Society as I Have Found It

As a rule, in this city, heads of families came to the front, and took an active part in society when they wished to introduce their daughters into it.

The first Patriarch Balls were given in the winters of 1872 and 1873. At this period, a great personage (representing a silent power that had always been recognized and felt in this community, so long as I remember, by not only fashionable people, but by the solid old quiet element as well) had daughters to introduce into society, which brought her prominently forward and caused her at once to take a leading position. She possessed great administrative power, and it was soon put to good use and felt by society. I then, for the first time, was brought in contact with this grande dame, and at once recognized her ability, and felt that she would become society’s leader, and that she was admirably qualified for the position.

It was not long before circumstances forced her to assume the leadership, which she did, and which she has held with marked ability ever since, having all the qualities necessary,—good judgment and a great power of analysis of men and women, a thorough knowledge of all their surroundings, a just appreciation of the rights of others, and, coming herself from an old Colonial family, a good appreciation of the value of ancestry; always keeping it near her, and bringing it in, in all social matters, but also understanding the importance and power of the new element; recognizing it, and fairly and generously awarding to it a prominent place. Having a great fortune, she had the ability to conceive and carry out social projects; and this she has done, always with success, ever ready to recognize ability and worth, and give to it advice and assistance. Above all things, a true and loyal friend in sunshine or shower. Deeply interested in the welfare of this city, she lent herself to any undertaking she felt worthy of her support, and once promising it her aid, she could be always relied on and always found most willing to advance its interests. With such a friend, we felt the Patriarchs had an additional social strength that would give them the solidity and lasting powers which they have shown they possess. Whenever we required advice and assistance on or about them, we went to her, and always found ourselves rewarded in so doing by receiving suggestions that were invaluable. Quick to criticise any defect of lighting or ornamentation, or arrangement, she was not backward in chiding the management for it, and in this way made these balls what they were in the past, what they are in the present, and what we hope they may be in the future.

The Patriarchs, from their very birth, became a great social feature. You could but read the list of those who gave these balls, to see at a glance that they embraced not only the smart set, but the old Knickerbocker families as well; and that they would, from the very nature of the case, representing the best society of this great commercial city, have to grow and enlarge. Applications to be made Patriarchs poured in from all sides; every influence was brought to bear to secure a place in this little band, and the pressure was so great that we feared the struggle would be too fierce and engender too much rancor and bad feeling, and that this might of itself destroy them. The argument against them, the one most strongly urged, was that they were overturning all old customs; that New Yorkers had been in the habit of taking an active part in society only when they had daughters to bring out, lancée-ing their daughters, and they themselves taking a back seat. But that here in this new association, the married women took a more prominent place than the young girls; they were the belles of the balls, and not the young girls. This was Europeanizing New York too rapidly.

Hearing all this, and fearing we would grow unpopular, to satisfy the public we at once got up a new association, wholly for the young girls, and called it The Family Circle Dancing Class. Its name would in itself explain what it was, a small gathering of people in a very small and intimate way, so that unless one was in close intimacy with those getting up these dances, they would have no possible claim to be included in them. Any number of small subscription parties had been formed, such as “The Ancient and Honorables,” “The New and Notables,” “The Mysterious,” and “The Fortnightlies.” All had been most enjoyable, but short-lived. The F. C. D. C’s. were to be, in fact, “Junior Patriarchs,” under the same management, and were to be cherished and nourished by the same organization. They were given at first in six private houses. The first was held at Mr. William Butler Duncan’s; the second at Mr. Ward McAllister’s; the third at Mr. De Lancey Kane’s; the fourth at Mr. William Astor’s; the fifth at Mr. George Henry Warren’s, and the sixth at Mr. Lewis Colford Jones’s. I gave mine in my house in West Nineteenth Street, and then saw what it was to turn a house inside out for a ball, and how contracted everything must necessarily be in a twenty-five foot house, to receive guests in it, give them a salle de danse and a supper room, and then concluded that we must go in most cases to a good-sized ball-room to give an enjoyable dance.

