Carpets and curtains--Picture hanging and frames--Distemper colouring
for cornices--Oval dining-table--Sideboard for breakfast service--
Beauty of English porcelain--A London dining-room--Giulio Romano's
banquet--Growing plants--The large sideboard--Dinner-service--Styles of
dinner--Food in due season--Gracefulness of flowers and fruits--Fresh
fruit better than preserves--Communication between kitchen and dining-room
--Remarks on plate--Table decorations.
Having given a sketch of the kitchen, I must now fill up that of the
dining-room, which we left after the breakfast was cleared away.
As the gas-tripod, the spirit-lamp, and the large bowl for washing the
china and other crockery have been already described, we may proceed to
consider what more immediately relates to the dinner-table; since the
rest of the furniture need not materially differ from what is at
present in use.
In selecting a carpet for the dining-room, let us remember that a
Brussels carpet is more easily brushed and kept clean, than are Turkey
or Indian carpets.
If it be made with a border, and the floor stained and varnished all
round at a width of from one to two feet from the wainscot, beside
being cheaper to begin with than a fitted carpet, it is more artistic
in appearance, and more readily taken up periodically to be beaten;
while a long brush easily dusts the varnished margin, and a damp cloth
tied over a harder broom will wash it in case of necessity. Bordered
square carpets are the more durable, as they are able to be turned
round as one part becomes unduly worn.
The best kind of curtains for a dining-room are of some rich-looking
woollen stuff, thick enough not to require lining. Rep is very
serviceable, but there are many more curious foreign fabrics which may
sometimes be met with at no very great cost.
Curtains ought to run easily on a pole, either of wood or metal. If of
metal, it should not be very large, as the size of a hollow rod does
not add to its strength. Curtain rings can be sewn on at home, and so
can any cord that may be thought desirable at the edge, though this
does not often improve curtains from an artistic point of view. There
is no need of the upholsterer's intervention, which mostly doubles the
price of the curtains.
The height from the floor to the top of the window should be measured,
and the requisite number of yards of material bought, allowing a margin
for curves in the folds of the drapery. The rods should be sufficiently
long to allow the curtains to hang entirely upon the wall, not
overhanging the window in the least. This preserves the drapery, and
keeps it from fading, while it does not exclude the light.
The curtains should be ample enough to cover the window completely when
the shutters are shut, without leaving a streak of opening. They should
likewise extend to the ends of the pole, so as comfortably to keep out
the draught.
If muslin curtains are used, they may conveniently be tacked inside the
woollen ones about half-way; this will keep the latter from some dust.
A few additional rings can be slipped on the pole, to which the
remaining central parts of the muslin will be gathered.
Curtains should touch the floor, or nearly so, but they need never be
allowed to lie in heaps on the ground, as was formerly the fashion; and
the voluminous folds sustained by brackets have been advantageously
exchanged for a simple band to hold back the curtain.
Our mothers and grandmothers were certainly victims to their
upholstery; we have improved in this respect. It does not take many
minutes to unhook our curtains, shake them free from dust, and hang
them up again; we have no complicated pulleys to get out of order
perpetually, nor ponderous cornices with heavy valances, and wonderful
gimp and fringe. Those were fine times for the upholsterers!
Do not hang your dining-room pictures very high; few of us tower above
six feet, and it is easier for those who do so to stoop, than for the
rest of us to stand on tip-toe; we must consider the convenience of the
majority.
Money is well expended on picture-frames, as when they are handsome and
chosen with taste, they enhance our enjoyment of the pictures. But a
costly frame is not always a good one, and when gilt composition runs
riot in ferns and fantastic flames, as we frequently see it do around
mirrors, its effect is barbaric, rather than elegant.
Broad flats in gilt plaster are less excellent than gold laid on the
wood itself.
For prints, where economy has to be much considered, few frames are
better than those of flat oak with a bevelled edge, and on the flat a
slight design of graceful lines made with the parting-tool, and only
the lines gilt.
Pictures, if small and numerous, should not be dotted about the walls,
but grouped. One sometimes see walls as spotted as a currant-dumpling.
A band of wood, called a grazing line, behind the chair-backs protects
the wall, and is an aid to picture hanging, by giving a line from which
we may measure their bases.
