ally joined in the laugh, and observed that
Sparkle seemed to be in a very sentimental mood. As they continued to
walk on, he resumed--

"Well then, some time after dinner comes the hour for the ball, or rout;
but this is sooner said than done: it often requires as much time to
go from St. James's Square to Cleveland Row, as to go from London to
Hounslow.

~181~~It would require volumes to describe the disappointment which
occurs on arriving in the brilliant mob of a ball-room. Sometimes, as
it has been before said, a friend is seen squeezed like yourself, at
the other end of the room, without a possibility of your communicating,
except by signs; and as the whole arrangement of the society is
regulated by mechanical pressure, you may happen to be pushed
against those to whom you do not wish to speak, whether bores, slight
acquaintances, or determined enemies. Confined by the crowd, stifled by
the heat, dazzled by the light, all powers of intellect are obscured;
wit loses its point, and sagacity its observation; indeed, the limbs
are so crushed, and the tongue so parched, that, except particularly
undressed ladies, all are in the case of the traveller, Mr. Clarke,
when he says, that in the plains of Syria some might blame him for not
making moral reflections on the state of the country; but that he must
own that the heat quite deprived him of all power of thought. Hence it
is, that the conversation you hear around you is generally nothing more
than--"Have you been here long?--Have you been at Mrs. H----'s?--Are
you going to Lady D----'s?"--Hence too,

Madam de Stael said very justly to an Englishman, "Dans vos routes le
corps fait plus de frai que l'esprit." But even if there are persons of
a constitution robust enough to talk, they dare not do so, when twenty
heads are forced into the compass of one square foot; nay, even if, to
your great delight, you see a person to whom you have much to say, and
by fair means or foul, elbows and toes, knees and shoulders, have got
near him, he often dismisses you with shaking you by the hand,
and saying--My dear Mr.---- how do you do? and then continues a
conversation with a person whose ear is three inches nearer. At one
o'clock, however, the crowd diminishes; and if you are not tired by the
five or six hours of playing at company, which you have already had, you
may be very comfortable for the rest of the evening. This however is
the round of fashionable company. But I begin to