Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE SUBJECT CONTINUED. The competilion between party anil ball giving ladies is every where known and acknowledged, whether they reside in a metropolis or in the country, in a city or a village— whether the. giver of the entertainment be a dutchess, or only the wife of a country gentleman or a rich tradesman; but, even on these occasions, the bitterness of the rivalry must be in proportion to the closeness of the competition. " When Greek meets Greek tben comes the tug of war." The peeress will be, comparatively, indifferent to the consciousness that her entertainment was inferior in splendour and excellence to that of her country or city rivals; nor will the latter be mortified at hearing of the superior attractions of the fete given by the peeress. But, if the peeress be outshone by a rival peeress, and the country lady and rich citizen's wife be eclipsed by party givers of their own rank in life, then the unsuccessful competition leads to particular envy, andthat envy, most probably, vents itself in detraction. But, though particular as well as general competition as certainly takes place in a metropolis as in a provincial residence, it is more common in the narrow circle of a country town, and its neighbourhood. Competition in giving a dinner, and in the excellence as well as number of tbe dishes, is never so powerful perhaps as in a bounded oircleand it is rarely that professed dinner- givers there admit that they ever see, or eat, an elegant and good dinner any where but at their own table; not that they are at all to be pitied on this occasion; for the pain of eating ill-dressed viands is not to be weighed in the balance against the satisfaction with which the dinner-giver utters, ' it was certainly not such a dinner as I should have given!" T...