In one of Webster's magnificent speeches, he remarks that so vast are
the possessions of England, that her morning drum-beat, following the
sun and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth daily with one
continuous and unbroken strain of its martial airs. There is another
musical sound, within the British islands themselves, which does not as
yet quite traverse the whole horary circle, but bids fair to do so in
the course of time, and to this we would direct the attention of the
American secretary, as a fitting subject for a new peroration. We allude
to the Dinner-bell. At noon, in the rural districts of England, this
charming sound is heard tinkling melodiously from farm or village
factory; at one, in the more crowded haunts of industry, the strain is
taken up ere it dies; and by the time it reaches Scotland, a full hungry
peal swells forth at two. At three till past four there is a continuous
ring from house to house of the small country gentry; and at five this
becomes more distinct and sonorous in the towns, increasing in
importance till six. From that time till seven and half-past, it waxes
more and more fashionable in the tone, till at eight it stops abruptly:
not like an air brought to a conclusion, but like one broken off
accidentally, to be by and by resumed.
The dinner hours of the labouring-class are no doubt regulated according
to business, and perhaps receive some modification from national
character. An Englishman, for instance, is said to work best after his
meal, and accordingly his dinner makes its appearance sometimes as early
as noon, but never later than one; while a Scotchman, who is fit for
anything when half-starved, is very properly kept without solid food
till two o'clock. As for the smaller gentry, who scorn to dine at
workmen's hours, and yet do not pretend to the abnegation of the great,
they may follow their own fancy without doing any harm to others; but
the case is different as regards the hours assigned to _dinner-parties_,
for these affect the health and comfort of the whole body of the gentry
together.
We are no enemy to dinner-parties; on the contrary, we think we have not
enough of them, and we never shall have enough, till some change takes
place in their constitution. We are a small gentleman ourselves, who
dine at the modest hour of four, and what is the use to us of a six or
seven o'clock invitation? We accept it, of course, being socially
disposed, and being, moreover, philosopher enough to see that such
meetings are good for men in society: but so far as the meal itself
goes, it is to us either useless or disagreeable. If we have dined
already, we do not want another dinner; and if we have not dined, our
appetite is lost from sheer want. It is vain to say, Let us all dine
habitually at six--seven--eight o'clock. Few of us will--few of us
can--none of us ought. Nature demands a solid meal at a much earlier
hour; and true refinement suggests that the object of the evening
reunion should not be the satisfaction of the day's hunger. Only half of
this fact is seen by the classes who give the law to fashion, and that
half consists of the grosser and coarser necessity. They have already,
more especially at their country seats, taken to the tiffin of the East,
and at a reasonable hour make a regular dinner of hot meats, and all the
usual accessories, under the name of lunch. So complete is this meal,
that the ladies, led away no doubt by association, meet some hours
afterwards in mysterious conclave, to drink what our ancestors called 'a
dish of tea;' and having thus diluted the juices of their stomachs for
the reception of another supply of heavy food, they descend to dinner!
The evening dinner is, therefore, a mere show-dinner, or something
worse. But it is still more objectionable on the score of taste than on
the score of health. We find no fault with the elegances of the table,
in plate, crystal, china, and so forth; but an English dinner is not an
elegant meal. The guests are supposed, by a _polite_ fiction, to have
the hunger of the whole day to satisfy, and provision is made
accordingly. Varieties of soup, fish, flesh, fowl, game, rich-made
dishes, load the board spread for a group of well-dressed men and women,
known to have already dined, and who would affect to shudder at so heavy
a meal, if it was termed supper. There is a grossness in this
arrangement which is strangely at variance with the real advancement of
the age in refinement; but it has likewise a paralysing effect both upon
the freedom and delicacy of social intercourse. These show-dinners are
too costly to be numerous. Even a comparatively wealthy man is compelled
to look closely to the number of his entertainments. He scrutinises the
claims of his acquaintance; he keeps a debtor and creditor account of
dinners with them; and if now and then he invites a guest for the sake
of his social qualities, he sets him down in the bill of cost. This does
away with all the finer social feelings which it should be the province
of such meetings to foster and gratify, and adds a tone of moral
vulgarity to the material vulgarity of the repast.
Is it impossible to bring about a reform in this important matter?
Difficult, not impossible. Dinner-giving is not an integral part of the
monarchy, and it might therefore be touched--if not too rudely--without
a political revolution. The grand obstacle would be the unsettled
claims. A has given B a show-dinner, and it is the duty of B to return
it. Invitation for invitation is the law of the game. How, then, stands
the account? Would it be necessary to institute a dinner-insolvency
court, where all defaulters might take the benefit of the act? We think
not. No creditor in his senses would refuse a handsome composition; and
if it could be shewn--as it might in the present case--that the
composition was in real, though not ostensible value, equivalent to the
debt, hesitation would vanish. Before proceeding to shew this, we shall
present what may be called the common-sense statement of the whole
case:--
Mankind in their natural state dine at noon, or at least in the middle
of the working-day. It is the middle meal of the day--the central of
three. In our artificial system of society, it has been postponed to a
late hour of the afternoon, so as either to become the second of two
meals, or, where lunch is taken, the third of three. The change is not
consistent with hygienic principle; for, if lunch be not taken, the
interval between breakfast and dinner is too great, and in that case
hunger tempts to make the meal too heavy for the exhausted powers of the
stomach: if, on the contrary, lunch be taken, dinner becomes an
absurdity, as in that case a meal so elaborate and heavy is not
required, and cannot healthfully be partaken of at so late an hour.
