"Lend me your ears."
"It has often perplexed me to imagine," writes Nathaniel Hawthorne,
"how an Englishman will be able to reconcile himself to any future
state of existence from which the earthly institution of dinner is
excluded. The idea of dinner has so imbedded itself among his highest
and deepest characteristics, so illuminated itself with intellect, and
softened itself with the kindest emotions of his heart, so linked
itself with Church and State, and grown so majestic with long
hereditary custom and ceremonies, that by taking it utterly away,
Death, instead of putting the final touch to his perfection, would
leave him infinitely less complete than we have already known him. He
could not be roundly happy. Paradise among all its enjoyments would
lack one daily felicity in greater measure than London in the season."
No dinner would be worth the giving that had not one witty man or one
witty woman to lift the conversation out of the commonplace. As many
more agreeable people as one pleases, but one leader is absolutely
necessary.
Not alone the funny man whom the _enfant terrible_ silenced by asking,
"Mamma would like to know when you are going to begin to be funny,"
but those men who have the rare art of being leaders without seeming
to be, who amuse without your suspecting that you are being amused;
for there never should be anything professional in dinner-table wit.
The dinner giver has often to feel that something has been left out of
the group about the table; they will not talk! She has furnished them
with food and wine, but can she amuse them? Her witty man and her
witty woman are both engaged elsewhere,--they are apt to be,--and her
room is too warm, perhaps. She determines that at the next dinner she
will have some mechanical adjuncts, even an empirical remedy against
dulness. She tries a dinner card with poetical quotations, conundrums,
and so on. The Shakspeare Club of Philadelphia inaugurated this
custom, and some very witty results followed:--
"Enter Froth" (before champagne).
"What is thine age?" (_Romeo and Juliet_) brings in the Madeira.
LOBSTER SALAD.
"Who hath created this indigest?"
Pray you bid these unknown friends welcome, for it is a way to
make us better friends.--_Winter's Tale._
ROAST TURKEY.
See, here he comes swelling like a turkey cock.--_Henry IV._
YORK HAMS.
Sweet stem from York's great stock.--_Henry VI._
TONGUE.
Silence is only commendable in a neat's tongue dried--
_Merchant of Venice._
BRAISED LAMB AND BEEF.
What say you to a piece of lamb and mustard?--a dish that I do
love to feed upon.--_Taming of the Shrew._
LOBSTER SALAD.
Sallat was born to do me good.--_Henry IV._