We went to the
Opera, and there, in a brilliant _salle_ of white and gold, spoilt,
however, by the incongruity of bonnets mingling everywhere with full
evening toilettes, assisted at a massacre--unmusical and melancholy--of
"Lucrezia." We drove out through the crude, unfinished Central Park to
Harlem lane, whither the trotters are wont to resort, and saw several
teams looking very much like work (though no celebrities), almost all of
the lean, rather ragged form which characterizes, more or less, all
American-bred "fast horses." The ground was too hard frozen to allow of
anything beyond gentle exercise; but even at quarter-speed, that
wonderful hind-action was very remarkable. Watching those clean, sinewy
pasterns shoot forward--well _outside_ of the fore hoof-track--straight
and swift as Mace's arm in an "upper-cut," you marvel no longer at the
mile-time which hitherto has seemed barely credible.
Perhaps this same bitter weather may account for our disappointment in
the brilliancy of Broadway. Several careful reviews of the sunny side
failed to detect anything dangerously attractive in beauty, equipage, or
attire. It is probable that most of the _lionnes_ had laid them down in
their delicate dens, waiting for a more clement season, to renew
external depredations; though sometimes you could just catch a glimpse
of bright eyes and a little pink nose peering over dark fur wrappings,
as a brougham or barouche, carefully closed, swept quickly by.
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