DID you ask me if the Masquerade, this week, was a success?

Considering that nine-tenths of the people who go to balls are idiots; that carnival folly without carnival license is Hamlet without Hamlet; that only they in whose veins the blood is tropical understand the real esprit of the bal masque; and that among our masques every man insists upon being a Harlequin and every woman a nondescript, showing the inevitable tendency of human nature;—it was a success.

It is impossible for Boosey in a masque to feel tropical. Champagne, and not blood, is the natural current through his veins. Disguised as a gorgeous Harlequin, in cap and bells, he is not at home. He is inchoate, crude and lonesome. He may talk soft things to the unknown Blanche, hanging upon his arm in the black tarletan, gold stars and crescent, but the liquid eyes and beaming face tell no story through the grinning, goggle-eyed pasteboard, and do not disturb the placidity of the manly breast of Harlequin, or make any intellectual impression upon him, further than to confirm us in our original statement that he is an idiot. What Boosey may do when the masques are off and church-yards begin to yawn, as he and the unknown Blanche say matins at the shrine of the jolly King Gambrinus, concerns us not.

Neither does it concern you who are reading these lines, who never take your masque off at all.

Although my German friends sandwiched their carnival into a funny place, making sin follow repentance, and mixing up scarlet Mardi Gras and gray Ash Wednesday with a frightful negligence of proprieties, it was enjoyable and delightfully sinful. Celeste, when she came to my confessional the other day, complained of it. She was clad in russet and serge, had sprinkled herself with ashes, was mortifying the flesh by concealing those white shoulders and marble arms, which are the envy of our set, and eating lentils as if she liked them. Could I do anything but pity her when she cried peccavi, mea culpa, mea culpa. And as she told me, with those pretty lips, of her melon-colored dress, how superbly it hung; of her pearl neck-lace, which actually looked dark on her neck; of an unknown cavalier, who whispered something transporting over his bouquet, and then vanished; of the wild waltz with Mephisto, whose sneering gibes were alchemized into delicious flattery—and as the Dear Creature told me that she had followed too much the devices and desires of her own heart, and that all was vanity, was it a wonder that I, even in the garb of the confessor, cheered and consoled her, and said:

My dear young friend, the only trouble with you is that Divine Providence, instead of Canova, made you, and, in making you, gave you a human nature. He was also at fault in making flowers that die of their own sweetness, and grapes that burst of their own voluptuousness, and swans that expire in their own melody. The moralists have got hold of you, my dear, and, with their mallets and chisels, are trying to make you into a cold, senseless, white statue of virtue, while all the while the blood is bounding to your finger-tips, and every pulsation of your heart is in waltz tempo. Enjoy your carnivals, my dear, for soon come the snow and the chilling winds, which will wrinkle your pretty face, and film your bright eyes, and turn those white shoulders to parchment, and deaden all the fire of life. Then may you wrap yourself in your black robes and weep over the dead carnivals in the gray ashes.

And if you know of any of your friends who are so miserably unfortunate as to be without fault, let them cast stones at you. I may say, entre nous, that I do not think you will be much hurt. The stone-throwing will be the feeblest you ever saw.

And the Dear Creature went away, as one not utterly bereft of consolation.

March 7, 1868.