All About Coffee Part 105

What is it, I ask you, when he comes down to breakfast dry of mouth, and touchy of temper-- That gives him pause, and silences that scintillating barb of sarcasm on the tip of his tongue, With which he meant to impale you?

It is the sweet aroma of the coffee-pot--the thrilling thought of that first delicious sip!

What is it, on the morning after the club dance, That hides your weary, little, washed-out face and straggling, uncurled coiffure from his critical eyes?

It is the generous coffee-pot, standing like a guardian angel between you and him!

And in those many vital psychological moments, during the honeymoon, which decide for or against the romance and happiness of all the rest of married life-- Those critical before-breakfast moments when temperament meets temperament, and will meets "won't"-- What is it that halts you on the brink of tragedy, And distracts you from the temptation to answer back?

It is the absorbing anxiety of watching the coffee boil!

What is it that warms his veins and soothes your nerves, And turns all the world suddenly from a dismal gray vale of disappointment to a bright rosy garden of hope-- And starts _another_ day gliding smoothly along like a new motor car?

What is it that will do more to transform a man from a fiend into an angel than baptism in the River Jordan?

_It is the first cup of coffee in the morning!_

_Coffee in Dramatic Literature_

Coffee was first "dramatized", so to speak, in England, where we read that Charles II and the Duke of Yorke attended the first performance of _Tarugo's Wiles, or the Coffee House_, a comedy, in 1667, which Samuel Pepys described as "the most ridiculous and insipid play I ever saw in my life." The author was Thomas St. Serf. The piece opens in a lively manner, with a request on the part of its fashionable hero for a change of clothes. Accordingly, Tarugo puts off his "vest, hat, perriwig, and sword," and serves the guests to coffee, while the apprentice acts his part as a gentleman customer. Presently other "customers of all trades and professions" come dropping into the coffee house. These are not always polite to the supposed coffee-man; one complains of his coffee being "nothing but warm water boyl'd with burnt beans," while another desires him to bring "chocolette that's prepar'd with water, for I hate that which is encouraged with eggs." The pedantry and nonsense uttered by a "schollar" character is, perhaps, an unfair specimen of coffee-house talk; it is especially to be noticed that none of the guests ventures upon the dangerous ground of politics.

In the end, the coffee-master grows tired of his clownish visitors, saying plainly, "This rudeness becomes a suburb tavern rather than my coffee house"; and with the a.s.sistance of his servants he "thrusts 'em all out of doors, after the schollars and customers pay."

In 1694, there was published Jean Baptiste Rosseau's comedy, _Le Caffe_, which appears to have been acted only once in Paris, although a later English dramatist says it met with great applause in the French capital.

_Le Caffe_ was written in Laurent's cafe, which was frequented by Fontenelle, Houdard de la Motte, Dauchet, the abbe Alary Boindin, and others. Voltaire said that "this work of a young man without any experience either of the world of letters or of the theater seems to herald a new genius."

About this time it was the fashion for the coffee-house keepers of Paris, and the waiters, to wear Armenian costumes; for Pascal had builded better than he knew. In _La Foire Saint-Germain_, a comedy by Dancourt, played in 1696, one of the princ.i.p.al characters is old "Lorange, a coffee merchant clothed as an Armenian". In scene 5, he says to Mlle. Mousset, "a seller of house dresses" that he has been "a naturalized Armenian for three weeks."

Mrs. Susannah Centlivre (1667?-1723), in her comedy, _A Bold Stroke for a Wife_, produced about 1719, has a scene laid in Jonathan's coffee house about that period. While the stock jobbers are talking in the first scene of act II, the coffee boys are crying, "Fresh Coffee, gentlemen, fresh coffee?... Bohea tea, gentlemen?"

Henry Fielding (1707-1754) published "_The Coffee-House Politician, or Justice caught in his own trap_," a comedy, in 1730.

_The Coffee House, a dramatick Piece by James Miller_, was performed at the Theater Royal in Drury Lane in 1737. The interior of d.i.c.k's coffee house figured as an engraved frontispiece to the published version of the play.

