"Oh, I long for a ball!"

This Saturday brings the annual Civil War ball hosted by a church in our area. We have attended for several years, and it is always a delight! Typically we decide to go only a few days before the ball (last year we postponed a decision until that very afternoon! That was semi-disastrous...), but this year we had plenty of notice. The result? A new gown, of course! Could there be a better excuse for dusting off my hoop skirt? Anyway, pictures and description will certainly follow next week, but for now I shall simply post Jane Austen's tongue-in-cheek comment on balls:

“It may be possible to do without dancing entirely.

Instances have been known of young people passing

many, many months

successively without being at any ball of any description,

and no material injury accrue either to body or mind;

but when a beginning is made -- when the felicities of

rapid motion have once been, though slightly, felt --

it must be a very heavy set that

does not ask for more.”

~ Jane Austen, Emma ~