Page:The Promise of the Bell (1924).pdf/8

 graced the occasion with his presence. He was escorted to his box by attendants bearing wax candles in silver candlesticks, a deferential courtesy which made him distinctly and desirably visible to the audience in the dimly lit theatre.

Nothing in the way of entertainment came amiss to people whose hearts were at ease, and who were unspoiled by wealth or poverty. They went to Washington's rigidly formal receptions. They danced as gaily, if not as long, at the Assembly balls, and at the less august tradesmen's balls, as they had danced at the Mischianza and at the Fête du Dauphin. They dined well with such hosts as Robert Morris and William Bingham. They opened hospitable doors to strangers, who sometimes thought them dull; "the men grave, the women serious," wrote Brissot de Warville in 1788. They feasted on Christmas Day, and they built bonfires on the Fourth of July. They rode to hounds. They began the long career of parades and processions which have always been dear to the city's heart, and which the famous New Year Mummers have by now carried to the wonder point of gaiety, brilliancy, and burlesque.

Eating and drinking were the fundamentals of enjoyment in the Quaker town, as they have been in all cities and in all ages of the world. But it was eating and drinking relished "as the sane and exhilarating basis of everything else"; and its most precious asset was companionship. When the Chevalier de Luzerne drank twelve cups of tea during the course of a winter