"The ancient poets and their learned rhymes
We still admire in these our later times,
And celebrate their fames. Thus, though they die
Their names can never taste mortality.
These had their helps. They wrote of gods and kings,
Of temples, battles, and such gallant things.
And now we ask what noble meat and drink
Can help to make man work, to make him think."
"Pray, on what meat hath this our Cæsar fed?"
We should have a higher estimate of the value of a knowledge of
cookery and of all the arts of entertaining, did we sufficiently
realize that the style of Carlyle was owing to dyspepsia! At the age
of fifteen he entered Edinburgh University in order to fit himself for
the pulpit. He studied for many months to that end, but his vocation
refused to be clear. The ministry grew alien to his mind. Finally he
shut himself up, and as he himself says, wrestled with the Lord and
all the imps of darkness. Carlyle believed in a personal Devil, not
tasting food or sleeping for three days and nights, and then
terminated the struggle by resolving to pursue literature. What mental
revolution he underwent, he says he never could understand; all that
he knew was that he came out with that "dommed dyspepsia,"--his Scotch
way of pronouncing a stronger word.
Some writer says that this anecdote solves the problem of Carlyle. The
force, earnestness, and eloquence of his writings were born of a fine,
free intellect. Then came despondency, rage, and bitterness, springing
from dyspepsia, which had been his haunting demon from the first,
releasing him at intervals only to assail and torture him the "more
for each surcease."
Most of his works come under the head of the Literature of Dyspepsia,
and can be as plainly traced to it as to the growth of his
understanding or the sincerity of his convictions. Who does not
recognize, in the oddities of the trials and spiritual agonies of Herr
Teufelsdröckh, the author himself under a thin disguise, and the
promotings and promptings, and phenomena of censuring indigestion? All
through the "Sartor Resartus" it is evident that the gastric juices of
the illustrious iconoclast are insufficient; that while he is railing
at humanity he is suffering from gastritis, while he is prophesying
that the race will come to naught but selfishness and stupidity he is
undergoing gastrodynia, or, as it is commonly called, stomachic cramp.
I do not know who wrote that masterly criticism, but evidently some
man who had had a good dinner.
But Carlyle gets better and writes his noble essay on Robert Burns,
the life of John Sterling, Oliver Cromwell's letters and speeches.
Then he is at his best; sees man as a brother, handicapped with
circumstances, riveted to temperament perhaps, but in spite of all
shortcomings and neglected opportunities, still a brother, demanding
respect, deserving of help. How different Carlyle would have been, as
a man and as a writer, with nutritive organs capable of continually
and regularly performing their functions. Dyspepsia was his worst
enemy, as it has been that of many of his readers. Every mouthful he
ate must have been a gastric Nemesis for sins of opinion, and of
heresies against humanity. His very style is the result of
indigestion,--an excess of ill-chosen, ill-prepared German fare in a
British stomach, affording a strange sustenance, which, like some
diseases, keep a man alive, but which pain while they sustain.
What a different genius was Prescott, who had a good dinner every day
of his life, who was brought up from boyhood in a luxurious old Boston
household where was the perfection of cookery!
Sydney Smith sent word to Prescott after he wrote "Ferdinand and
Isabella,"--
"Tell Prescott to come here and we will drown him in turtle soup."
"Say that I can swim in those seas," was Prescott's witty rejoinder.
Mr. Prescott was fifty-three years of age when he visited England; he
was extremely handsome, courteous, and very much a man of the world.
"We grow like what we eat. Bad food depresses,
Good food exalts us like an inspiration."
Mr. Prescott had been inspired by good food, as any one can see who
reads that noble work "Ferdinand and Isabella." In England this
accomplished man was received by Lady Lyell, to whom he was much
attached. The account of English hospitality which he gives throws a
rosy light on the history of the art of entertaining:
"I returned last night from the Horners, Lady Lyell's parents and
sisters, a very accomplished and happy family circle. They have a
small house, with a pretty lawn stretching between it and the Thames,
that forms a silver edging to the close-shaven green. The family
gather under the old trees on the little shady carpet, which is sweet
with the perfume of flowery shrubs. And you see sails gliding by and
stately swans, of which there are hundreds on the river. The next
Sunday, after dinner, which we took at four o'clock, we strolled
through Hampton Court and its royal park. The next day we took our
picnic at Box Hill. On Friday to dinner at Sir Robert Peel's and to an
evening party at Lady S----'s. I went at eleven and found myself in a
brilliant saloon filled with people amongst whom I did not recognize a
familiar face. You may go to ten parties in London, be introduced to a
score of persons in each, and on going to the eleventh not see a face
that you have ever seen before, so large is the society of the great
metropolis. I was soon put at my ease, however, by the cordial
reception of Lord and Lady C----, who introduced me to a great number
of persons."
