Good style of living consists in having a mansion exquisitely fitted
up with all the expensive bijouterie compatible with true elegance,
yet avoiding the lavish superabundance of gimcrackery which borders
on vulgarity; comely serving men in suitable liveries, all so well
initiated into the mysteries of their respective duties, that a guest
could imagine himself in a fairy palace, where plates vanish without
the contamination of a mortal finger and thumb, and glasses move without
a jingle: then the feast is exquisitely cooked and exquisitely served;
the table groans not, the hostess carves not; but one delicious dainty
is followed by another, and each remove brings forth a dish more piquante
than the last: every thing is delightful, but there must appear to be an
abundance of nothing; two spoonsful alone of each delicious viand should
repose under its silver cover; and he who dared ask to be helped a second
time to any thing, ought to be sentenced to eternal transportation from
the regions of haut ton.
Bad style of living--Shocking even to describe! A large house in streets
or squares unknown; hot, ugly men servants, stumbling over one another
in their uncouth eagerness to admit you; your name mispronounced, and
shouted at the drawing-room door; your host and hostess in a fuss,
apologizing, asking questions, and boring you to death; dinner at length
announced, but no chance of extrication from the dull drawing-room,
because the etiquette of precedence is not rightly understood, and
nobody knows who ought to be led out first; all the way down stairs a
dead silence, and then the difficulty of distributing the company almost
equals the previous dilemma of the drawing-room: wives are wittily
warned against sitting by husbands, and two gentlemen are facetiously
interdicted from sitting together; the hostess takes the top of the
table to be useful, not ornamental, for fish and joint and turkey, must
she carve; while her husband, at the other end of the mahogany, must
equally make a toil of a pleasure, and yet smile as if it were a
pleasure to toil! The beasts of the earth and the birds of the air
appear upon the board, scorning disguise, in their own proper forms,
just as they stepped out of Noah's ark, always excepting those who are
too unwieldy to be present in whole skins; and even they send their
joints to table in horrid unsophistication; Sweets follow, but how
unlike the souffles of Ude! Grim green gooseberries, lurking under their
heavy coverings of crust; and custards, the plain produce of the dairy,
embittered with bay leaves, cinnamon, and cloves! Cheese follows, with
the alternatives of port wine and porter; and all this weary time the
servants have been knocking your head about, thumbing your plate, or
pouring lobster sauce into your pockets!--_Sharpe's Mag_.
* * * * *
The Novelist.
* * * * *