The author states in the preface that "this piece is partly taken from a comedy of one act written many years ago in French by the famous Rosseau, called 'Le Caffe', which met with great applause in Paris."

The coffee house in the play is conducted by the Widow Notable, who has a pretty daughter for whom, like all good mothers, she is anxious to arrange a suitable marriage.

In the first scene, an acrimonious conversation takes place between Puzzle, the Politician, and Bays, the poet, in which squabble the Pert Beau and the Solemn Beau, and other habitues of the place take part.

Puzzle discovers that a comedian and other players are in the room, and insists that they be ejected or forbidden the house. The Widow is justly incensed, and indignantly replies:

Forbid the Players my House, Sir! Why, Sir, I get more by them in a Week than I do by you in seven Years. You come here and hold a paper in your hand for an Hour, disturb the whole Company with your Politics, call for Pen and Ink, Paper and Wax, beg a Pipe of Tobacco, burn out half a Candle, eat half a Pound of Sugar, and then go away, and pay Two-pence for a Dish of Coffee. I could soon shut up my doors, if I had not some other good People to make amends for what I lose by such as you, Sir.

All join the Widow in scoffing and jeering, and exit the highly discomfited Puzzle. The pretty little Kitty tricks her mother with the aid of the Player, and marries the man of her choice, but is forgiven when he is found to be a gentleman of the Temple.

The play is in one act and has several songs. The last is one of five stanzas, with music "set by Mr. Caret:"

SONG

What Pleasures a Coffee-House daily bestows!

To read and hear how the World merrily goes; To laugh, sing and prattle of This, That, and T' other; And be flatter'd and ogl'd and kiss'd too, like Mother.

Here the Rake, after Roving and Tipling all Night, For his Groat in the Morning may set his Head right.

And the Beau, who ne'er fouls his White fingers with Bra.s.s, May have his Sixpen' worth of--Stare in the Gla.s.s.

The Doctor, who'd always be ready to kill, May ev'ry Day here take his Stand, if he will; And the soldier, who'd bl.u.s.ter and challenge secure, May draw boldly here, for--we'll hold him he's sure.

The Lawyer, who's always in quest of his Prey, May find fools here to feed upon every Day; And the sage Politician, in Coffee-Grounds known, May point out the Fate of each Crown but--his own.

Then, Gallants, since ev'rything here you may find That pleasures the Fancy or profits the Mind, Come all, and take each a full Dish of Delight, And crowd up our Coffee-House every night.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SONG FROM "THE COFFEE HOUSE"]

John Timbs tells us this play "met with great opposition on its representation, owing to its being stated that the characters were intended for a particular family (that of Mrs. Yarrow and her daughter) who kept d.i.c.k's, the coffee-house which the artist had inadvertently selected as the frontispiece. It appears," Timbs continues, "that the landlady and her daughter were the reigning toast of the Templars, who then frequented d.i.c.k's; and took the matter up so strongly that they united to condemn the farce on the night of its production; they succeeded, and even extended their resentment to everything suspected to be this author's (the Rev. James Miller) for a considerable time after."

Carlo Goldoni, who has been called the Moliere of Italy, wrote _La Bottega di Caffe_, (The Coffee House), a naturalistic comedy of bourgeois Venice, satirizing scandal and gambling, in 1750. The scene is a Venetian coffee house (probably Florian's), where several actions take place simultaneously. Among several remarkable studies is one of a prattling slanderer, Don Marzio, which ranks as one of the finest bits of original character drawing the stage has ever seen. The play was produced in English by the Chicago Theatre Society in 1912.

Chatfield-Taylor[353] thinks Voltaire probably imitated _La Bottega di Caffe_ in his _Le Cafe, ou l'Ecossaise_. Goldoni was a lover of coffee, a regular frequenter of the coffee houses of his time, from which he drew much in the way of inspiration. Pietro Longhi, called the Venetian Hogarth, in one of his pictures presenting life and manners in Venice during the years of her decadence, shows Goldoni as a visitor in a cafe of the period, with a female mendicant soliciting alms. It is in the collection of Professor Italico Bra.s.s.

