If we ask
people to a meal, it should be to such as we eat, as a general
thing, ourselves, and such as they would have at home. Otherwise
it becomes ostentation and vulgarity. Why should one be expelled
to eat more than usual because a friend has been nice enough to ask
one to take one's dinner with him, instead of eating it alone? It
is the being among friends that tempts, not the food; the fact at
skilful waiters have been able to serve a dozen varieties of fish,
flesh, and fowl during the time you were at table has added little
to any one's pleasure. On the contrary! Half the time one eats
from pure absence of mind, a number of most injurious mixtures and
so prepares an awful to-morrow and the foundation of many
complicated diseases.
I see Smith and Jones daily at the club, where we dine cheerfully
together on soup, a cut of the joint, a dessert, and drink a pint
of claret. But if either Mrs. Smith or Mrs. Jones asks me to
dinner, we have eight courses and half as many wines, and Smith
will say quite gravely to me, "Try this '75 'Perrier Jouet'," as if
he were in the habit of drinking it daily. It makes me smile, for
he would as soon think of ordering a bottle of that wine at the
club as he would think of ordering a flask of nectar.
But to return to our "mutton." As we had none of us eaten too much
(and so become digesting machines), we were cheerful and sprightly.
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