From the first, these dances were very popular. They gave the Patriarch balls the relief they required, and were rapidly growing in favor and threatened in the end to become formidable rivals of the Patriarchs. The same pains were taken in getting them up, as were given to the Patriarchs. We had them but for one season in private houses, and then gave them at Dodworth’s, now Delmonico’s. Later on, when this house changed hands and became Delmonico’s, we gave them all there, with the exception of one winter when we gave them in the foyers of the Metropolitan Opera House. We made the subscription to them an individual subscription, each lady and gentleman subscribing $12.00 for the three balls. One of them at Delmonico’s we made a “Mother Goose” Ball. It was a species of fancy dress ball, powdered hair being de rigueur for all ladies who did not wear fancy costumes, and the feature of the occasion was the “Mother Goose” Quadrille, which had been planned and prepared with much skill and taste. This Quadrille was made up of sixteen couples and was danced at eleven o’clock. As those who danced in it passed you as they marched from the hall into the ball-room, you found it a beautiful sight truly. Many of the men wore pink. Some of the characters were droll indeed. Among others, “Tom, Tom, the Piper’s son,” with his traditional pig; “A man in the moon, who had come down too soon”; one lady as “Twinkle, twinkle, little star”; “Mother Hubbard,” in an artistic costume of scarlet chintz; “Mary, Mary, quite contrary”; “Little Bo-Peep,” “The Maid in the garden hanging out the clothes,” “Punch and Judy”; “Oranges and Lemons”; while M. de Talleyrand appeared as a mignon of Henry the Second. “Mother Goose” herself was also there. The feature of the evening was the singing of the nursery rhymes. The second was the “Pinafore” Quadrille introducing the music of that operetta. All the men who danced in it were in sailor’s dress. Then followed a Hunting Quadrille, in which every man wore a scarlet coat.

I little knew what I was undertaking when I started these F. C. D. C. Balls. From the giving of the first of these dances, out of a private house, to the time of my giving them up, I had no peace either at home or abroad. I was assailed on all sides, became in a sense a diplomat, committed myself to nothing, promised much and performed as little as possible. I saw at once the rock on which we must split: that the pressure would be so great to get in, no one could resist it; that our parties must become too general, and that in the end the smart set would give up going to them. I knew that when this occurred, they were doomed; but I fought for their existence manfully, and if I could here narrate all I went through to keep these small parties select, I would fill a volume. My mornings were given up to being interviewed of and about them; mothers would call at my house, entirely unknown to me, the sole words of introduction being, “Kind sir, I have a daughter.” These words were cabalistic; I would spring up, bow to the ground, and reply: “My dear madam, say no more, you have my sympathy; we are in accord; no introduction is necessary; you have a daughter, and want her to go to the F. C. D. C’s. I will do all in my power to accomplish this for you; but my dear lady, please understand, that in all matters concerning these little dances I must consult the powers that be. I am their humble servant; I must take orders from them.” All of which was a figure of speech on my part. “May I ask if you know any one in this great city, and whom do you know? for to propitiate the powers that be, I must be able to give them some account of your daughter.” This was enough to set my fair visitor off. The family always went back to King John, and in some instances to William the Conqueror. “My dear madam,” I would reply, “does it not satisfy any one to come into existence with the birth of one’s country? In my opinion, four generations of gentlemen make as good and true a gentleman as forty. I know my English brethren will not agree with me in this, but, in spite of them, it is my belief.” With disdain, my fair visitor would reply, “You are easily satisfied, sir.” And so on, from day to day, these interviews would go on; all were Huguenots, Pilgrims, or Puritans. I would sometimes call one a Pilgrim in place of a Puritan, and by this would uncork the vials of wrath. If they had ever lived south of Mason and Dixon’s line, their ancestor was always a near relative of Washington, or a Fairfax, or of the “first families of Virginia.” Others were more frank, and claimed no ancestry, but simply wished to know “how the thing was to be done.” When our list was full, all comers were told this, but this did not stop them. I was then daily solicited and prayed to give them the first vacancy. I did the best in my power, found out who people were, and if it was possible asked them to join.

The little dances were most successful. Year by year they improved. They were handsomer each season. We were not content with the small buffet in the upper ball-room at Delmonico’s, but supped, as did the Patriarchs, in the large room on Fifth Avenue and Twenty-sixth Street, and literally had equally as good suppers, leaving out terrapin and canvasback. But when the ladies organized Assembly Balls, we then thought that there would perhaps be too many subscription balls, and the F. C. D. C. was given up.