If there are many large pictures, they should be hung from a rod placed
near the ceiling, or a foot lower, if an ornamental band of paper is
carried round the top of the room below the cornice. If the cornice is
not already "picked out," as the decorators term it, in colour--that
is, delicately tinted in distemper--it should be done, as it is a great
improvement.
It is not difficult to do this for one's self. The necessary materials
are a pennyworth of whitening, a pennyworth of size, and of the
required tints a pennyworth. Break up some whitening into saucers, mix
it with water until it is of the consistence of thick cream, add a
tablespoonful of melted size to each saucer, shake in about a
teaspoonful of powdered colour to each, and apply with a badger or
hog-hair paintbrush.
Strong colours become pale tints when mixed with the whitening, and the
mixture dries paler than it is applied. To paint the ground on which
the plaster design is embossed gives a cameo effect and is elegant, but
sometimes it is better to colour the raised ornaments. Taste must be
the guide here. This quantity of material is sufficient to tint every
cornice in the house. Splashes of the colour are easily wiped off while
the mixture is wet.
Where the family is small, an oval table, like we generally see in
France, is the most convenient form; as the master and mistress sit
facing each other at the narrowest part of the oval, where they can
communicate freely with each other, and more easily dispense the
general hospitality. A table of this shape is lengthened by leaves
inserted in the central division; when quite closed it is a round
table.
A dumb-waiter placed at the right hand of the mistress enables much
personal waiting to be dispensed with.
If the dining-room be large, it is desirable to have two sideboards,
one larger than the other. The breakfast things should adorn (for that
is what they really ought to do) the smaller sideboard.
With all the beauty and comparative cheapness of our Worcester and
other pottery, we ought, in every family, to possess such a collection
of beautiful objects for daily use as should for ever prevent our
sighing after the palmy days of Greek art. I was at Sevres not long
ago, and while going over the porcelain factory there, I mentioned that
I had been over that at Worcester. "Ah, then, madame," said the
official, "we can show you no more; you have indeed seen all."
And had we no careless and ever-changing servants to shatter our
elegant treasures, we might have in daily use objects which would
enrich a museum, and train our eyes to a higher perception of beauty;
and we should learn to value our porcelain, not for its rarity, but for
its intrinsic merit.
Look at our picturesque coffee and tea pots, our elegant cups, and
well-painted bowls. Why should they always be concealed in china
closets, or consigned to kitchen-dressers, while our dining-room walls
are too often bare and cheerless?--a few dismal prints, hung too high
to be seen or easily dusted, being frequently the only adornments of a
darkened room, like a waiting-room at a railway station for emptiness
of anything to occupy the mind, yet which ought to be one of the
pleasantest and brightest in the house. Instead of which cheerful
appearance, here is a sketch of a regulation dining-room in one of
London's broadest brown streets: a room always dark in winter, but in
summer exposed to glaring sun and a plague of flies.
As soon as a window is opened to cool the stifling air, a simoom of
dust rushes in from the road, and from the dust carts heavily moving to
the slow music of the "Trovatore's" _Miserere_, adding a bass to the
noise of cabs whirling by to the waltz tunes of "Daughter Angot" and
"La belle Helene."
Tables, chairs, and sideboard are remarkable for nothing but
representing so many tons of mahogany embellished with the grinning
heads of griffins. Curtains powerfully scented with dust, a large
chimney-glass made over to the flies, a heavy bronze machine with
ponderous weights and pulleys, all smelling very strongly of gas,
chiefly useful for casting deep shadows upon the dining-table. The
bean-green carpet, monotonizing with the pea-green walls, whereon hang
divers prints of subjects undiscoverable, because they are skied as
high as the ceiling will allow, and two "old masters," as two oil
paintings are called; one a bitumen-brown Wouvermans, or somebody else,
with the hind leg of a gray horse in the foreground, and in the sky a
patch of cloud caught in a tree. The other "gem" had been bought at a
sale under the impression that its subject was "Angels adoring the
Infant Saviour," but which on closer investigation turned out to be two
wicked old drunkards playing at cards, purporting to be by a Dutch
master.
