Please make room at this table, right here, for me. Surely at a table of such dimensions, there should be plenty of room. Many a table-scene do I now recall, in days gone by, 'all of which I saw, and part of which I was,' but nothing like this. Tables of all sorts and sizes, but never a CONTINENTAL table before. I suppose the nearest approach to it was the picnic dinner the wee youngsters used to eat off the ground! A CONTINENTAL table! The most hospitable idea imaginable. Give place! Do you demand my credentials, my card, my ticket? Here we have it all; a little note from mine host, Mr. LELAND, inviting the bearer to this monthly repast, and requesting, very properly—it was the way we always did, when we used to get up picnics—that the receiver of the note bring some sort of refreshments along. Thank you. This seat is very comfortable. What more appropriate, at such a time, than the discussion of the Meal?
I protest I am no glutton; in fact, I despise the man whose meal-times are the epochs of his life; yet I frankly confess to emotions of a very positive character, in contemplating the associations of the table, and I admit farther, that I take pleasure in the reality as well as in the imagination. I like to be 'one of the company,' whether in palace or in farm-house. I always brighten up when I see the dining-room door thrown open to an angle hospitably obtuse, and am pleased alike with the politely-worded request, 'Will the ladies and gentlemen please walk out and partake of some refreshments?' or the blunt, kindly voice of mine host, 'Come, friends; dinner's ready.' Still I assert my freedom from any slavish fondness for the creature comforts. It is not the bill of fare that so pleases me. In fact, some of the best meals of which I have ever partaken, were those the materials of which I could not have remembered twenty minutes after. Exquisite palatal pleasures, then, are not a sine qua non in the enjoyment of table comforts. No, indeed. There is a condiment which is calculated to impart a high relish to the humblest fare; but without this charmed seasoning, every banquet is a failure. Solomon was a man of nice observation, even in so humble a matter as a meal. Let him reveal the secret in his own words: 'Better is a dinner of herbs, where LOVE is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.'
By a merciful arrangement of Providence, man is so constituted that he may think, talk, and eat, all at one and the same time. Hence, the table is often the scene of animated and very interesting conversations, provided love is there. Many of our Saviour's most interesting and instructive discourses were delivered while 'sitting at meat,' and the 'table-talk' of some authors is decidedly the most meritorious of all their performances.
But the truth is, there are not many meals where love is entirely absent. Cheerfulness is naturally connected with eating; eating begets it probably. It is difficult for a man to eat at all, if he is in a bad humor. Quite impossible, if he is in a rage; especially if he is obliged to sit down to his dinner in company with the man he hates. There are so many little kind offices that guests must perform for each other at table, so many delicate compliments may be paid to those we love or revere, by polite attentions to them, and so necessary, indeed, have these become to our notion of a satisfactory repast, that to banish such amiable usages from our tables would be not only to degrade us to the level of the brute, but would deprive us of a most humanising and refining means of enjoyment. How beautiful and necessary, then, is the arrangement by which, morning, noon, and night, (I pity folks who only eat twice a day,) the members of the household are brought together in such kindly intercourse around the family board! How seldom would they assemble thus pleasantly, were it not for the meal!
The little wounds and scratches which the sharp edges of our characters will inflict upon each other, when brought together in the necessary contact of daily intercourse, would otherwise be suffered to fret and vex us sorely; but before they have had time to fester and inflame, meal-time comes, and brings with it the magic, mollifying oil.
It is meet, then, (we spell the word with two e's, mind you,) that, on any occasion of public rejoicing, the banquet should be an indispensable accompaniment. The accomplishment of some important public enterprise, the celebration of the birth-days of great and good men, a nation's holidays, the reünions of friends engaged in a common cause, are occasions in which the dinner, very properly, constitutes one of the leading features.
And what can be more exhilarating than the innocent mirthfulness, the unaffected kindnesses, the witty speeches, the sprightly conversations which are universally incident to such occasions? No wonder Lycurgus decreed that the Spartans should eat in public. Ostensibly, it was for the sake of the grave conversations of the elders at such times, but really, I imagine, it was to keep the citizens (who had been at swords' points with each other) in a good humor, by bringing them around a common table.
He knew that if any thing would soften their mutual asperities and cultivate mutual good feeling, such a measure would. Would it not be well for modern times to take a hint here? Had I been appointed architect of the Capitol, I think I could have saved the feuds which long ago sprang up, and which have resulted in, and will yet bring about, alas! we know not how much bloodshed. I would have constructed a couple of immense dining-rooms, with all the necessary appurtenances. Just to think how different would have been the aspect of things in the chamber where Sumner once lay bleeding, and in the hall where a gentleman, in a mêlée, 'stubbed his toe and fell!' There would have been Mr. Breckinridge, in a canopied seat at the head of one of the tables, rapping the Senate to order with his knife-handle, and Mr. Orr at the head of the other, uncovering an immense tureen, with the remark that 'the House will now proceed to business!' How strange it would be to hear any angry debate at such a time! Imagine a Congressman helping himself to a batter-cake and at the same time calling his brother-member a liar! or throwing down his napkin, by way of challenge to 'the gentleman on the opposite side of the table!' Think of Keitt politely handing Grow the cream-pitcher, and attempting to knock him down before the meal was dispatched. Had the discussion of the Lecompton Constitution been carried on simultaneously with that of a couple of dozen roast turkeys, I sometimes think we might have avoided this war.
Not only in public but in private rejoicings, is the table the scene of chief enjoyment. When was it that the fatted calf was killed? On what occasion was the water turned into wine? What better way to rejoice over the return of a long-absent one than to meet him around the hospitable table? Ye gods! let your mouths water! There's a feast ahead for our brave soldiers, when they come home from this war, that will make your tables look beggarly. I refer to that auspicious moment when the patriot now baring his bosom to the bloody brunt of war, shall sit down once more to the table, in his own dear home, however humble, and partake of the cheerful meal in peace, with his wife and his little ones about him. Oh! for the luxury of that first meal! I almost feel as if I could endure the hardships of the fierce campaign that precedes it.
There is no memory so pleasant to me as that of the annual reünion of my aunts and uncles, with their respective troops of cousins, at the house of my dear grandmother of blessed memory. It was pleasant to watch the conveyances one by one coming in, laden with friends who had traveled many a weary mile to be present on the great occasion. It was pleasant to witness the mutual recognitions of brothers and sisters with their respective wives and husbands; to observe the transports of the little fellows, in their hearty greetings, after a twelve months' separation, and to hear their expressions of mingled surprise and delight on being introduced to the strange little cousins, whose presence increased the number considerably above the preceding census. But the culminating point was yet to come. That was attained when all the brothers and sisters had gathered around the great long table, just as they did when they were children, with their dear mother at the head, surveying the scene in quiet enjoyment, and one of the 'older boys' at the foot, to ask a blessing. There were the waffle-cakes, baked in the irons which had furnished every cake for that table for the last quarter of a century. There was the roast-turkey, which grandma had been putting through a generous system of dietetics for weeks, preparatory to this occasion. It rested on the same old turkey-plate, with its two great birds sitting on a rose-bush, and by its side was the great old carving-knife, which had from time immemorial been the instrument of dissection on such occasions. And there was maple-molasses from Uncle D——'s 'sugar-camp,' and cheese from Aunt N——'s press, and honey from Uncle T——'s hives, and oranges which Aunt I——, who lived in the city, had provided, and all contained in the old-fashioned plates and dishes of a preceding generation.