At this time, when the F. C. D. C.’s were in high favor, I received the following amusing anonymous lines of and about them:

Just at this time a man of wealth, who had accumulated a fortune here, resolved to give New Yorkers a sensation; to give them a banquet which should exceed in luxury and expense anything before seen in this country. As he expressed it, “I knew it would be a folly, a piece of unheard-of extravagance, but as the United States Government had just refunded me $10,000, exacted from me for duties upon importations (which, being excessive, I had petitioned to be returned me, and had quite unexpectedly received this sum back), I resolved to appropriate it to giving a banquet that would always be remembered.” Accordingly, he went to Charles Delmonico, who in turn went to his cuisine classique to see how they could possibly spend this sum on this feast. Success crowned their efforts. The sum in such skillful hands soon melted away, and a banquet was given of such beauty and magnificence, that even New Yorkers, accustomed as they were to every species of novel expenditure, were astonished at its lavishness, its luxury. The banquet was given at Delmonico’s, in Fourteenth Street. There were seventy-two guests in the large ball-room, looking on Fifth Avenue. The table covered the whole length and breadth of the room, only leaving a passageway for the waiters to pass around it. It was a long extended oval table, and every inch of it was covered with flowers, excepting a space in the centre, left for a lake, and a border around the table for the plates. This lake was indeed a work of art; it was an oval pond, thirty feet in length, by nearly the width of the table, inclosed by a delicate golden wire network, reaching from table to ceiling, making the whole one grand cage; four superb swans, brought from Prospect Park, swam in it, surrounded by high banks of flowers of every species and variety, which prevented them from splashing the water on the table. There were hills and dale; the modest little violet carpeting the valleys, and other bolder sorts climbing up and covering the tops of those miniature mountains. Then, all around the inclosure, and in fact above the entire table, hung little golden cages, with fine songsters, who filled the room with their melody, occasionally interrupted by the splashing of the waters of the lake by the swans, and the cooing of these noble birds, and at one time by a fierce combat between these stately, graceful, gliding white creatures. The surface of the whole table, by clever art, was one unbroken series of undulations, rising and falling like the billows of the sea, but all clothed and carpeted with every form of blossom. It seemed like the abode of fairies; and when surrounding this fairyland with lovely young American womanhood, you had indeed an unequaled scene of enchantment. But this was not to be alone a feast for the eye; all that art could do, all that the cleverest men could devise to spread before the guests, such a feast as the gods should enjoy, was done, and so well done that all present felt, in the way of feasting, that man could do no more! The wines were perfect. Blue seal Johannisberg flowed like water. Incomparable ’48 claret, superb Burgundies, and amber-colored Madeira, all were there to add to the intoxicating delight of the scene. Then, soft music stole over one’s senses; lovely women’s eyes sparkled with delight at the beauty of their surroundings, and I felt that the fair being who sat next to me would have graced Alexander’s feast

ENTERING SOCIETY.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Had I charged a fee for every consultation with anxious mothers on this subject, I would be a rich man. I well remember a near relative of mine once writing me from Paris, as follows: “I consign my wife and daughter to your care. They will spend the winter in New York; at once give them a ball at Delmonico’s, and draw on me for the outlay.” I replied, “My dear fellow, how many people do you know in this city whom you could invite to a ball? The funds you send me will be used, but not in giving a ball.” The girl being a beauty, all the rest was easy enough. I gave her theatre party after theatre party, followed by charming little suppers, asked to them the jeunesse dorée of the day; took her repeatedly to the opera, and saw that she was there always surrounded by admirers; incessantly talked of her fascinations; assured my young friends that she was endowed with a fortune equal to the mines of Ophir, that she danced like a dream, and possessed all the graces, a sunbeam across one’s path; then saw to it that she had a prominent place in every cotillion, and a fitting partner; showed her whom to smile upon, and on whom to frown; gave her the entrée to all the nice houses; criticised severely her toilet until it became perfect; daily met her on the Avenue with the most charming man in town, who by one pretext or another I turned over to her; made her the constant subject of conversation; insisted upon it that she was to be the belle of the coming winter; advised her parents that she should have her first season at Bar Harbor, where she could learn to flirt to her heart’s content, and vie with other girls. Her second summer, when she was older, I suggested her passing at Newport, where she should have a pair of ponies, a pretty trap, with a well-gotten-up groom, and Worth to dress her. Here I hinted that much must depend on her father’s purse, as to her wardrobe. As a friend of mine once said to me, “Your pace is charming, but can you keep it up?” I also advised keeping the young girl well in hand and not letting her give offense to the powers that be; to see to it that she was not the first to arrive and the last to leave a ball, and further, that nothing was more winning in a girl than a pleasant bow and a gracious smile given to either young or old. The fashion now for women is to hold themselves erect. The modern manner of shaking hands I do not like, but yet it is adopted. Being interested in the girl’s success, I further impressed upon her the importance of making herself agreeable to older people, remembering that much of her enjoyment would be derived from them. If asked to dance a cotillion, let it be conditional that no bouquet be sent her; to be cautious how she refused the first offers of marriage made her, as they were generally the best.

