Fully matured was she; in, the fullest and
finest sense a woman; in the golden Summer
of her years. -t ggs s sTvs ..4rw


Plainly and elegantly, but 70 well dressed,
we cannot remember what she wore, she was
the most charming woman-though wife and
mother she must have beeu-of the hundreds
who shone in the gay revels of the Academy.
! Life had touched her with its woodbine aud
its worrnwood. The shadow aud the sunlight
had fallen upon her days. The harmony and
discord of the world had echoed through her
fruitful years, and see had found the sweetest
poetry Of existence in faith and love amid all
the sources of deeply instructive sorrow.
h.-,. 1t y