Fifty years ago . iness, the rapture, ofsending to Williss Rooms and finding a card waiting foryou! and the misery and despair of receiving, instead,the terrible letter v/hich told you, without reasonassigned, that the Ladies of tlie Committee could notgrant yonr request! They were not expensive gatherings, the ticketsbeing only 7s. Gt/. each,which did not include sup-per. Dancing began ateleven to the strains ofWeipperts and CoUinetsband. The balls wereheld in the great room atWilliss, and the space re-served for the dancers wasroped round. The twofavourite dances were theValse and the Galop—
Fifty years ago . iness, the rapture, ofsending to Williss Rooms and finding a card waiting foryou! and the misery and despair of receiving, instead,the terrible letter v/hich told you, without reasonassigned, that the Ladies of tlie Committee could notgrant yonr request! They were not expensive gatherings, the ticketsbeing only 7s. Gt/. each,which did not include sup-per. Dancing began ateleven to the strains ofWeipperts and CoUinetsband. The balls wereheld in the great room atWilliss, and the space re-served for the dancers wasroped round. The twofavourite dances were theValse and the Galop—the ^-^^^^^^ sprightly galoppade, as it was called. Quadrilles were also danced. It may beinteresting to those who have kept the old music to learnthat m the year 1836 the favourite quadrilles wereLEclair and La Tete de Bronze, and the favourite valsewas Le Remede contre le Sommeil They had alsoStrausss waltzes. The dechne and fall of Almacks v/as partly causedbv the favouritism which not only kept the place ex-. ii8 FIFTY YEARS AGO elusive, but excluded more than was politic. The onlychance for the continued existence of such an institutionis that it should be constantly enlarging its boundaries,just as the only chance for the continued existence ofsuch an aristocracy as ours is that it should be alwaysadmitting new members. Somehow the kind of smallcircle which shall include only the crime de la crenie isalways falling to pieces. We hear of a club which isto contain only the very noblest, but in a year or twoit has ceased to exist, or it is like all other , a great social change has now passed overthe country. The stockbroker, to speak in allegory, hasgot into Society. Eespect for Eank, fifty years agouniversal and profound, is rapidly decaying. There arestill many left who believe in some kind of superiorityby Divine Eight and the Sovereigns gift of Eank, eventhough that Eank be but ten years old, and the grand-fathers shop is still remembered. We do not pret
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Keywords: ., bookauthorwordsworthcollection, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880
