Nothing, perhaps, sooner denotes the
condition of people, than the habits connected with the table. If
eating and drinking be not done in a certain way, and a way founded in
reason, too, as indeed are nearly all the customs of polished life,
whatever may be the cant of the ultras of reason--but, if eating and
drinking be not done in a certain way, your people of the world
perceive it sooner than almost anything else. There is, also, more of
common sense and innate fitness, in the usages of the table, so long
as they are not dependent on mere caprice, than in almost any other
part of our deportment; for everybody must eat, and most persons
choose to eat decently. I had been a little nervous on the subject of
the Mertons, in connection with the Clawbonny table, I will confess;
and great was my delight when I found the breakfast going off so
well. As for the Major, himself by no means familiar with the higher
classes of his own country, he had that great stamp of a gentleman,
simplicity; and he was altogether above the cockney distinctions of
eating and drinking; those about cheese and malt liquors, and such
vulgar niceties; nor was he a man to care about the silver-forkisms;
but he understood that portion of the finesse of the table which
depended on reason and taste, and was accustomed to observe it.
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