Part 11

The primal idea was a good one. People who had no money for grand spreads were enabled to show to their more opulent neighbours that they too had the spirit of hospitality. The doctors discovered that tea was healthy. English breakfast tea would keep nobody awake. The cup of tea and the sandwich at five would spoil nobody's dinner. The ladies who began these entertainments, receiving modestly in plain dresses, were not out of tone with their guests who came in walking-dress.

But then the other side was this,--ladies had to go to nine teas of an afternoon, perhaps taste something everywhere. Hence the new disease, delirium teamens. It was uncomfortable to assist at a large party in a heavy winter garment of velvet and fur. The afternoon tea lost its primitive character and became an evening party in the daytime, with the hostess and her daughters in full dress, and her guests in walking-costume.

The sipping of so much tea produces the nervous prostration, the sleeplessness, the nameless misery of our overwrought women; and thus a healthful, inexpensive and most agreeable adjunct to the art of entertaining grew into a thing without a name, and became the large, gas-lighted ball at five o'clock, where half the ladies were in decolleté dresses, the others in fur tippets. It was pronounced a breeder of influenzas, and the high road to a headache.

If a lady can be at home every Thursday during the season, and always at her position behind the blazing urn, and will have the firmness to continue this practice, she may create a salon out of her teacups.

In giving a large afternoon tea for which cards have been sent out, the hostess should stand by the drawing-room door and greet each guest, who, after a few words, passes on. In the adjoining room, usually the dining-room, a large table is spread with a white cloth; and at one end is a tea service with a kettle of water boiling over an alcohol lamp, while at the other end is a service for chocolate. There should be flowers on the table, and dishes containing bread and butter cut as thin as a shaving. Cake and strawberries are always permissible. One or two servants should be in attendance to carry away soiled cups and saucers, and to keep the table looking fresh; but for the pouring of the tea and chocolate there should always be a lady, who like the hostess should wear a gown closed to the throat; for nothing is worse form now-a-days than full dress before dinner. The ladies of the house should not wear bonnets.

When tea is served every afternoon at five o'clock, whether or no there are visitors, as is often the case in many houses, the servant--who, if a woman, should always in the afternoon wear a plain black gown, with a white cap and apron--should place a small, low table before the lady of the house, and lay over it a pretty white cloth. She should then bring in a large tray, upon which are the tea service, and a plate of bread and butter, or cake, or both, place it upon the table, and retire,--remaining within call, though out of sight, in case she should be needed. The best rule for making tea is the old-fashioned one: "one teaspoonful for each person and one for the pot." The pot should first be rinsed with hot water, then the tea put in, and upon it should be poured enough water, actually boiling, to cover the leaves. This decoction should stand for five minutes, then fill up the pot with more boiling water, and pour it immediately. Some persons prefer lemon in their tea to cream, and it is a good plan to have some thin slices, cut for the purpose, placed in a pretty little dish on the tray. A bowl of cracked ice is also a pleasant addition in summer, iced tea being a most refreshing drink in hot weather. Neither plates nor napkins need appear at this informal and cosey meal. A guest arriving at this time in the afternoon should always be offered a cup of tea.

Afternoon tea, in small cities or in the country, in villages and academic towns, can well be made a most agreeable and ideal entertainment, for the official presentation of a daughter or for the means of seeing one's friends. In the busy winter season of a large city it should not be made the excuse for giving up the evening party, or the dinner, lunch, or ball. It is not all these, it is simply itself, and it should be a refuge for those women who are tired of balls, of over dressing, dancing, visiting, and shopping. It is also very dear to the young who find the convenient tea-table a good arena for flirtation. It is a form of entertainment which allows one to dispense with etiquette and to save time.

Five-o'clock teas should be true to their name, nor should any other refreshment be offered than tea, bread and butter, and little cakes. If other eatables are offered the tea becomes a reception.

There is a high tea which takes the place of dinner on Sunday evenings in cities, which is a very pretty entertainment; in small rural cities, in the country, they take the place of dinners. They were formerly very fashionable in Philadelphia. It gave an opportunity to offer hot rolls and butter, escalloped oysters, fried chicken, delicately sliced cold ham, waffles and hot cakes, preserves--alas! since the days of canning, who offers the delicious preserves of the past? The hostess sits behind her silver urn and pours the hot tea or coffee or chocolate, and presses the guest to take another waffle. It is a delightful meal, and has no prototype in any country but our own.

