Word: climber
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Morgan looks back to Maugham's youth, when he had to live in the unfashionable section of London and take the streetcar, instead of a taxi, to attend the smart dinner parties to which he was invited. In that young man he finds shades of the self-serving social climber Maugham wrote about when he depicted Hugh Walpole as Alroy Kear in Cakes...
...young sponsor of the Ballets Russes: "One might have supposed that this marvelous creature had been imported in their innumerable baggage, and as their most priceless treasure, by the Russian dancers." Proust also used her as one of the inspirations for Mme. Verdurin, the far less sympathetic social climber. Then the magical synthesizer introduced his Misias to each other: "Mme. Verdurin's strength lay in her genuine love of art, the trouble that she used to take for her faithful, the marvelous dinners that she gave for them alone ... a sort of official representative in Paris of all foreign...
...years she was the godmother of European artists. She came to maturity in the Belle Epoque, "a beautiful time for those who were privileged," and she brought zest, taste, a tart tongue and plenty of money to a role she never tired of. If she was a climber, the mountain was Parnassus...