“Here it is,” says the “Indicator,” “ready laid. Imprimis, tea and
coffee; secondly, dry toast; thirdly, butter; fourthly, eggs; fifthly,
ham; sixthly, something potted; seventhly, bread, salt, mustard, knives
and forks, &c. One of the first things that belong to a breakfast is a
good fire. There is a delightful mixture of the lively and the snug in
coming down into one’s breakfast-room of a cold morning, and seeing
every thing prepared for us; a blazing grate, a clean table-cloth and
tea-things, the newly-washed faces and combed heads of a set of
good-humoured urchins, and the sole empty chair at its accustomed
corner, ready for occupation. When we lived alone, we could not help
reading at meals: and it is certainly a delicious thing to resume an
entertaining book at a particularly interesting passage, with a hot cup
of tea at one’s elbow, and a piece of buttered toast in one’s hand. The
first look at the page, accompanied by a coexistent bite of the toast,
comes under the head of intensities.”