A word, just here, to the newly married. It works well to have the man more in love with you than you are with him. My advice to all young married women is to keep up flirting with their husbands as much after marriage as before; to make themselves as attractive to their husbands after their marriage as they were when they captivated them; not to neglect their toilet, but rather improve it; to be as coquettish and coy after they are bound together as before, when no ties held them. The more they are appreciated by the world, the more will their husbands value them. In fashionable life, conspicuous jealousy is a mistake. A woman is bound to take and hold a high social position. In this way she advances and strengthens her husband. How many women we see who have benefited their husbands, and secured for them these advantages.

A young girl should be treated like a bride when she makes her débût into society. Her relatives should rally around her and give her entertainments to welcome her into the world which she is to adorn. It is in excessive bad taste for such relatives to in any way refer to the cost of these dinners, balls, etc. Every one in society knows how to estimate such things. Again, at such dinners, it is not in good taste to load your table with bonbonnières and other articles intended to be taken away by your guests. This reminds me of a dear old lady, who, when I dined with her, always insisted on my putting in my dress coat pocket a large hothouse peach, which never reached home in a perfect state.

The launching of a beautiful young girl into society is one thing; it is another to place her family on a good, sound social footing. You can launch them into the social sea, but can they float? “Manners maketh man,” is an old proverb. These they certainly must possess. There is no society in the world as generous as New York society is; “friend, parent, neighbor, all it will embrace,” but once embraced they must have the power of sustaining themselves. The best quality for them to possess is modesty in asserting their claims; letting people seek them rather than attempting to rush too quickly to the front. The Prince of Wales, on a charming American young woman expressing her surprise at the cordial reception given her by London society, replied, “My dear lady, there are certain people who are bound to come to the front and stay there; you are one of them.” It requires not only money, but brains, and, above all, infinite tact; possessing the three, your success is assured. If taken by the hand by a person in society you are at once led into the charmed circle, and then your own correct perceptions of what should or should not be done must do the rest. As a philosophical friend once said to me, “A gentleman can always walk, but he cannot afford to have a shabby equipage.” Another philosopher soliloquized as follows: “The first evidence of wealth is your equipage.” By the way, his definition of aristocracy in America was, the possession of hereditary wealth.

If you want to be fashionable, be always in the company of fashionable people. As an old beau suggested to me, If you see a fossil of a man, shabbily dressed, relying solely on his pedigree, dating back to time immemorial, who has the aspirations of a duke and the fortunes of a footman, do not cut him; it is better to cross the street and avoid meeting him. It is well to be in with the nobs who are born to their position, but the support of the swells is more advantageous, for society is sustained and carried on by the swells, the nobs looking quietly on and accepting the position, feeling they are there by divine right; but they do not make fashionable society, or carry it on. A nob can be a swell if he chooses, i.e. if he will spend the money; but for his social existence this is unnecessary. A nob is like a poet,—nascitur non fit; not so a swell,—he creates himself.

The value of a pleasant manner it is impossible to estimate. It is like sunshine, it gladdens; you feel it and are at once attracted to the person without knowing why. When you entertain, do it in an easy, natural way, as if it was an everyday occurrence, not the event of your life; but do it well. Learn how to do it; never be ashamed to learn. The American people have a greater power of “catching hold,” and adapting themselves to new surroundings than any other people in the world. A distinguished diplomatist once said to me, “The best wife for a Diplomat is an American; for take her to any quarter of the globe and she adapts herself to the place and people.”

If women should cultivate pleasant manners, should not men do the same? Are not manners as important to men as to women? The word “gentleman” may have its derivation from gentle descent, but my understanding of a gentleman has always been that he is a person free from arrogance, and anything like self-assertion; considerate of the feelings of others; so satisfied and secure in his own position, that he is always unpretentious, feeling he could not do an ungentlemanly act; as courteous and kind in manner to his inferiors as to his equals. The best bred men I have ever met have always been the least pretentious. Natural and simple in manner, modest in apparel, never wearing anything too voyant, or conspicuous; but always so well dressed that you could never discover what made them so,—the good, quiet taste of the whole producing the result.