Nevertheless, in a plan of life which devotes the eight or nine hours
after breakfast either to business or to out-door amusements, it is
needless to think of reviving the old meridian dinner for any but ladies
and other stay-at-home people; nor even for them, seeing that they must
be mainly determined in their arrangements by those leading members of
the family who have to spend that part of the day away from home.
There is a need for some reform which would at once accommodate the
busy, and save the multitude from the disadvantages of heavy
six-and-seven-o'clock dinners. This might be effected by arranging for
only a supper at six or seven o'clock--that is, some lighter meal than
dinner--leaving every one to take such a lunch in the middle of the day
as he could find an opportunity of eating. Let this supper be the meal
of family reunions--the meal of society. Composed of a few light
tasteful dishes, accompanied by other indulgences, according to taste or
inclination, and followed by coffee, it would be a cheerful and not
necessarily unhealthful affair. As a meal to which to invite friends,
being cheaper, it would allow of more society being indulged in than is
compatible with the monstrous presentments of meat and drink which
constitute the modern company dinner. It would be practically a revival
of those nice supper-parties which our grandfathers indulged in after
the hours of business, and of the pleasantness of which we have such
glowing accounts.
That this is really the common-sense view of the question, can hardly be
doubted. By bringing the cost within reasonable limits, the plan
proposed relieves the entertainment from moral vulgarity; and by
avoiding all suggestion of a meeting for the gratification of mere
physical hunger, it relieves it from material vulgarity. We have laughed
too heartily at the dinner of the ancients in 'Peregrine Pickle,' to
wish to lead back the age to a classic model; and yet on all subjects
connected with taste, there are some things to be learned from that
people whose formative genius is still the wonder of the world. The meal
of society among the Greeks consisted of only two courses, or, to speak
more strictly, of one course and a dessert; and the first or solid
course was in all probability made up of small portions of each kind of
food. The more vulgar Romans added in all cases a third, but
occasionally a fourth, fifth, sixth, even a seventh course; and at the
fall of the empire, barbarian taste uniting with the _blasé_ luxury of
Rome, heaped viand upon viand, and course upon course, till the satire
of a later poet became mere common-place:--
'Is this a dinner, this a genial room?
No; 'tis a temple, and a hecatomb!'
This extravagance has gradually given way in the course of civilisation.
We have no more meals consisting of a score of courses; no more gilded
pigs, fish, and poultry; no more soups, each of three or four different
colours: but as yet we are only in the midst of the transition, and have
not got back even to the comparative refinement of the Greeks. At the
end of their first course, the more earthly part of the entertainment
was already over. Then the guests washed their hands; then they were
presented with perfumes and garlands of flowers; and then they drank
wine, accompanied with the singing of the pæan and the sound of flutes.
Such adjuncts, with us, would for the most part be out of place and
time; but some of them might be taken metaphorically, and others
entirely changed--such as the libation to the gods--to suit a new
religious feeling, and a new form of manners. The modern _coena_ might
thus be made to surpass that of the ancients in refinement and elegance;
and it would include, as a matter of course, some of the
amusements--varying from a song to a philosophical discussion--which
gave the charm to their symposia.
As for the symposium, we shall have nothing to do with that vexed
subject, further than just to hint--for we should be loath to exclude
from the benefit of our proposed reform a certain numerous and
respectable class of the community--that in ancient times it had no
necessary connection with the dinner at all. A little wine-and-water was
drunk during the dessert--never during the first course--and then the
meal was over. The symposium was literally a drinking-party, given, for
the sake of convenience, after the dinner-party; but so far from forming
a part of the latter, the guests were sometimes different. It was, in
fact, in this respect, like the evening company we occasionally find
assembled in the drawing-room on getting up from our show-dinners.
But such references to the customs of bygone ages are introduced merely
to shew, that among the most accomplished people of history, the social
meal was looked upon as a field for the display of taste, not of that
barbarian magnificence which consists in quantity and cost. The coena of
the moderns should far excel that of the Greeks in elegance, refinement,
and simplicity. We have all history for our teacher; we have a finer
system of morals; we have a purer and holier religion; and a
corresponding influence should be felt in our social manners. When the
object of the feast is no longer the satisfaction of mere physical
hunger, it should be something intended to minister to the appetites of
the mind. When the dinner is no longer the chief thing, some trouble
will doubtless be taken with the assortment of the company.
Simultaneously with the business of eating and drinking, we shall have
anecdote, jest, song, music, smiles, and laughter, to make us forget
the business or troubles of the day; and in the morning, instead of
arranging our debtor and creditor account of invitations, we shall throw
in the evening's gratification to strike the balance, and then make
haste to begin a new score.