Ball-room Quotes

The anxiety to be admired is a loveless passion ..., loud on the hustings, gay in the ball-room, mute and sullen at the family fireside. (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
Among the multitude of games which seem to constitute the real business of life in New Mexico, that of chuza evidently presents the most attractions to ladies; and they generally lay very heavy wagers upon the result. It is played with little balls, and bears some faint resemblance to what is called roulette. Bull-baiting and cock-fighting, about which so much has been said by every traveler in Mexico, are also very popular 'amusements' in the North, and generally lead to the same excesses and the same results as gaming. The cock-pit rarely fails to be crowded on Sundays and other feast days; on which occasions the church, the ball-room, the gambling-house, and the cock-pit look like so many opposition establishments; for nothing is more common than to see people going from one place to another by alternate fits, just as devotional feeling or love of pleasure happens to prompt them. View quote
Josiah Gregg