Here, all men are more or less in business. We hardly have a class who are not. They are, of necessity, daily brought in contact with all sorts and conditions of men, and in self-defense oftentimes have to acquire and adopt an abrupt, a brusque manner of address, which, as a rule, they generally leave in their offices when they quit them. If they do not, they certainly should. When such rough manners become by practice a second nature, they unfit one to go into society. It pays well for young and old to cultivate politeness and courtesy. Nothing is gained by trying roughly to elbow yourself into society, and push your way through into the inner circle; for when such a one has reached it, he will find its atmosphere uncongenial and be only too glad to escape from it.

A short time ago, a handsome, well-dressed Englishman, well up in all matters pertaining to society, went with me to my tailor to see me try on a dress coat. I was struck with his criticisms. Standing before a glass, he said, “You must never be able to see the tails of your dress coat; if you do, discard the coat.” Again, he advised one’s always wearing a hat that was the fashion, losing sight of the becoming, but always following the fashion. “At a glance,” he said, “I can tell a man from the provinces, simply by his hat.” If you are stout, never wear a white waistcoat, or a conspicuous watch-chain. Never call attention by them to what you should try to conceal. In going to the opera, if you go to an opera box with ladies, you should wear white or light French gray gloves. Otherwise, gloves are not worn. A boutonnière of white hyacinths or white pinks on dress coats is much worn, both to balls and the opera. My English friend was very much struck with the fact that American women all sat on the left side of the carriage, the opposite side from what they do in England. “Ladies,” he said, “should always sit behind their coachman, but the desire to see and be seen prompts them here to take the other side. In this city some half a dozen ladies show their knowledge of conventionalities and take the proper seat.”

I think the great secret of life is to be contented with the position to which it has pleased God to call you. Living myself in a modest, though comfortable little house in Twenty-first Street in this city, a Wall Street banker honored me with a visit, and exclaimed against my surroundings.

“What!” said he, “are you contented to live in this modest little house? Why, man, this will never do! The first thing you must have is a fine house. I will see that you get it. All that you have to do is to let me buy ten thousand shares of stock for you at the opening of the Board; by three I can sell it, and I will then send you a check for the profit of the transaction, which will not be less than ten thousand dollars! Do it for you? Of course I will, with pleasure. You will run no risk; if there is a loss I will bear it.”

I thanked my friend, assured him I was wholly and absolutely contented, and must respectfully decline his offer. A similar offer was made to me by my old friend, Commodore Vanderbilt, in his house in Washington Place. I was a great admirer of this grand old man, and he was very fond of me. He had taken me over his stables, and was then showing me his parlors and statuary, and kept all the time calling me “his boy.” I turned to him and said, “Commodore, you will be as great a railroad king, as you were once an ocean king, and as you call me your boy, why don’t you make my fortune?” He thought a moment, and then said, slapping me on the back, “Mc, sell everything you have and put it in Harlem stock; it is now twenty-four; you will make more money than you will know how to take care of.” If I had followed his advice, I would now have been indeed a millionaire.

One word more here about the Commodore. He then turned to me and said, “Mc, look at that bust,”—a bust of himself, by Powers. “What do you think Powers said of that head?”

“What did he say?” I replied.

“He said, ‘It is a finer head than Webster’s!’”

ENTERTAINING.

CHAPTER XIX.

The first object to be aimed at is to make your dinners so charming and agreeable that invitations to them are eagerly sought for, and to let all feel that it is a great privilege to dine at your house, where they are sure they will meet only those whom they wish to meet. You cannot instruct people by a book how to entertain, though Aristotle is said to have applied his talents to a compilation of a code of laws for the table. Success in entertaining is accomplished by magnetism and tact, which combined constitute social genius. It is the ladder to social success. If successfully done, it naturally creates jealousy. I have known a family who for years outdid every one in giving exquisite dinners—(this was when this city was a small community)—driven to Europe and passing the rest of their days there on finding a neighbor outdoing them. I myself once lost a charming friend by giving a better soup than he did. His wife rushed home from my house, and in despair, throwing up her hands to her husband, exclaimed, “Oh! what a soup!” I related this to my cousin, the distinguished gourmet, who laughingly said: “Why did you not at once invite them to pork and beans?”

