Household Organization Part 7

Moorish bra.s.s salvers add colour and brightness to the sideboard, in families where silver salvers and presentation plate are not matters of course.

A simple style of dinner is more elegant, as well as more healthful, than one more elaborate. Let it vary with each day rather than with every course: the dinner will thus preserve a character of its own, better than where this is frittered away among so many dishes that you cannot remember off what you have dined.

There is a medium between this fidgety _menu_ and the monster joints we sometimes burden ourselves with. It requires judgment to take the right line. We need not attempt, in our everyday dinner, to realize Disraeli's ideal of dining: "eating ortolans to the sound of soft music." But we may try to make our dinner an enjoyment as well as a refreshment; and although our set banquets may be rare, taste and attention will impart to every meal something of the character of a feast.

Stress must be laid on the importance of having every article of food in its due season.

Independently of the hygienic value of the change of diet so supplied, which is in itself a subst.i.tute for many tonic and alternative medicines, attention to this point will give us luxuries when we may reasonably afford them.

Salmon is as nice when it is a shilling a pound as when it is four times that price, and venison is by no means an expensive viand if the market be watched. If we only think of ribs of beef and legs of mutton, we shall only get beef and mutton. But if we take Nature for our guide, we need not deny ourselves the most gratifying and healthful variety.

It is essential that we should eat the fresh fruits as they are ripe, and this rule is equally necessary as regards vegetables.

Indeed, in summer we should accustom ourselves to think more of the vegetable food than of meat; to arrange our dinner in this department primarily, considering what dainty dishes we may concoct of flour and vegetables fried, boiled, and baked, dressed with oil or milk, herbs or spices, incidentally adding the meat--in fact, reversing our usual order of proceedings, where we construct our dinner plan of solid meat, only throwing in vegetables or fruit by way of garnish. But what I wish to dwell on now is not so much the quant.i.ty of vegetable produce we ought to consume, as the necessity of its seasonableness.

When our cooks, be they n.o.ble, gentle, or simple, have come to study the medicinal properties of plants--how they act upon the different organs of the body, and so on--they will see how beautifully they are adapted by the great Provider to our bodily requirements, according to the weather and other circ.u.mstances, and how often what grows best in any situation or soil is the aliment best suited to our own growth in that situation.

If we attended more to this point, our digestions would have sufficiently varied exercise to keep them in healthy working order, and we should hear less about what does or does not agree with people. It is of more consequence that our digestions should be permitted to work at regular hours, than that they should have an over-easy diet. This, indeed, is absolutely injurious to them.

Persons sometimes feel ill, and whatever they may happen to have fed upon is loaded with the responsibility, and that article of diet is cut off for ever from their list, and its hygienic benefit lost to the const.i.tution. The blame is never laid on irregularity, want of air, exercise, or occupation, excitement or perhaps temper, or upon circ.u.mstances generally. Either the weather or the food, irrespective of the quant.i.ty taken, is charged with every ill.

If we took care to make pictures of our dishes of fruit, they would afford us two delightful sensations instead of one. To do this it is not needful to have heaps of fruits, or pyramids of pines. A plum on a leaf, an orange on a china tile, with a branch of flowers laid across it, make exquisite pictures.

See how we appreciate the form and grace of a single flower in a specimen gla.s.s, so that we cannot now endure to see the ma.s.s of crushed flowers we used to call a nosegay; the very word, so descriptive of the bundle, being done away with the thing itself. The old nosegay gave us the scent and gay colours of the flowers, but their tender grace had fled. Now they are delightful to their very stems.

Provident housekeepers have so impressed upon our minds the necessity of caring for the future, that we have been taught to make jam of our most delicious fruits, denying ourselves their fresh beauty and fragrance at our tables, while we roast ourselves over preserving pans in the hottest days of July. This, besides being martyrdom, is a work of supererogation, as the fruit is nicer fresh, and to buy it for the sake of keeping it is absurd, as it can but be eaten once. It is a very reasonable practice in the case of persons possessing large fruit-gardens, as much might otherwise be spoiled; but in our town households it is trouble taken in vain.

We all know the difference it makes to our dinners whether they are served up hot, or only lukewarm; and this alone gives a sufficient reason why we should insist upon the kitchen being close to the dining-room. Where there is no possibility of making a door of immediate communication, we should try our utmost to get a slide-window between the two rooms, so that the dishes, and indeed the whole paraphernalia that necessarily moves from kitchen to dining-room, may be placed on a slab at the said window on one side, and taken in at the other side.

