Descending from the immediate presence, the guests gathered in lines along the hall, or slowly promenaded, engaged in watching and in criticising each other. Meanwhile the band played, and the canaries, excited by the music and the lights, sang loud and clear. Not so sweetly sang the gossips, as they whispered and exclaimed at each other's fresh oddity or extravagance of attire. Gently, good gossips! gently! for even at this moment is the Scripture fulfilled, and ye who judge are judged. "In a world where Martin Farquhar Tupper passes to the thirty-seventh edition," said Thackeray, in a company of authors, "let us all think small-beer of ourselves." When to the eye of men the dress of the fairer sex is altogether bewildering, and certainly not, as Professor Teufelsdrockh would say, unbeautiful, why should the good gossip invidiously discriminate? Peace, peace! The sober matron at whom you smile wears the plain dress because she preferred to pay her boy's college bills with the money that would have arrayed her in Parisian robes had he stayed at home. And you, dear madam, daughter of Fortunatus and heiress of his purse, you wear those ponderous diamonds and nudge your neighbors to look and laugh with you.
Hark the soft prelude of the waltz. What is the mysterious pathos of that long pulsing strain? Why is that measure, moving to which the joy and the hope of youth celebrate their triumph, of all measures the most passionately sad? One after another the partners glide into the dance. They swim, they float, they circle, they move in music and to music. And what is this, and who is here? this comet, this meteor of a couple, who come pumping and dashing through the throng. Are her hands really laid upon his shoulders? Do his hands clasp her elbows, or is it an extraordinary dream? No wonder that Japan draws to the edge of the dais and gazes in wonder, for America also looks on in amazement. The amused incredulity of the foreign guests as they watch the dancing is interesting to see. Iwakura regards the scene with smiling gravity. To him the spectacle seems a thousandfold more against nature than the vision of a woman voting can possibly be to the most conservative American. Yet the ambassador will find that the loveliest woman may waltz with a man and still be womanly, and the conservative American may go and do likewise. The fashions of a time and the traditions of a nation are not the final laws of nature, and even Horatio's philosophy does not exhaust the things in heaven and earth that are yet to be.