TABLE TOPICS.
A meal—what is it? Just enough of food
To renovate and well refresh the frame,
So that with spirits lightened, and with strength renewed,
We turn with willingness to work again.—Sel.
Do not bring disagreeable things to the table in your conversation any more than you would in your dishes.—Sel.
Courtesy in the mistress of the house consists in feeding conversation; never in usurping it.—Mme. Swetchine
Good humor and good health follow a good meal; and by a good meal we mean anything, however simple, well dressed in its way.—Smiles.
Unquiet meals make ill digestion.—Shakespeare.
Eat slowly and do not season your food with care.—Sel.
To rise from the table able to eat a little more is a proverbially good rule for every one. There is nothing more idiotic than forcing down a few mouthfuls, because they happen to remain on one's plate after hunger is satisfied, and because they may be "wasted" if left. It is the most serious waste to overtax the stomach with even half an ounce more than it can take care of.—Sel.
I pray you, O excellent wife! cumber not yourself and me to get a curiously rich dinner for this man and woman who have just alighted at our gate.... These things, if they are desirous of them, they can get for a few shillings at any village inn; but rather let that stranger see, if he will, in your looks, accents, and behavior, your heart and earnestness, your thought and will, that which he cannot buy at any price in any city, and which he may travel miles and dine sparely and sleep hardly to behold.—Emerson.