It is doubtful, however, whether the high tea will ever be popular in America, in large cities at least, where the custom of seven-o'clock dinners prevails. People find in them a violent change of living, which is always a challenge to indigestion. Some wit has said that he always liked to eat hot mince-pie just before he went to bed, for then he always knew what hurt him. If anyone wishes to know what hurts him, he can take high tea on Sunday evening, after having dined all the week at seven o'clock. A pain in his chest will tell him that the hot waffle, the cold tongue, the peach preserve, and that "last cup of tea" meant mischief.

Oliver Cromwell is said to have been an early tea-drinker; so is Queen Elizabeth,--elaborate old teapots are sold in London with the cipher of both; but the report lacks confirmation. We cannot imagine Oliver drinking anything but verjuice, nor the lion woman as sipping anything less strong than brown stout. Literature owes much to tea. From Cowper to Austin Dobson, the poets have had their fling at it. And what could the modern English novelist do without it? It has been in politics, as all remember who have seen Boston Harbor, and it goes into all the battles, and climbs Mt. Blanc and the Matterhorn. The French, who despised it, are beginning to make a good cup of tea, and Russia bathes in it. The Samovar cheers the long journeys across those dreary steppes, and forms again the most luxurious ornament of the palace. On all the high roads of Europe one can get a cup of tea, except in Spain. There it is next to impossible; the universal chocolate supersedes it. If one gets a cup of tea in Spain, there is no cream to put in it; and to many tea drinkers, tea is ruined without milk or cream.

In fact, the poor tea drinker is hard to please anywhere. There are to the critic only one or two houses of one's acquaintance where five o'clock tea is perfect.

THE INTELLECTUAL COMPONENTS OF DINNER.

"Lend me your ears."

"It has often perplexed me to imagine," writes Nathaniel Hawthorne, "how an Englishman will be able to reconcile himself to any future state of existence from which the earthly institution of dinner is excluded. The idea of dinner has so imbedded itself among his highest and deepest characteristics, so illuminated itself with intellect, and softened itself with the kindest emotions of his heart, so linked itself with Church and State, and grown so majestic with long hereditary custom and ceremonies, that by taking it utterly away, Death, instead of putting the final touch to his perfection, would leave him infinitely less complete than we have already known him. He could not be roundly happy. Paradise among all its enjoyments would lack one daily felicity in greater measure than London in the season."

No dinner would be worth the giving that had not one witty man or one witty woman to lift the conversation out of the commonplace. As many more agreeable people as one pleases, but one leader is absolutely necessary.

Not alone the funny man whom the enfant terrible silenced by asking, "Mamma would like to know when you are going to begin to be funny," but those men who have the rare art of being leaders without seeming to be, who amuse without your suspecting that you are being amused; for there never should be anything professional in dinner-table wit.

The dinner giver has often to feel that something has been left out of the group about the table; they will not talk! She has furnished them with food and wine, but can she amuse them? Her witty man and her witty woman are both engaged elsewhere,--they are apt to be,--and her room is too warm, perhaps. She determines that at the next dinner she will have some mechanical adjuncts, even an empirical remedy against dulness. She tries a dinner card with poetical quotations, conundrums, and so on. The Shakspeare Club of Philadelphia inaugurated this custom, and some very witty results followed:--

"Enter Froth" (before champagne). "What is thine age?" (Romeo and Juliet) brings in the Madeira.

LOBSTER SALAD. "Who hath created this indigest?"

Pray you bid these unknown friends welcome, for it is a way to make us better friends.--Winter's Tale.

ROAST TURKEY. See, here he comes swelling like a turkey cock.--Henry IV.

YORK HAMS. Sweet stem from York's great stock.--Henry VI.

TONGUE. Silence is only commendable in a neat's tongue dried-- Merchant of Venice.

BRAISED LAMB AND BEEF. What say you to a piece of lamb and mustard?--a dish that I do love to feed upon.--Taming of the Shrew.

LOBSTER SALAD. Sallat was born to do me good.--Henry IV.

And so on. The Bible affords others, well worth quoting:--

OYSTERS. He brought them up out of the sea.--Isaiah. And his mouth was opened immediately.--Luke i. 64.