The highest cultivation in social manners enables a person to conceal from the world his real feelings. He can go through any annoyance as if it were a pleasure; go to a rival’s house as if to a dear friend’s; “Smile and smile, yet murder while he smiles.” A great compliment once paid me in Newport was the speech of an old public waiter, who had grown gray in the service, when to a confrère he exclaimed: “In this house, my friend, you meet none but quality.”

In planning a dinner the question is not to whom you owe dinners, but who is most desirable. The success of the dinner depends as much upon the company as the cook. Discordant elements—people invited alphabetically, or to pay off debts—are fatal. Of course, I speak of ladies’ dinners. And here, great tact must be used in bringing together young womanhood and the dowagers. A dinner wholly made up of young people is generally stupid. You require the experienced woman of the world, who has at her fingers’ ends the history of past, present, and future. Critical, scandalous, with keen and ready wit, appreciating the dinner and wine at their worth. Ladies in beautiful toilets are necessary to the elegance of a dinner, as a most exquisitely arranged table is only a solemn affair surrounded by black coats. I make it a rule never to attend such dismal feasts, listening to prepared witticisms and “twice-told tales.” So much for your guests.

The next step is an interview with your chef, if you have one, or cordon bleu, whom you must arouse to fever heat by working on his ambition and vanity. You must impress upon him that this particular dinner will give him fame and lead to fortune. My distinguished cousin, who enjoyed the reputation of being one of the most finished gourmets in this country, when he reached this point, would bury his head in his hands and (seemingly to the chef) rack his brain seeking inspiration, fearing lest the fatal mistake should occur of letting two white or brown sauces follow each other in succession; or truffles appear twice in that dinner. The distress that his countenance wore as he repeatedly looked up at the chef, as if for advice and assistance, would have its intended effect on the culinary artist, and his brain would at once act in sympathy.

The first battle is over the soup, and here there is a vast difference of opinion. In this country, where our servants are oftentimes unskilled, and have a charming habit of occasionally giving ladies a soup shower bath, I invariably discard two soups, and insist to the protesting chef that there shall be but one. Of course, if there are two, the one is light, the other heavy. Fortunately for the period in which we live, our great French artists have invented the Tortue claire; which takes the place of our forefathers’ Mock Turtle soup, with forcemeat balls, well spiced, requiring an ostrich’s digestion to survive it. We have this, then, as our soup. The chef here exclaims, “Monsieur must know that all petites bouchées must, of necessity, be made of chicken.” We ask for a novelty, and his great genius suggests, under pressure, mousse aux jambon, which is attractive to the eye, and, if well made, at once establishes the reputation of the artist, satisfies the guests that they are in able hands, and allays their fears for their dinner.

There is but one season of the year when salmon should be served hot at a choice repast; that is in the spring and early summer, and even then it is too satisfying, not sufficiently delicate. The man who gives salmon during the winter, I care not what sauce he serves with it, does an injury to himself and his guests. Terrapin is with us as national a dish as canvasback, and at the choicest dinners is often a substitute for fish. It is a shellfish, and an admirable change from the oft repeated filet de sole or filet de bass. At the South, terrapin soup, with plenty of eggs in it, was a dish for the gods, and a standard dinner party dish in days when a Charleston and Savannah dinner was an event to live for. But no Frenchman ever made this soup. It requires the native born culinary genius of the African.

Now when we mention the word terrapin, we approach a very delicate subject, involving a rivalry between two great cities; a subject that has been agitated for thirty years or more, and is still agitated, i.e. the proper way of cooking terrapin. The Baltimoreans contending that the black stew, the chafing dish system, simply adding to the terrapin salt, pepper, and Madeira, produce the best dish; while the Philadelphians contend that by fresh butter and cream they secure greater results. The one is known as the Baltimore black stew; the other, as the Trenton stew, this manner of cooking terrapin originating in an old eating club in Trenton, N. J. I must say I agree with the Philadelphians.

