Vidal Gore — Eighteen Seventy [1181]

The same caterer Pinard provides the same rich complicated dishes whilst the same orchestra of Mr. Lander plays the same Offenbach and Strauss tunes for the same guests who say the same things over and over to one another as they eat and eat and drink and drink. We are not exactly slender at Paris, but few of us are as fat as these grand New Yorkers. It is especially pitiable to watch the eyes of the ladies grow round with greed as pheasants and lobsters, sorbets and desserts, are presented them. — Vidal Gore, Eighteen Seventy, 1181

Note

The vivid description of the ball’s atmosphere, especially the imagery of ladies’ eyes ‘grow round with greed’ and ‘drown in an excess of saliva,’ effectively conveys both the opulence and the pretentious, superficial nature of high society.