Who can now record the
degrees by which the custom prevalent in my youth of asking each other to
take wine together at dinner became obsolete? Who will be able to fix,
twenty years hence, the date when our dinners began to be carved and
handed round by servants, instead of smoking before our eyes and noses on
the table? To record such little matters would indeed be 'to chronicle
small beer.' But, in a slight memoir like this, I may be allowed to note
some of those changes in social habits which give a colour to history,
but which the historian has the greatest difficulty in recovering.
At that time the dinner-table presented a far less splendid appearance
than it does now. It was appropriated to solid food, rather than to
flowers, fruits, and decorations. Nor was there much glitter of plate
upon it; for the early dinner hour rendered candlesticks unnecessary, and
silver forks had not come into general use: while the broad rounded end
of the knives indicated the substitute generally used instead of them.
{31}
The dinners too were more homely, though not less plentiful and savoury;
and the bill of fare in one house would not be so like that in another as
it is now, for family receipts were held in high estimation.
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