Could even Giulio Romano's artistic festival have been enjoyed in such
a room as this, which is only a fair specimen of the modern British
banquet hall? Hear a short extract from Benvenuto Cellini's description
of it. After speaking of the rich dress of all the guests and the
beauty of the ladies, he continues: "When they had taken their seats,
every man produced a sonnet on some subject or other"--for they were a
company of poets and artists--"and Michelagnolo read them aloud in a
manner which infinitely increased the effect of their excellence. The
company fell into discourse, and many fine things were said, and dinner
was served up. Behind our backs there were rows of flower-pots, filled
with beautiful jessamines, which seemed to heighten the charms of the
young ladies beyond expression. Thus we all, with great cheerfulness,
began to regale ourselves at that elegant dinner. After our repast was
over we were entertained with a concert of music, both vocal and
instrumental, and an _improvisatore_ recited some admirable verses
in praise of the ladies."
We could only on very rare occasions have rows of pots of jasmine
placed behind our chairs, but we might easily grow an elder plant to
keep off the flies. The Swiss scarlet-berried elder (_Sambucus rufus_)
is graceful in growth, and will endure some hard usage.
Flower-pots may also be allowed to remain on the table, unless the
plants are cherished pets, and then they will be placed where they can
receive the sun and air.
Plants growing outside the windows, especially climbers wreathing the
window-frames, give an appearance of size to rooms by bringing air into
the perspective. The picturesque effect of the forms of foliage
relieved against the paler sky is very pleasing, and it breaks the
stiff straight lines of the window better than any drapery.
The glory of the dining-room is its large sideboard. This, where there
is a second sideboard, may be either in the same style or in complete
contrast to it. Here the larger pieces of earthenware and porcelain
should be displayed to advantage. These are such things as salad bowls
and outside pie-dishes, which may always remain in the dining-room, and
the whole of the dessert-service, with the ornaments and table
decorations.
The glasses and decanters should always be elegant, and although in my
opinion the Venetian glass is by far the most beautiful kind, still our
own crystal and engraved glass is often exquisitely lovely, and the
sunshine playing through the prismatic decanter knobs, and other cut
glass ornaments, gives an unrivalled lustre to the summer dinner-table.
Breakages under careful, delicate handling would be less frequent than
they are now, so that the expense of procuring glass and porcelain the
best of their kind would not be felt to be the extravagance it is now.
It will be said that for all this display of glass and china an
enormous sideboard will be required, at as enormous a cost. And the
first objection I concede, without, however, admitting it to be a
fault.
Why should not the sideboard be, if necessary, as large as the side of
the room? But the cost may be less than that of an ordinary
dinner-waggon. It might be constructed as a series of shelves, ranged
as high as can be conveniently reached, broken by cellarettes and other
cupboards or cabinets, hung with worked curtains, the shelves merely
backed by paper made like embossed leather. There is an infinite
variety of styles and forms in which the sideboard may be made; from
the gorgeous mass of carved oak and velvet, set with golden shields,
and cups, and services of gold plate, such as I have admired on the
dining-room walls of a palace built on the ruins of an abbey, down to
the stained deal dresser-shaped sideboard of a house of fifty pounds a
year, where it would only be decked with graceful, yet unpretending,
china and terra-cotta, where its curtains would be of brown holland
worked in crewels, and its intrinsic ornaments the burnished brass
locks, hinges, and handles. Yet as fine taste might be visible in one
as in the other.
The table-cloth, table-napkins, and spoons and forks should be laid in
drawers, as such seems their befitting place; and salt-cellars, and
other diminutive articles containing condiments, may be put away behind
small curtains, or veils, of decorative needlework, to shelter them
from the dust, as well as to give an opportunity for the display of
rich and elegant furniture embroidery, adapted in style to the
carvings, plaques, inlaid work, or other adornments of the sideboard.
The piles of plates--as many of them must almost of necessity be in
piles--will be also concealed and protected by curtains, or behind
doors turning on pivots, which, where they are available, are far
better than hinges.
The quantity of plates wanted for the daily use of the family must be
kept in the kitchen, as they will be washed there, and need to be
warmed in readiness for dinner; but dinner and dessert plates that are
not used for greasy comestibles will be rinsed in the dining-room, and
rearranged at once.
