Considered as a means of grace and of daily discipline in the fine order of breeding indicated by our poet, our waitress—whatever her race, age, or previous condition of sovereignty—leaves little to the liveliest imagination. She “blazes” her trail through our households by nicks, cracks, breaks and “crazed” glazing.
There is a hill near Rome composed entirely of broken pottery. The modern housekeeper does not enter into the social speculations of archæologists as to its origin and history. Women loved china in those older days as fondly as we love it. Perhaps—for it was an age of idols, many and curious—they set it among their household goods. At any rate, when it was shattered, they gave it decent burial. If the dust-heaps and ash-barrels of Christian America were made to give up the like relics deposited in guilty haste and secrecy within their unhallowed depths the woeful pile would dwarf the Tower of Babel by comparison, and represent as many tears as any national cemetery.
In view of the frail constitution of our well-beloved china, we ought not to set our hearts upon it any more than we ought to love our babies, whose tenure upon life is more slight than spider’s silk. One and all, we do set our affections, and feast our eyes, and pamper our souls’ desires upon the adornments of buffet and china-closet. Tea, coffee and chocolate are more delicious when sipped from Sevres and Limoges; our sensitive finger-tips recoil from the blunt edges of pressed glass. To set stone china and thick tumblers before tired and hungry John would insult one who deserves the best of everything.
Since, then, we must, in justice to him and to ourselves, have fine china and glass, and our waitress’s tumultuous voyagings among them will strew back yards and vacant lots with the worthless flotsam and jetsam of what was dear and precious, what shall be done? To the housekeeper whose time has not a prohibitive monetary value, my advice is simple and direct: Have choice china—the choicest you can afford—and take care of it yourself.
SIDE-BOARD AND CHINA-CLOSET
SOME CULINARY TERMS
“Aspic”—Meat jelly.
“Au Gratin”—Dishes covered with crumbs and browned.
“Au Naturel”—Plain, simple. Potatoes cooked in their jackets are “au naturel.”