The
clubs meet in richly furnished parlors, of which the chief fault is
usually an over-abundance of bric-a-brac. The house of Mrs. Gore, for
instance, where Edith was going this evening, was all that money could
make it; and in passing it may be noted that Boston clubs are seldom of
constitutions sufficiently vigorous to endure unpleasant surroundings.
The fair sex predominates at all these gatherings, and over them hangs
an air of expectant solemnity, as if the celebration of some sacred
mystery were forward. Conversation is carried on in subdued tones; even
the laughter is softened, and when the reader takes his seat, there
falls upon the little company a hush so deep as to render distinctly
audible the frou-frou of silken folds, and the tinkle of jet fringes,
stirred by the swelling of ardent and aspiring bosoms.
The reading is not infrequently a little dull, especially to the
uninitiated, and there have not been wanting certain sinister
suggestions that now and then, during the monotonous delivery of some
of the longer poems, elderly and corpulent devotees listen only with
the spiritual ear, the physical sense being obscured by an abstraction
not to be distinguished by an ordinary observer from slumber. The
reader, however, is bound to assume that all are listening, and if some
sleep and others consider their worldly concerns or speculate upon the
affairs of their neighbors, it interrupts not at all the steady flow of
the reading.
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