A dramatic interest may instantaneously arise from interviews apparently the most trivial, giving an unforeseen phase to every relation.

A misty uncertainty hovers round every meeting, through whose clouds it is difficult to seize the contours, to fix the lines, to ascertain the present and future influence, thus rendering intercourse vague and unintelligible, filling it with an indefinable and hidden terror, yet, at the same time, with an insinuating flattery.

The strong currents of genuine sympathy are always struggling to escape from the weight of this external repression.

The differing impulses of vanity, love, and patriotism, in their threefold motives of action, are forever hurtling against each other in all hearts, leading to inextricable confusion of thought and feeling.
What mingling emotions are concentrated in the accidental meetings of the Mazourka! It can surround, with its own enchantment, the lightest emotion of the heart, while, through its magic, the most reserved, transitory, and trivial rencounter appeals to the imagination.

Could it be otherwise in the presence of the women who give to this dance that inimitable grace and suavity, for which, in less happy countries, they struggle in vain?
In very truth are not the Sclavic women utterly incomparable?
There are to be found among them those whose qualities and virtues are so incontestable, so absolute, that they are acknowledged by all ages, and by all countries.