If two persons are engaged in performing this work, one dishing up and placing on the window slab, and the other putting the things on the dining-table, it will be very expeditious, but it may be quite easily managed by one person. The slide-window, either a sash or a sliding-door, saves much running to and fro.

I will conclude my remarks upon dining-room furniture with a few words about plate.

The bulk of the plate in daily use in the houses of the upper middle-cla.s.s is electro-silver, and it is very admissible, being strong, durable, and agreeable to use; and when made in the ordinary fiddle or threaded patterns is useful without being pretentious. But when it expands into Albert patterns, king's patterns, and the like--when, in short, it claims intrinsic value, and pretends to be silver--it becomes vulgar immediately, because it represents a sn.o.bbish feeling which is bent on making a show with a sham. We cannot all afford silver plate, though doubtless we should all like it, but all of us wish to have the most agreeable medium with which to eat our food, and for this purpose electro is as good as silver.

It is better, in purchasing, to buy the best quality, as it is so much more durable, and it always looks better.

For dessert knives and forks, those with mother-of-pearl handles are the best; the colour is so pleasant, and they are very easily cleaned.

Should you happen to be the fortunate possessor of old plate, let nothing induce you to do as many weak persons are talked into doing: exchange it for modern patterns.

Modern plate is seldom of even moderately good design. The object of the manufacturer seems to be to crowd upon it as lumpy an embossed ornament as possible, to make it ma.s.sive, and remind us of so much per ounce. This was not the motive of the old silversmiths, who more frequently engraved than embossed their ornaments. Most of the old engraved silver is delightful, and it is very light.

The Queen-Anne plate, now so keenly sought, is of admirable workmanship and good design, though the edges are rather thin and sharp for comfort in use.

It is worth while having nice electro dish-covers, as the ugly tin ones sometimes seem to have such a very miserable appearance. It will not be necessary to possess many, and they will come to no harm in our elegant kitchen. They may be either hung up or stood on the dresser; the former way is preferable, and rings to suspend them by are easily attached.

Dish-covers should be warmed before they are put on, as a cold metal cavern chills a leg of mutton almost to the marrow.

Real silver ornaments for the dinner-table are very precious, but failing these, we may make our tables very elegant with Parian, gla.s.s, or even wicker ornaments; and the most interesting of any adornments are vases and dishes painted on porcelain by members of the family. I am sorry to see so many small vulgarities introduced in the shops in the way of _menu_ holders, and other so-called ornaments.

Grotesque is all very well, but it should show a light, delicate play of fancy; and things comic are very amusing when they are not vulgar.

But the degenerate caricatures we see about now, mark a tendency to flatter the lowest order of taste, which, if followed, will inevitably drag our conversation down with it. These silly table-decorations began with caricatures of the men who carry the sandwich placards up and down the streets, and daily I see them acquiring all the bad style of common burlesques, or of the cheap valentines.

THE DRAWING-ROOM.

Social pressure--Agreeable evening parties--Troubles of party-giving --Musical parties--Flowers on a balcony--Window-gardening--Crowded drawing-rooms--The library or study--Gas, candles, and candlesticks --Original outlay on furniture--Different styles of furniture-- Raffaelesque decorations--Carpets, curtains, and chair coverings-- Portieres--Window blinds--Rugs--Care required in buying furniture-- Ornaments--Dusting--Chiffoniers useless--Portfolio stand--Mirrors.

This section of our subject involves our relations with society; and here not even our vanity can make us believe that modern customs are really improvements.

What chance has any lady of our time of emulating the graceful manner in which Madame Recamier held her salon, although she may have as much learning as Madame de Stael?

We are too heavily weighted, our social intercourse is too complicated, too much clogged with ceremony, to move easily; and where our highest faculties should be allowed full play, we find so much hard work and consequent fatigue, that we look upon every dinner and evening party in the light of an uphill road with a difficult team to drive.

We all know and applaud the French manner of visiting. Receiving friends on a stated day of the week, simply enjoying their society, and exerting the intellectual faculties instead of merely opening the purse for their entertainment.

Why have we so seldom the courage to follow this example?

It is because we fear to show less well to the eyes of our acquaintance if our own habits seem less expensive than theirs. A low purse-pride is at the bottom of it all. Our dress must be costly and perpetually changing, our servants and establishment must be displayed, if we are ourselves smothered beneath their weight.