I know some old Bristol china butter boats of such simple but elegant
form, that the curves of the nautilus shell are hardly more graceful.
Yet these things had been banished to a kitchen dresser until I
implored their release; and now, in the present Bristol china mania,
they are promoted to a drawing-room table, a place quite as unsuitable
as was the kitchen dresser.
Among useful decorations for the sideboard, some of the prettiest I
have seen are the Venetian curved bottles for holding oil and vinegar.
They are fixed in a glass stand, and as the curved necks of the
flask-shaped bottles bend over across each other, by taking up the
stand either oil or vinegar may be poured out without spilling the
other condiment, and the flasks require no stoppers, as their curve is
sufficient to keep out the dust, though occasionally a glass dolphin is
stuck in the mouth of each bottle. This simple yet ingenious
contrivance is far prettier than our somewhat vulgar cruet-stand.
Moorish brass salvers add colour and brightness to the sideboard, in
families where silver salvers and presentation plate are not matters of
course.
A simple style of dinner is more elegant, as well as more healthful,
than one more elaborate. Let it vary with each day rather than with
every course: the dinner will thus preserve a character of its own,
better than where this is frittered away among so many dishes that you
cannot remember off what you have dined.
There is a medium between this fidgety _menu_ and the monster joints we
sometimes burden ourselves with. It requires judgment to take the right
line. We need not attempt, in our everyday dinner, to realize
Disraeli's ideal of dining: "eating ortolans to the sound of soft
music." But we may try to make our dinner an enjoyment as well as a
refreshment; and although our set banquets may be rare, taste and
attention will impart to every meal something of the character of a
feast.
Stress must be laid on the importance of having every article of food
in its due season.
Independently of the hygienic value of the change of diet so supplied,
which is in itself a substitute for many tonic and alternative
medicines, attention to this point will give us luxuries when we may
reasonably afford them.
Salmon is as nice when it is a shilling a pound as when it is four
times that price, and venison is by no means an expensive viand if the
market be watched. If we only think of ribs of beef and legs of mutton,
we shall only get beef and mutton. But if we take Nature for our guide,
we need not deny ourselves the most gratifying and healthful variety.
It is essential that we should eat the fresh fruits as they are ripe,
and this rule is equally necessary as regards vegetables.
Indeed, in summer we should accustom ourselves to think more of the
vegetable food than of meat; to arrange our dinner in this department
primarily, considering what dainty dishes we may concoct of flour and
vegetables fried, boiled, and baked, dressed with oil or milk, herbs or
spices, incidentally adding the meat--in fact, reversing our usual
order of proceedings, where we construct our dinner plan of solid meat,
only throwing in vegetables or fruit by way of garnish. But what I wish
to dwell on now is not so much the quantity of vegetable produce we
ought to consume, as the necessity of its seasonableness.
When our cooks, be they noble, gentle, or simple, have come to study
the medicinal properties of plants--how they act upon the different
organs of the body, and so on--they will see how beautifully they are
adapted by the great Provider to our bodily requirements, according to
the weather and other circumstances, and how often what grows best in
any situation or soil is the aliment best suited to our own growth in
that situation.
If we attended more to this point, our digestions would have
sufficiently varied exercise to keep them in healthy working order, and
we should hear less about what does or does not agree with people. It
is of more consequence that our digestions should be permitted to work
at regular hours, than that they should have an over-easy diet. This,
indeed, is absolutely injurious to them.
Persons sometimes feel ill, and whatever they may happen to have fed
upon is loaded with the responsibility, and that article of diet is cut
off for ever from their list, and its hygienic benefit lost to the
constitution. The blame is never laid on irregularity, want of air,
exercise, or occupation, excitement or perhaps temper, or upon
circumstances generally. Either the weather or the food, irrespective
of the quantity taken, is charged with every ill.
If we took care to make pictures of our dishes of fruit, they would
afford us two delightful sensations instead of one. To do this it is
not needful to have heaps of fruits, or pyramids of pines. A plum on a
leaf, an orange on a china tile, with a branch of flowers laid across
it, make exquisite pictures.
