The Dining-Room
Carpets and curtains — Picture hanging and frames — Distemper colouring for cornices — Oval dining-table — Sideboard for breakfast service — Beauty of English porcelain — A London dining-room — Giulio Romano’s banquet — Growing plants — The large sideboard — Dinner-service — Styles of dinner — Food in due season — Gracefulness of flowers and fruits — Fresh fruit better than preserves — Communication between kitchen and dining-room — Remarks on plate — Table decorations.
Having given a sketch of the kitchen, I must now fill up that of the dining-room, which we left after the breakfast was cleared away.
As the gas-tripod, the spirit-lamp, and the large bowl for washing the china and other crockery have been already described, we may proceed to consider what more immediately relates to the dinner-table; since the rest of the furniture need not materially differ from what is at present in use.
In selecting a carpet for the dining-room, let us remember that a Brussels carpet is more easily brushed and kept clean, than are Turkey or Indian carpets.
If it be made with a border, and the floor stained and varnished all round at a width of from one to two feet from the wainscot, beside being cheaper to begin with than a fitted carpet, it is more artistic in appearance, and more readily taken up periodically to be beaten; while a long brush easily dusts the varnished margin, and a damp cloth tied over a harder broom will wash it in case of necessity. Bordered square carpets are the more durable, as they are able to be turned round as one part becomes unduly worn.
The best kind of curtains for a dining-room are of some rich-looking woollen stuff, thick enough not to require lining. Rep is very serviceable, but there are many more curious foreign fabrics which may sometimes be met with at no very great cost.
Curtains ought to run easily on a pole, either of wood or metal. If of metal, it should not be very large, as the size of a hollow rod does not add to its strength. Curtain rings can be sewn on at home, and so can any cord that may be thought desirable at the edge, though this does not often improve curtains from an artistic point of view. There is no need of the upholsterer’s intervention, which mostly doubles the price of the curtains.
The height from the floor to the top of the window should be measured, and the requisite number of yards of material bought, allowing a margin for curves in the folds of the drapery. The rods should be sufficiently long to allow the curtains to hang entirely upon the wall, not overhanging the window in the least. This preserves the drapery, and keeps it from fading, while it does not exclude the light.
The curtains should be ample enough to cover the window completely when the shutters are shut, without leaving a streak of opening. They should likewise extend to the ends of the pole, so as comfortably to keep out the draught.
If muslin curtains are used, they may conveniently be tacked inside the woollen ones about half-way; this will keep the latter from some dust. A few additional rings can be slipped on the pole, to which the remaining central parts of the muslin will be gathered.
Curtains should touch the floor, or nearly so, but they need never be allowed to lie in heaps on the ground, as was formerly the fashion; and the voluminous folds sustained by brackets have been advantageously exchanged for a simple band to hold back the curtain.
Our mothers and grandmothers were certainly victims to their upholstery; we have improved in this respect. It does not take many minutes to unhook our curtains, shake them free from dust, and hang them up again; we have no complicated pulleys to get out of order perpetually, nor ponderous cornices with heavy valances, and wonderful gimp and fringe. Those were fine times for the upholsterers!
Do not hang your dining-room pictures very high; few of us tower above six feet, and it is easier for those who do so to stoop, than for the rest of us to stand on tip-toe; we must consider the convenience of the majority.
Money is well expended on picture-frames, as when they are handsome and chosen with taste, they enhance our enjoyment of the pictures. But a costly frame is not always a good one, and when gilt composition runs riot in ferns and fantastic flames, as we frequently see it do around mirrors, its effect is barbaric, rather than elegant.
Broad flats in gilt plaster are less excellent than gold laid on the wood itself.
For prints, where economy has to be much considered, few frames are better than those of flat oak with a bevelled edge, and on the flat a slight design of graceful lines made with the parting-tool, and only the lines gilt.
Pictures, if small and numerous, should not be dotted about the walls, but grouped. One sometimes see walls as spotted as a currant-dumpling. A band of wood, called a grazing line, behind the chair-backs protects the wall, and is an aid to picture hanging, by giving a line from which we may measure their bases.
If there are many large pictures, they should be hung from a rod placed near the ceiling, or a foot lower, if an ornamental band of paper is carried round the top of the room below the cornice. If the cornice is not already “picked out,” as the decorators term it, in colour—that is, delicately tinted in distemper—it should be done, as it is a great improvement.
