Part 12

BEAN SOUP. "Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils."

FISH, STRIPED BASS. We remember the fish we did eat freely.--Numbers. These with many stripes.--Deuteronomy.

STEINBERGER CABINET. Thou hast kept the good wine until now.--John ii. 10.

BOILED CAPON. Accept it always and in all places.--Acts xxiv. 3.

PIGEON BRAISE. Pigeons such as he could get.--Leviticus.

SUCCOTASH. They brought corn and beans.--Samuel.

QUAIL LARDED. Even quail came.--Exodus. Abundantly moistened with fat.--Isaiah.

LETTUCE SALAD. A pleasant plant, green before the sun.--Isaiah. Pour oil upon it, pure oil, olive.--Leviticus. Oil and salt, without prescribing how much.--Ezra vii. 22.

ICE CREAM. Ice like morsels.--Psalms.

CHEESE. Carry these ten cheeses unto the captain.--Samuel.

FRUITS. All kind of fruits.--Eccles.

COFFEE. Last of all.--Matthew xxi. 37. They had made an end of eating.--Amos vii. 2.

CIGARS. Am become like dust and ashes.--Job xxx. 19.

And so on. Written conundrums are good stimulants to conversation, and dinner cards might be greatly historical, not too learned. A legend of the day, as Lady Day, or Michaelmas, is not a bad promoter of talk. Or one might allude to the calendar of dead kings and queens, or other celebrities, or ask your preferences, or quote something from a memoir, to find out that it is a birthday of Rossini or Goethe. All these might be written on a dinner card, and will open the flood gates of a frozen conversation.

Let each dinner giver weave a net out of the gossamer threads of her own thoughts. It will be the web of the Lady of Shalott, and will bid the shadows of pleasant memory to remain, not float "forever adown the river," even toward "towered Camelot" where they may be lost.

Some opulent dinner giver once made the dinner card the vehicle of a present, but this became rather burdensome. It was trying and embarrassing to carry the gifts home, and the poorer entertainer hesitated at the expense. The outlay had better come out of one's brain, and the piquing of curiosity with a contradiction like this take its place:--

"A lady gave me a gift which she had not, And I received the gift, which I took not, And if she take it back I grieve not."

But there is something more required to form the intellectual components of a dinner than these instruments to stimulate curiosity and give a fillip to thought. We must have variety.

Mrs. Jameson, the accomplished author of the "Legends of the Madonna" gives the following description of an out-of-door dinner, which should embolden the young American hostess to go and do likewise:--

"Yesterday we dined al fresco in the Pamfili Gardens, in Rome, and although our party was rather too large, it was well assorted, and the day went off admirably. The queen of our feast was in high good humour and irresistibly charming, Frattino very fascinating, T. caustic and witty, W. lively and clever, J. mild, intelligent and elegant, V. as usual quiet, sensible, and self-complacent, L. as absurd and assiduous as ever.

"Everybody played their part well, each by a tacit convention sacrificing to the amour propre of his neighbour, each individual really occupied with his own peculiar rôle, but all apparently happy and mutually pleased. Vanity and selfishness, indifference and ennui were veiled under a general mask of good humour and good breeding, and the flowery bonds of politeness and gallantry held together those who knew no common tie of thought or interest.

"Our luxurious dinner, washed down by a competent proportion of Malvoisie and champagne, was spread upon the grass, which was literally the flowery turf, being covered with violets, iris, and anemones of every dye.

"For my own peculiar taste there were too many servants, too many luxuries, too much fuss; but considering the style and number of our party, it was all consistently and admirably managed. The grouping of the company, picturesque because unpremeditated, the scenery around, the arcades and bowers and columns and fountains had an air altogether poetical and romantic, and put me in mind of some of Watteau's beautiful garden pieces."

Now in this exquisite description Mrs. Jameson seems to me to have given the intellectual components of a dinner. "The hostess, good-humoured and charming, Frattino very fascinating, T. caustic and witty, W. lively and clever, J. mild, intelligent, and elegant, V. as usual quiet, sensible, and self-complacent, L. as absurd and as assiduous as ever."

There was variety for you, and the three last were undoubtedly listeners. In the next paragraph she covers more ground, and this is most important:--

"Each by a tacit convention sacrificing to the amour propre of his neighbour."

That is an immortal phrase, for there can be no pleasant dinner when this unselfishness is not shown. It was said by a witty Boston hostess that she could never invite two well-known diners-out to the same dinner, for each always silenced the other. You must not have too many good talkers. The listeners, the receptive listeners, should outnumber the talkers.

In England, the land of dinners, they have, of course, no end of public, semi-official, and annual dinners,--as those of the Royal Literary Fund, the Old Rugbians, the Artists Benevolent Fund, the Regimental dinners, the banquets at the Liberal and the Cobden Club, and the nice little dinners at the Star and Garter, winding up with the annual fish dinner.