See how we appreciate the form and grace of a single flower in a
specimen glass, so that we cannot now endure to see the mass of crushed
flowers we used to call a nosegay; the very word, so descriptive of the
bundle, being done away with the thing itself. The old nosegay gave us
the scent and gay colours of the flowers, but their tender grace had
fled. Now they are delightful to their very stems.
Provident housekeepers have so impressed upon our minds the necessity
of caring for the future, that we have been taught to make jam of our
most delicious fruits, denying ourselves their fresh beauty and
fragrance at our tables, while we roast ourselves over preserving pans
in the hottest days of July. This, besides being martyrdom, is a work
of supererogation, as the fruit is nicer fresh, and to buy it for the
sake of keeping it is absurd, as it can but be eaten once. It is a very
reasonable practice in the case of persons possessing large
fruit-gardens, as much might otherwise be spoiled; but in our town
households it is trouble taken in vain.
We all know the difference it makes to our dinners whether they are
served up hot, or only lukewarm; and this alone gives a sufficient
reason why we should insist upon the kitchen being close to the
dining-room. Where there is no possibility of making a door of
immediate communication, we should try our utmost to get a slide-window
between the two rooms, so that the dishes, and indeed the whole
paraphernalia that necessarily moves from kitchen to dining-room, may
be placed on a slab at the said window on one side, and taken in at the
other side.
If two persons are engaged in performing this work, one dishing up and
placing on the window slab, and the other putting the things on the
dining-table, it will be very expeditious, but it may be quite easily
managed by one person. The slide-window, either a sash or a
sliding-door, saves much running to and fro.
I will conclude my remarks upon dining-room furniture with a few words
about plate.
The bulk of the plate in daily use in the houses of the upper
middle-class is electro-silver, and it is very admissible, being
strong, durable, and agreeable to use; and when made in the ordinary
fiddle or threaded patterns is useful without being pretentious. But
when it expands into Albert patterns, king's patterns, and the
like--when, in short, it claims intrinsic value, and pretends to be
silver--it becomes vulgar immediately, because it represents a snobbish
feeling which is bent on making a show with a sham. We cannot all
afford silver plate, though doubtless we should all like it, but all of
us wish to have the most agreeable medium with which to eat our food,
and for this purpose electro is as good as silver.
It is better, in purchasing, to buy the best quality, as it is so much
more durable, and it always looks better.
For dessert knives and forks, those with mother-of-pearl handles are
the best; the colour is so pleasant, and they are very easily cleaned.
Should you happen to be the fortunate possessor of old plate, let
nothing induce you to do as many weak persons are talked into doing:
exchange it for modern patterns.
Modern plate is seldom of even moderately good design. The object of
the manufacturer seems to be to crowd upon it as lumpy an embossed
ornament as possible, to make it massive, and remind us of so much per
ounce. This was not the motive of the old silversmiths, who more
frequently engraved than embossed their ornaments. Most of the old
engraved silver is delightful, and it is very light.
The Queen-Anne plate, now so keenly sought, is of admirable workmanship
and good design, though the edges are rather thin and sharp for comfort
in use.
It is worth while having nice electro dish-covers, as the ugly tin ones
sometimes seem to have such a very miserable appearance. It will not be
necessary to possess many, and they will come to no harm in our elegant
kitchen. They may be either hung up or stood on the dresser; the former
way is preferable, and rings to suspend them by are easily attached.
Dish-covers should be warmed before they are put on, as a cold metal
cavern chills a leg of mutton almost to the marrow.
Real silver ornaments for the dinner-table are very precious, but
failing these, we may make our tables very elegant with Parian, glass,
or even wicker ornaments; and the most interesting of any adornments
are vases and dishes painted on porcelain by members of the family. I
am sorry to see so many small vulgarities introduced in the shops in
the way of _menu_ holders, and other so-called ornaments.
Grotesque is all very well, but it should show a light, delicate play
of fancy; and things comic are very amusing when they are not vulgar.
But the degenerate caricatures we see about now, mark a tendency to
flatter the lowest order of taste, which, if followed, will inevitably
drag our conversation down with it. These silly table-decorations began
with caricatures of the men who carry the sandwich placards up and down
the streets, and daily I see them acquiring all the bad style of common
burlesques, or of the cheap valentines.