And now, leaving the fish, we come to the pièce de resistance of the dinner, called the relévé. No Frenchman will ever willingly cook a ladies’ dinner and give anything coarser or heavier than a filet de bœuf. He will do it, if he has to, of course, but he will think you a barbarian if you order him to do it. I eschew the mushroom and confine myself to the truffle in the treatment of the filet. I oftentimes have a filet à la mœlle de bœuf, or à la jardinière. In the fall of the year, turkey poults à la Bordelaise, or à la Toulouse, or a saddle of Southdown mutton or lamb, are a good substitute. Let me here say that the American turkey, as found on Newport Island, all its feathers being jet black and its diet grasshoppers, is exceptionally fine.

Now for the entrées. In a dinner of twelve or fourteen, one or two hot entrées and one cold is sufficient. If you use the truffle with the filet, making a black sauce, you must follow it with a white sauce, as a riz de veau à la Toulouse, or a suprême de volaille; then a chaud-froid, say of pâté de foie gras en Bellevue, which simply means pâté de foie gras incased in jelly. Then a hot vegetable, as artichokes, sauce Barigoule, or Italienne, or asparagus, sauce Hollandaise. Then your sorbet, known in France as la surprise, as it is an ice, and produces on the mind the effect that the dinner is finished, when the grandest dish of the dinner makes its appearance in the shape of the roast canvasbacks, woodcock, snipe, or truffled capons, with salad.

I must be permitted a few words of and about this sorbet. It should never be flavored with rum. A true Parisian sorbet is simply “punch à la Toscane,” flavored with Maraschino or bitter almonds; in other words, a homœopathic dose of prussic acid. Then the sorbet is a digestive, and is intended as such. Granit, or water ice, flavored with rum, is universally given here. Instead of aiding digestion, it impedes it, and may be dangerous.

A Russian salad is a pleasing novelty at times, and is more attractive if it comes in the shape of a Macedoine de legumes, Camembert cheese, with a biscuit, with which you serve your Burgundy, your old Port, or your Johannisberg, the only place in the dinner where you can introduce this latter wine. A genuine Johannisberg, I may say here, by way of parenthesis, is rare in this country, for if obtained at the Chateau, it is comparatively a dry wine; if it is, as I have often seen it, still lusciously sweet after having been here twenty years or more, you may be sure it is not a genuine Chateau wine.

The French always give a hot pudding, as pudding suedoise, or a croute au Madère, or ananas, but I always omit this dish to shorten the dinner. Then come your ices. The fashion now is to make them very ornamental, a cornucopia for instance, but I prefer a pouding Nesselrode, the best of all the ices if good cream is used.

MADEIRAS.

CHAPTER XX.

Having had your champagne from the fish to the roast, your vin ordinaire through the dinner, your Burgundy or Johannisberg, or fine old Tokay (quite equal to any Johannisberg), with the cheese, your best claret with the roast, then after the ladies have had their fruit and have left the table, comes on the king of wines, your Madeira; a national wine, a wine only well matured at the South, and a wine whose history is as old as is that of our country. I may here say, that Madeira imparts a vitality that no other wine can give. After drinking it, it acts as a soporific, but the next day you feel ten years younger and stronger for it. I have known a man, whose dinners were so famous by reason of his being always able to give at them a faultless Madeira, disappear with his wine. When his wine gave out, he collapsed. When asked, “Where is Mr. Jones?” the ready answer was always given, “He went out with his ‘Rapid’ Madeira.”

Families prided themselves on their Madeira. It became an heirloom (as Tokay now is, in Austria). Like the elephant, it seemed to live over three score years and ten. The fine Madeiras were fine when they reached this country. Age improved them, and made them the poetry of wine. They became the color of amber and retained all their original flavor. But it is an error to suppose that age ever improved a poor Madeira. If it came here poor and sweet, it remained poor and sweet, and never lost its sweetness, even at seventy or eighty years, while the famous Madeiras, dating as far back as 1791, if they have been properly cared for, are perfect to this day. We should value wine like women, for maturity, not age.

These wines took their names generally from the ships in which they came over. There is no more sensitive wine to climatic influences. A delicate Madeira, taken only a few blocks on a cold, raw day, is not fit to drink; and again, you might as well give a man champagne out of a horse bucket, as to give him a Madeira in a thick sherry or claret glass, or a heavy cut glass. The American pipe-stem is the only glass in which Madeira should be given, and when thus given, is, as one of our distinguished men once said, “The only liquid he ever called wine.” This ought to be given as was done by the Father of the Roman Lucullus, who never saw more than a single cup of the Phanean wine served at one time at his father’s table.

