Why should not the sideboard be, if necessary, as large as the side of the room? But the cost may be less than that of an ordinary dinner-waggon. It might be constructed as a series of shelves, ranged as high as can be conveniently reached, broken by cellarettes and other cupboards or cabinets, hung with worked curtains, the shelves merely backed by paper made like embossed leather. There is an infinite variety of styles and forms in which the sideboard may be made; from the gorgeous mass of carved oak and velvet, set with golden shields, and cups, and services of gold plate, such as I have admired on the dining-room walls of a palace built on the ruins of an abbey, down to the stained deal dresser-shaped sideboard of a house of fifty pounds a year, where it would only be decked with graceful, yet unpretending, china and terra-cotta, where its curtains would be of brown holland worked in crewels, and its intrinsic ornaments the burnished brass locks, hinges, and handles. Yet as fine taste might be visible in one as in the other.
The table-cloth, table-napkins, and spoons and forks should be laid in drawers, as such seems their befitting place; and salt-cellars, and other diminutive articles containing condiments, may be put away behind small curtains, or veils, of decorative needlework, to shelter them from the dust, as well as to give an opportunity for the display of rich and elegant furniture embroidery, adapted in style to the carvings, plaques, inlaid work, or other adornments of the sideboard.
The piles of plates—as many of them must almost of necessity be in piles—will be also concealed and protected by curtains, or behind doors turning on pivots, which, where they are available, are far better than hinges.
The quantity of plates wanted for the daily use of the family must be kept in the kitchen, as they will be washed there, and need to be warmed in readiness for dinner; but dinner and dessert plates that are not used for greasy comestibles will be rinsed in the dining-room, and rearranged at once.
I know some old Bristol china butter boats of such simple but elegant form, that the curves of the nautilus shell are hardly more graceful. Yet these things had been banished to a kitchen dresser until I implored their release; and now, in the present Bristol china mania, they are promoted to a drawing-room table, a place quite as unsuitable as was the kitchen dresser.
Among useful decorations for the sideboard, some of the prettiest I have seen are the Venetian curved bottles for holding oil and vinegar. They are fixed in a glass stand, and as the curved necks of the flask-shaped bottles bend over across each other, by taking up the stand either oil or vinegar may be poured out without spilling the other condiment, and the flasks require no stoppers, as their curve is sufficient to keep out the dust, though occasionally a glass dolphin is stuck in the mouth of each bottle. This simple yet ingenious contrivance is far prettier than our somewhat vulgar cruet-stand. Moorish brass salvers add colour and brightness to the sideboard, in families where silver salvers and presentation plate are not matters of course.
A simple style of dinner is more elegant, as well as more healthful, than one more elaborate. Let it vary with each day rather than with every course: the dinner will thus preserve a character of its own, better than where this is frittered away among so many dishes that you cannot remember off what you have dined.
There is a medium between this fidgety menu and the monster joints we sometimes burden ourselves with. It requires judgment to take the right line. We need not attempt, in our everyday dinner, to realize Disraeli's ideal of dining: "eating ortolans to the sound of soft music." But we may try to make our dinner an enjoyment as well as a refreshment; and although our set banquets may be rare, taste and attention will impart to every meal something of the character of a feast.
Stress must be laid on the importance of having every article of food in its due season.
Independently of the hygienic value of the change of diet so supplied, which is in itself a substitute for many tonic and alternative medicines, attention to this point will give us luxuries when we may reasonably afford them.