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I need not shame to say that the event, the anticipations
of which had occasioned such a complete
bouleversement among the fashionables of New Orleans,
turned my head also. I was an eager boy; this was
my first appearance on such a scene, and I was in a
tumult of pleasurable excitement. I had heard of the
masked balls among the Europeans—of their motley
crowds, their wild splendor, their ever-changing aspects
and ever-fruitful provocations to pleasure; the
humors which they elicited, the curious blunders
which they occasioned and developed; their dramatic
éclaircissement—the felicitous fancies and unique
tastes which made their inimitable contrast; the merriment
and wit which flowed or flashed in the keen
encounter of well-chosen characters; and more than
all, the romance of their intrigues, and the results,
as grateful to the heart as to the fancy, which sometimes
sprung from the happy exhibitions which they
made equally of heart and fancy.

These were my thoughts and dreams, leading me
to the encouragement of the wildest expectations, far
beyond the possibility even of what I was really to
enjoy. The romance of the thing appealed to an imagination
only too eager and impetuous, always and
forever on the wing. That indescribable halo with

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which the fancy invests the creature of the hope or
the thought, far beyond anything in the capacity of
man to realize, had borne me aloft into that ideal
land of anticipation, where all the aspects that encounter
us are of such stuff only as make the visions
of the inexperienced boy. But the human sense was
present, to give body to the glad and wandering
sentiment. To confess a truth, I had some vague
notions of personal adventure; of some romantic encounter
with beauty in a disguise which I was decreed
to penetrate—beneath which I was to discover charms,
and sensibilities, and affections, which were to be the
more valuable as they had already learned to find a
value in myself. In brief, I was to be made happy
by a happy conquest. Oh dreams! dreams! But
not the less precious that they are nothing more.