The necessary earthly
journey through time and space from one joy to another was omitted,
unless such a journey were a joy in itself.
For instance, a pleasant hour can be spent on the deck of a splendid
steamer, as it cleaves its way through a sapphire tropical sea, bound
for some lovely West Indian islet; with a good cigar and the dearest
companion in the world, watching the dolphins and the flying-fish, and
mildly interesting one's self in one's fellow-passengers, the captain,
the crew. And then, the hour spent and the cigar smoked out, it is well
to shut one's eyes and have one's self quietly lowered down the side of
the vessel into a beautiful sledge, and then, half smothered in costly
furs, to be whirled along the frozen Neva to a ball at the Winter
Palace, there to valse with one's Mary among all the beauty and chivalry
of St. Petersburg, and never a soul to find fault with one's valsing,
which at first was far from perfect, or one's attire, which was not that
of the fashionable world of the day, nor was Mary's either. We were
aesthetic people, and very Greek, who made for ourselves fashions of our
own, which I will not describe.
[Illustration:]
Where have we not waltzed together, from Buckingham Palace downward? I
confess I grew to take a delight in valsing, or waltzing, or whatever it
is properly called; and although it is not much to boast of, I may say
that after a year or two no better dancer than I was to be found in
all Vienna.
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