A PIC-NIC.
Thursday, May 23, 1850.
With my Wife to a Pic-nic Party. I to content her more than to please myself, and to think how I always study her Pleasure more than my own, and sacrifice my own Inclinations to hers always. For I prefer to eat good Things off a Plate or a Table, and not upon my Knees. Besides, the Fly hired to carry us from Home and back, cost me three Guineas. The Pic-Nic in my Lord Bilberry's Park, where the Ruins of an old Abbey, open by my Lord's Allowance, People come to see from all Parts, gipsying, and making merry and dancing basely among the Ruins. These with mouldering Arches and Stones overgrown with Moss, and Lichen, and Ivy, mighty venerable, and set off by a Youth with long Hair and turned-down Collar, leaning on a broken Pillar, striking an attitude and staring at the Sky, as though musing on Infinity but in Truth fancying himself an Object of Admiration. But, he wrapt up in that Mistake, and forgetting his Meals, the rest intent altogether on the good Things from Fortnum and Mason's and the Pastry Cook's; and good Lack to see how they, to the Number of nigh forty Men, Women, and Girls, pitch into the Ham and Chicken, and the Cold Meat and Lobster Salad, and Pigeon and Veal and Ham Pie, and therewith drink bottled Ale and Stout, whereof a fat Serving Man in Livery, hardly drawing a Quart Bottle, mighty comical, and also a Page, who, carrying Plates, kick against a Wasps' Nest and raise the Wasps about his Ears and there he stand fighting them with a Knife, his Face in the Centre of the swarm the Image of Horror. The Younger Men mostly mighty Polite, they, and especially one with a fine slim Figure and hooked Nose, with constrained Postures, making Obeisance as they serve the Girls with Beer and Wine, whereof they as well as the Men mostly drink their Whack, and pretty to see how one most elegant Damsel seem falling into a happy Dream and how with her Hair flowing all adown she droop her Eyelids, muzzy. But some did get full of Fun, and a little Rogue I see pour the Heel-tap of a Champagne Glass into the Face of a Youngster, who, lying on his Back, had fallen on Sleep. The Managers of the Collection also mighty attentive, doing the Honours, and rare to see one of them, a fine portly Man, carve Slices off Great Round of Beef, in high Glee. But another rising from his Camp Stool to hand a Plate to a fine fat Dame, she and her pretty Daughter suddenly frighted by a Toad and Frog, which crawl and hop towards them out of some Flags by the Water, start back in Horror, and startle him and make him upset several Wine Glasses and the Water Can, and stamp on and smash a Plate. Among the Elders worth noting a lean old Professor, and his Neighbour a smug Lawyer how they gave their whole minds to most serious Eating, and also one or two of the younger Men did nought but stuff themselves; but most made Love; and pretty to see a loving Couple clink Glasses together, while other Pairs having had enough, saunter and strut about among and outside the Ruins. Good Lack to think what a Deal we ate and drank between us, and how famished on one Hand looked a lean old Labourer in a Smock Frock with a chubby but hungry little Clown, eyeing the picked Bones, while a Cur on the other did, in his Mouth, run away with the Wing of a Fowl.