Goldoni, in the comedy _The Persian Wife_, gives us a glimpse of coffee making in the middle of the eighteenth century. He puts these words into the mouth of Curc.u.ma, the slave:

Here is the coffee, ladies, coffee native of Arabia, And carried by the caravans into Ispahan.

The coffee of Arabia is certainly always the best.

While putting forth its leaves on one side, upon the other the flowers appear; Born of a rich soil, it wishes shade, or but little sun.

Planted every three years is this little tree in the surface of the soil.

The fruit, though truly very small, Should yet grow large enough to become somewhat green.

Later, when used, it should be freshly ground.

Kept in a warm and dry place and jealously guarded.

But a small quant.i.ty is needed to prepare it.

Put in the desired quant.i.ty and do not spill it over the fire; Heat it till the foam rises, then let it subside again away from the fire; Do this seven times at least, and coffee is made in a moment.

In 1760 there appeared in France _Le Cafe, ou l'Ecossaise, comedie_, which purported to have been written by a Mr. Hume, an Englishman, and to have been translated into French. It was in reality the work of Voltaire, who had brought out another play, _Socrates_, in the same manner a short time before. _Le Cafe_, was translated into English the same year under the t.i.tle _The Coffee House, or Fair Fugitive_. The t.i.tle page says the play is written by "Mr. Voltaire" and translated from the French. It is a comedy in five acts. The princ.i.p.al characters are: Fabrice, a good-natured man and the keeper of the coffee house; Constantia, the fair fugitive; Sir William Woodville, a gentleman of distinction under misfortune; Belmont, in love with Constantia, a man of fortune and interest; Freeport, a merchant and an epitome of English manners; Scandal, a sharper; and Lady Alton, in love with Belmont.

_Il Caffe di Campagna_, a play with music by Galuppi, appeared in Italy in 1762.

Another Italian play, a comedy called _La Caffettiera da Spirito_ was produced in 1807.

_Hamilton_, a play by Mary P. Hamlin and George Arliss, the latter also playing the t.i.tle role, was produced in America by George C. Tyler in 1918. The first-act scene is laid in the Exchange coffee house of Philadelphia, during the period of Washington's first administration.

Among the characters introduced in this scene are James Monroe, Count Tallyrand, General Philip Schuyler, and Thomas Jefferson.

The authors very faithfully reproduce the atmosphere of the coffee house of Washington's time. As Tallyrand remarks, "Everybody comes to see everybody at the Exchange Coffee House.... It is club, restaurant, merchants' exchange, everything."

_The Autocrat of the Coffee Stall_, a play in one act, by Harold Chapin, was published in New York in 1921.

_Coffee and Literature in General_

An interesting book might be written on the transformation that tea and coffee have wrought in the tastes of famous literary men. And of the two stimulants, coffee seems to have furnished greater refreshment and inspiration to most. However, both beverages have made civilization their debtor in that they weaned so many fine minds from the heavy wines and spirits in which they once indulged.

Voltaire and Balzac were the most ardent devotees of coffee among the French _literati_. Sir James Mackintosh (1765-1832), the Scottish philosopher and statesman, was so fond of coffee that he used to a.s.sert that the powers of a man's mind would generally be found to be proportional to the quant.i.ty of that stimulant which he drank. His brilliant schoolmate and friend, Robert Hall (1764-1831), the Baptist minister and pulpit orator, preferred tea, of which he sometimes drank a dozen cups. Cowper; Parson and Parr, the famous Greek scholars; Dr.

Samuel Johnson; and William Hazlitt, the writer and critic, were great tea drinkers; but Burton, Dean Swift, Addison, Steele, Leigh Hunt, and many others, celebrated coffee.

Dr. Charles B. Reed, professor in the medical school of Northwestern University, says that coffee may be considered as a type of substance that fosters genius. History seems to bear him out. Coffee's essential qualities are so well defined, says Dr. Reed, that one critic has claimed the ability to trace throughout the works of Voltaire those portions that came from coffee's inspiration. Tea and coffee promote a harmony of the creative faculties that permits the mental concentration necessary to produce the masterpieces of art and literature.