How different from this poetical scene was the prosaic ball!--which moreover so little answered my expectations that I was perfectly astonished. A narrow staircase led directly into the ball-room, which was ill-lighted and miserably furnished, and surrounded with worsted cords to divide the dancers from the spectators. An orchestra for the musicians was hung with ill-washed white draperies, which looked like sheets hung out to dry. Imagine a second room near it, with benches along the walls, and a large tea-table in the middle; in both rooms the numerous company raven black from head to foot, gloves inclusive; a melancholy style of dancing, without the least trace of vivacity or joyousness; so that the only feeling you have is that of compassion for the useless fatigue the poor people are enduring;--and now you have a true idea of the Brighton Almack's, for so these very fashionable balls are called. The whole establishment is droll enough. Almack's balls in London are the resort of people of the highest rank during the season, which lasts from April to June; and five or six of the most intensely fashionable ladies (Princess L---- among the number), who are called Patronesses, distribute the tickets. It is an immense favour to obtain one; and, for people who do not belong to the very highest or most modish world, very difficult. Intrigues are set on foot months beforehand, and the Lady-patronesses flattered in the meanest and most servile manner, to secure so important an advantage; for those who have never been seen at Almack's are regarded as utterly unfashionable--I might almost say disreputable; and the would-be-fashionable English world naturally holds this to be the greatest of all possible calamities. So true is this, that a novel was lately written on this subject, which contains a very fair delineation of London society, and has gone through three editions. On nearer observation, however, one sees that it betrays more of the ante-chamber than of the 'salon,'--that the author is one, as the Abbé de Voisenon said, 'qui a écouté aux portes.' How admirably well-informed the English are concerning foreigners is seen in a passage in this novel, in which the wife of a foreign ambassador, born however in England, is extremely facetious on the ignorant Londoners who assigned a higher rank to a German Prince than to her husband the Baron, whose title was far nobler. "But the word Prince," adds she, "whose nullity is well known to everybody on the Continent, dazzled my stupid countrymen." 'C'est bien vrai,' says a Frenchman, 'un Duc cirait mes bottes à Naples, et à Petersbourg un Prince Russe me rasait tous les matins.' As the English generally mis-spell and mis-quote foreign words and phrases, I strongly suspect that a slight mistake has crept in here, and that it ought to be printed, "un Prince Russe me _rossait_ tous les matins."[44]