A Colonial Reformer, Volume II

Mr. Neuchamp was disposed to be wroth with himself when he discovered that he was looking forward with considerable interest to a much-talked-of ball, by which the Count von Schätterheims had resolved to mark his appreciation of the kindness which he had received at the hands of the Sydney ‘upper ten. ' Why should he feel gratified, Ernest asked himself, at the prospect of joining in an entertainment at best but a _réchauffé_ of numberless affairs of the class which he had assisted at and despised in England? A ball―a mere ball―a stale repetition of the meaningless crust―the saltatory, amatory, and gustatory simulacra of pleasure, which he had long since renounced and abandoned. An entertainment chiefly composed of people he didn't know, and given by a man whom he did not like.

He finally disposed of the affair in his own mind by the summary, if illogical, decision, that he must regard himself, in respect of his late banishment from the world, in the light of a sailor after a protracted cruise, gifted with abnormal powers of assimilation and digestion, mental and physical.