A friend of mine once gave the proprietor of the Astor House, for courtesies extended to him, a dozen of his finest Madeira. He had the curiosity years after to ask his host of the Astor what became of this wine. He replied, “Daniel Webster came to my house, and I opened a bottle of it for him, and he remained in the house until he had drunk up every drop of it.” This was the famous “Butler 16.”

As in painting there are the Murillo and Correggio schools, the light ethereal conceptions of womanhood, as against the rich Titian coloring; so in Madeira, there is the full, round, strong, rich wine, liked by some in preference to the light, delicate, straw-colored, rain-water wines. Philadelphians first took to this character of wine. They judiciously “fined” their wine, and produced simply a perfect Madeira,—to be likened to the best Johannisberg, and naturally so, it having similar qualities, as it is well known that the Sercial Madeira, the “king pin” of all Madeiras, was raised from a Rhine grape taken to the Island of Madeira. And here let me say, that “fining,” by using only the white of a perfectly fresh egg and Spanish clay, is proper and judicious, but milk is ruinous. The eggs in Spain are famous, and are thus used.

In Savannah and Charleston, from 1800 up to our Civil War, afternoon wine parties were the custom. You were asked to come and taste Madeira, at 5 P.M., after your dinner. The hour of dining in these cities was then always 3 P.M. The mahogany table, which reflected your face, was set with finger bowls, with four pipe-stem glasses in each bowl, olives, parched ground nuts and almonds, and half a dozen bottles of Madeira. There you sat, tasted and commented on these wines for an hour or more. On one occasion, a gentleman, not having any wine handy, mixed half “Catherine Banks” and half “Rapid.” On tasting the mixture, a great wine expert said if he could believe his host capable of mixing a wine, he would say it was “half Catherine Banks and half Rapid.” This was after fifteen men had said they could not name the Madeira.

A distinguished stranger having received an invitation to one of these wine parties from the British Consul, replied, “Thanks, I must decline, for where I dine I take my wine.”

The oldest and largest shippers of Madeira were the Newton Gordons, who sent the finest Madeiras to Charleston and Savannah. From 1791 to 1805, their firm was Newton Gordon, Murdock, & Scott. One hundred and ten years ago, they sent five hundred pipes of Madeira in one shipment to Savannah. These wines sent there were the finest Sercials, Buals, and Malmseys. All those wines were known as extra Madeiras. The highest priced wine, a Manigult Heyward wine, I knew forty years ago; it was ninety years old—perfect, full flavored, and of good color and strength.

In Charleston and Savannah from 1780 to 1840, almost every gentleman ordered a pipe of wine from Madeira. I know of a man who has kept this up for half a century.

There is a common prejudice against Malmsey, as being a lady’s wine, and sweet; when very old, no Madeira can beat it. I have now in my cellar an “All Saints” wine, named after the famous Savannah Quoit Club, imported in 1791; a perfect wine, of exquisite flavor. My wife’s grandfather imported two pipes of Madeira every year, and my father-in-law continued to do this as long as he lived. When he died he had, as I am told, the largest private cellar of Madeira in the United States. All his wines were Newton Gordons. He made the fatal mistake of hermetically sealing them in glass gallon bottles, with ground glass stoppers, keeping them in his cellar; keeping them from light and air, preventing the wine from breathing, as it were. It has taken years for them to recover from this treatment.

Madeira should be kept in the garret. A piece of a corn cob is often a good cork for it. Light and air do not injure it; drawing it off from its lees occasionally, makes it more delicate, but, if done too often, the wine may spoil, as its lees support and nourish it.

The great New York Madeiras, famous when landed and still famous, were “The Marsh and Benson, 1809,” “The Coles Madeira,” “The Stuyvesant,” “The Clark,” and “The Eliza.” In Philadelphia, “The Butler, 16.” In Boston, “The Kirby,” the “Amory 1800,” and “1811,” “The Otis.” In Baltimore, “The Marshall,” the “Meredith,” or “Great Unknown,” “The Holmes Demijohn,” “The Mob,” “The Colt.” In Charleston, “The Rutledge,” “The Hurricane,” “The Earthquake,” “The Maid,” “The Tradd-street.” In Savannah, “The All Saints” (1791), “The Catherine Banks,” “The Louisa Cecilia” (1818), “The Rapid” 1817, and “The Widow.

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CHAMPAGNES AND OTHER WINES.

CHAPTER XXI.