The Balls and Feasts of good society—
Which some indulge in to satiety—
Have their formalities and miseries
Of all varieties, in all degrees;
Though with the best of luxury's resources,
While 'much ado on nothing' their discourse is,
Or—to quote Cowper's words, ''tis dull and dry,'
Embellished with—'He said, and so said I':
There, wealth and pampered pride, and costly dress.
The standards are of social worthiness;[1]
NOTES
- ↑ The standards are of social worthiness;] 'The rich man is subject to the blandishments of flattery; for he never wants persons around him to tell him of his good deeds. He will have numerous friends, or at least those who would be thought so.'—Lyndall on Business, etc.
'Our first wish is not to know what is his character; or what his mental standing, but, What is he? What is he
rheumatism, and dyspepsia are some of the train of consequences.'
Joanna Baillie writes,'Some men seem born to feast, and not to fight;
Whose sluggish minds, e'en in fair honour's field,
Still on their dinner turn.'
And Sir Walter Raleigh once said 'one of the differences between a rich man and a poor man is this—the former eats when he pleases, and the latter when he can get it.'