So we give up our precious daylight to morning calls, as we ridiculously call those visits of ceremony which are paid in the afternoon. These afford us no pleasure, while they are an infliction to the people called upon. Do not most of us know the feeling of relief that we have after paying a round of visits, when, on finding, as the day was fine, the greater number of our friends from home, we return with an empty card-case, and say, with the complacency of self-satisfied persons who have done their duty, "There, that is done and need not be done again for a month." Whereas we are sorry when even our slight acquaintances "regret they cannot accept" our invitations to an evening party, when we might enjoy their company, and they the society of each other, at the same time, and at a reasonable hour for enjoyment.

Our "at homes" are on a radically wrong principle. We crowd our rooms, we insist on late hours and fullest dress, and our pleasure in consequence becomes a toil.

But how agreeable is the easy evening gathering in a cheerful and early lighted drawing-room, where few or many welcome guests drop in, knowing it to be our "at home" day. Where we talk and sip tea, play and sing, or amuse ourselves, if clever, with paper games--capital promoters of laughter and whetstones to the wits--and go away as early as we please.

All to be over by half-past ten, at any rate, in order not to interfere with early rising next morning. I have found nothing, not even guinea lessons from eminent masters, more conducive to family improvement in music than this way of enjoying society, since one is obliged to have a few new things always at one's fingers' ends ready to perform; and in homely little parties like these, young girls "not yet out" may pa.s.s many pleasant evenings under their mother's wing, with real advantage to themselves.

The simpler the dress worn by the ladies who are "at home," the better the taste shown. Here again we may learn much from the French, who perfectly understand the art of _demi-toilette_.

Our theatres and concert-rooms are filled night after night by people who pay to be entertained. They never take food in their pockets, and the pa.s.sing to and fro of sellers of refreshment is felt to be a nuisance. Why should people who have dined late be supposed to want supper, unless they have been dancing, or are sitting up later than is good for them? And the proof that they do not want it is in the very little they take of it, except some stout elderly ladies who prepared for it before they came, and who consequently have felt too low all the evening to be moderately cheerful.

People who dine early always make a solid tea about six o'clock. It is only the _bourgeois_ cla.s.s who love their hot suppers, and the taste stamps them.

How can we use hospitality one towards another without grudging, when, instead of being able to rejoice that a friend is sharing our daily pursuits and repasts, we must spend a fortune in jellies, pastry, and unwholesome sweets, whenever we invite our friends inside our doors; when we are compelled to import from the confectioner piles of plates, dishes, and hired cutlery, turn our houses into scenes of confusion for a week, and feed our children upon what have been aptly called "bra.s.s knockers," the remains of the feast? No wonder most of us dread giving a party! No; I would have special banquets on special occasions--Christmas, comings of age, marriages, silver, and above all golden, weddings, welcomes from abroad, and other joyful days. But our enjoyment of society need not be limited to such observances as these, but rather the crop of friendship increased by attentive cultivation.

"Has friendship increased?" asks wise Sir Arthur Helps. "Anxious as I am to show the uniformity of human life, I should say that this, one of the greatest soothers of human misery, has decreased."

Lady Morgan, an experienced leader of society, used to tell me, "My dear, give them plenty of wax-candles and people will enjoy themselves;" to which I add, manage the music well, and teach your daughters to help you, and cultivate musical young men, keeping, however, the law in your own hands.

Almost the only art we have not spoiled by machinery is music--for we do not consider the barrel-organ in the light of music.

Perhaps it is because in this art we had scope for invention, not finding a good thing ready made to our hands by the Greeks, which we might imitate mechanically, and become slaves of its tradition.

Possibly it is a blessing in disguise that the music of the ancients is lost to us, for having no models we have no fetters.

There is, however, in music, less liberty for the performer than for the master-inventor; and this is as it should be: we interpret his greater mind. Wilful music is seldom pleasing.

What Ruskin says about truth of line in drawing applies equally to music: In the rapid pa.s.sages of a _presto_ by Beethoven, the audience at St. James's Hall would know if Halle played one single note out, even if he slightly touched the corner of a wrong black key; for our ears have been wonderfully trained. And the time must be as accurate as the tone, and the proper degree of light and shade must be expressed, or you are no master. What must it be to be the creator of the music which it is so difficult even to copy!