This alone would prove how great was Prescott's popularity, for in
London, people, as a rule, are not introduced.
"In the crowd I saw an old gentleman, nicely made up, stooping a good
deal, covered with orders, and making his way easily along, as all,
young and old, seemed to treat him with deference. It was the Duke of
Wellington, the old Iron Duke. He likes the attention he receives in
this social way. He wore round his neck the order of the Golden
Fleece, on his coat the order of the Garter. He is, in truth, the lion
of England, not to say of all Europe."
This beautiful little _genre_ picture of the Iron Duke was written in
the year 1850. Forty years later General Grant was received at Apsley
House by the son of the great Duke of Wellington, the second Duke,
who opened the famous Waterloo room and toasted the modest American as
the greatest soldier of modern times. Mr. Prescott goes on to say,--
"We had a superb dinner at Sir Robert Peel's, four and twenty guests.
It was served in the long picture-gallery. The windows of the gallery
look out upon the Thames, its beautiful stone bridges with lofty
arches, Westminster Abbey with its towers, and the living panorama on
the water. The opposite windows look on the green gardens behind the
Palace of Whitehall, which were laid out by Cardinal Wolsey, and near
the spot where Charles I. lived, and lost his life on the scaffold.
The gallery is full of masterpieces, especially Dutch and Flemish,
amongst them the famous _Chapeau de Paille_, which cost Sir Robert
over five thousand pounds. In his dining-room were also superb
pictures, the famous one by Wilkie, of John Knox preaching, which did
not come up to the idea I had formed of it from the engraving. There
was a portrait of Dr. Johnson by Reynolds, the portrait owned by Mrs.
Thrale and engraved for the Dictionary; what a bijou!
"We sat at dinner looking out on the moving Thames. We dined at eight,
but the twilight lingers here until half-past nine at this summer
season. Sir Robert was exceedingly courteous to his guests, told some
good stories, showed us his autographs, amongst which was the
celebrated one written by Nelson, in which he says, 'If I die
"Frigate" will be found written on my heart.'"
Mr. Prescott's letter to his daughter points out the strange
difference between the life of a girl in England and a girl here.
"I think on reflection, dear Lizzy, that you did well not to come
with me. Girls of your age [she was then nineteen] make no great
figure in society. One never, or very rarely, meets them at dinner
parties, and they are not so numerous at evening parties as with us,
unless it be at balls. Six out of seven women you meet are over
thirty, and many of them over forty or fifty, not to say sixty; the
older they are, the more they are dressed and diamonded. Young girls
dress less, and wear very little ornament indeed."
What a commentary this is on our American way of doing things,--where
young girls rule society, put their mothers in the background, and
wear too fine clothes.
Dr. Prescott was of course presented at Court, and his account of it
is delightful:--
"Well! the presentation has come off, and I will give you some account
of it before going to dine with Lord Fitzwilliam. This morning I
breakfasted with Mr. Monckton Milnes, where I met Macaulay the third
time this week. We had also Lord Lyttleton, an excellent scholar,
Gladstone, and Lord W. Germains, a sensible and agreeable person, and
two or three others. We had a lively talk, but I left early for the
Court affair. I was at Mr. Abbott Lawrence's at one in my costume,--a
_chapeau_ with gold lace, blue coat, and white trowsers, begilded with
buttons and metal, a sword, and patent-leather-boots. I was a figure
indeed! but I had enough to keep me in countenance. I spent an hour
yesterday with Lady M. getting instructions for demeaning myself. The
greatest danger was that I should be tripped up by my sword. On
reaching St. James Place we passed upstairs through files of the
Guard, beefeaters, and were shown into a large saloon richly hung with
crimson silk, and with some fine portraits of the family of George
III. It was amusing, as we waited there an hour, to see the arrival of
the different persons, diplomatic, military, and courtiers, all men
and women blazing in their stock of princely finery, and such a power
of diamonds, pearls, emeralds, and laces, the trains of the ladies'
dresses several yards in length. Some of the ladies wore coronets of
diamonds, which covered the greater part of the head. I counted on
Lady D----'s head two strings of diamonds rising gradually from the
size of a fourpence to the size of an English shilling, and thick in
proportion. The dress of the Duchess of D---- was studded with
diamonds as large as nutmegs. The young ladies dressed very plainly. I
tell this for Lizzy's especial benefit. The company were permitted to
pass one by one into the presence-chamber, a room of about the same
size as the other, with gorgeous canopy and throne, at the farther end
of which stood the little Queen and her Consort, surrounded by her
Court. She was rather simply dressed, but he was in Field-Marshal's
uniform, and covered, I should think, with all the orders of Europe.
He is a good-looking person, but by no means so good-looking as you
are given to expect from his pictures. The Queen is better looking
than you might expect. I was presented by our minister, by the order
of the Chamberlain, as the historian of Ferdinand and Isabella and
made my profound obeisance to her Majesty who made a dignified
courtesy. I made the same low bow to his Princeship, and then bowed
myself out of the circle without my sword tripping up my heels. As I
was drawing off, Lord Carlisle, who was standing on the outer edge,
called me to him and kept me by his side telling me the names of the
different lords and ladies who, after paying their obeisance to the
Queen, passed out before us."
Mr. Monckton Milnes became Lord Houghton, and I had great pleasure in
knowing him well many years after this. He told me, what our American
historian was too modest to tell, how well Mr. Prescott appeared in
London. Lionized to death, as the English alone can lionize, Mr.
Prescott never lost his modest self-possession. He was everywhere
remarked for his beauty, his fine manner, and his knowledge of the
usages of good society. But then, in 1887 the English went equally
wild, even more so, over Buffalo Bill, and probably preferred him.
Mr. Prescott was entertained at Cuddeston Palace, the residence of
Bishop Wilberforce, the famous "Soapy Sam," from the fact, as he said
himself, that he "was always in hot water, and always came out cleaner
than he went in." This witty and accomplished prelate was very much
pleased with our American scholar, and gave him a hearty welcome. It
will sound curiously enough now, that Mr. Prescott found his Episcopal
views very high, and says, "The service was performed with a ceremony
quite Roman Catholic." The Bishop of Oxford would, were he living now,
be called low church,--so much do terms vary in different ages. Truly
the world moves!
I was in my youth entertained at the house of Mr. Prescott, at Nahant,
and allowed to see his workroom and the machinery with which he wrote.
He gave me, and I have it still, a paper which he wrote for me with
the wired plate which the blind use, for he could scarcely see at all.
He was master of the art of entertaining. How charming he was at
dinner at his own house; how pleasantly he made one forget his
greatness, except that a supreme simplicity seems always to accompany
true greatness. He had a regularity in his habits which would in a
less amiable man have interfered with his agreeability, but with him
it was most fascinating, as it seemed like musical chords set to noble
words.
It would be pleasant to record the triumphs of Mr Webster, Mr. Motley,
Mr. Lowell, Mr. Phelps, Mr. Evarts, Mr. Depew, and many another great
American in England, but that, while a subject for national pride,
scarcely comes within the scope of this little book.
It would seem, however, that our orators, however fed, have compassed
the accomplishment of after-dinner speaking, which is so much
appreciated in England, and it is to be hoped that no "dommed
dyspepsia" from badly cooked food will dim the oratory of the future.
It is quite true that a witty and full talker will be silenced if he
is placed before a bad dinner, one which is palpably pretentious but
not well cooked, and villanously served. It is impossible for the
really conscientious diner-out, who respects his digestion, whose
religion is his dinner, to talk much or laugh much, if his gormandize
is wounded. Even if he wills to talk, in order not to lose his
reputation, his speech will be a "muddy flood of saponaceous blather,"
instead of his usual brilliant flow of anecdote and repartee.
Not all great men have, however, felt the influence of food as an
inspirer. Dr. Johnson was great although he was a horrible feeder; and
at the other extreme was General Grant, so abstemious that he once
told me that he did not know the sensation of hunger; that he could go
three days without food. At the splendid banquets given to him he
rarely ate much, but noticed the people and the surroundings, great
hero that he was.
Thackeray, Disraeli, and Dickens have given us the most appreciative
descriptions of the art of entertaining, and were men deeply sensible
of the charms of a good dinner.
Charles Lamb has been the poet of the homely and the comfortable side
of good eating; he records for us in immortal prose and poetry what
roast pig and tobacco have done for him.
We claim boldly that a part of Webster's greatness, Prescott's charm,
the genius of Motley and of Lowell, the oratory of Depew, the wit of
Parke Godwin and Horace Porter, even the magnificent march of Sherman
to the sea, the great genius of Bryant, the sparkling cup of Anacreon,
O. W. Holmes, the masterly speech of our lawyers, and the unrivalled
eloquence of our pulpit orators, are owing to that earlier style of
domestic American cookery which was, and is, and always shall be,
deserving of the highest praise,--when meats were cooked with all
their juices, before a wood fire, when bread was light and feathery,
when soups were soups, and broils were broils! Oh, vanished
excellence!