It is not difficult to do this for one’s self. The necessary materials are a pennyworth of whitening, a pennyworth of size, and of the required tints a pennyworth. Break up some whitening into saucers, mix it with water until it is of the consistence of thick cream, add a tablespoonful of melted size to each saucer, shake in about a teaspoonful of powdered colour to each, and apply with a badger or hog-hair paintbrush.
Strong colours become pale tints when mixed with the whitening, and the mixture dries paler than it is applied. To paint the ground on which the plaster design is embossed gives a cameo effect and is elegant, but sometimes it is better to colour the raised ornaments. Taste must be the guide here. This quantity of material is sufficient to tint every cornice in the house. Splashes of the colour are easily wiped off while the mixture is wet.
Where the family is small, an oval table, like we generally see in France, is the most convenient form; as the master and mistress sit facing each other at the narrowest part of the oval, where they can communicate freely with each other, and more easily dispense the general hospitality. A table of this shape is lengthened by leaves inserted in the central division; when quite closed it is a round table.
A dumb-waiter placed at the right hand of the mistress enables much personal waiting to be dispensed with.
If the dining-room be large, it is desirable to have two sideboards, one larger than the other. The breakfast things should adorn (for that is what they really ought to do) the smaller sideboard.
With all the beauty and comparative cheapness of our Worcester and other pottery, we ought, in every family, to possess such a collection of beautiful objects for daily use as should for ever prevent our sighing after the palmy days of Greek art. I was at Sèvres not long ago, and while going over the porcelain factory there, I mentioned that I had been over that at Worcester. “Ah, then, madame,” said the official, “we can show you no more; you have indeed seen all.”
And had we no careless and ever-changing servants to shatter our elegant treasures, we might have in daily use objects which would enrich a museum, and train our eyes to a higher perception of beauty; and we should learn to value our porcelain, not for its rarity, but for its intrinsic merit.
Look at our picturesque coffee and tea pots, our elegant cups, and well-painted bowls. Why should they always be concealed in china closets, or consigned to kitchen-dressers, while our dining-room walls are too often bare and cheerless?—a few dismal prints, hung too high to be seen or easily dusted, being frequently the only adornments of a darkened room, like a waiting-room at a railway station for emptiness of anything to occupy the mind, yet which ought to be one of the pleasantest and brightest in the house. Instead of which cheerful appearance, here is a sketch of a regulation dining-room in one of London’s broadest brown streets: a room always dark in winter, but in summer exposed to glaring sun and a plague of flies.
As soon as a window is opened to cool the stifling air, a simoom of dust rushes in from the road, and from the dust carts heavily moving to the slow music of the “Trovatore’s” Miserere, adding a bass to the noise of cabs whirling by to the waltz tunes of “Daughter Angot” and “La belle Hélène.”
Tables, chairs, and sideboard are remarkable for nothing but representing so many tons of mahogany embellished with the grinning heads of griffins. Curtains powerfully scented with dust, a large chimney-glass made over to the flies, a heavy bronze machine with ponderous weights and pulleys, all smelling very strongly of gas, chiefly useful for casting deep shadows upon the dining-table. The bean-green carpet, monotonizing with the pea-green walls, whereon hang divers prints of subjects undiscoverable, because they are skied as high as the ceiling will allow, and two “old masters,” as two oil paintings are called; one a bitumen-brown Wouvermans, or somebody else, with the hind leg of a gray horse in the foreground, and in the sky a patch of cloud caught in a tree. The other “gem” had been bought at a sale under the impression that its subject was “Angels adoring the Infant Saviour,” but which on closer investigation turned out to be two wicked old drunkards playing at cards, purporting to be by a Dutch master.
Could even Giulio Romano’s artistic festival have been enjoyed in such a room as this, which is only a fair specimen of the modern British banquet hall? Hear a short extract from Benvenuto Cellini’s description of it. After speaking of the rich dress of all the guests and the beauty of the ladies, he continues: “When they had taken their seats, every man produced a sonnet on some subject or other”—for they were a company of poets and artists—“and Michelagnolo read them aloud in a manner which infinitely increased the effect of their excellence. The company fell into discourse, and many fine things were said, and dinner was served up. Behind our backs there were rows of flower-pots, filled with beautiful jessamines, which seemed to heighten the charms of the young ladies beyond expression. Thus we all, with great cheerfulness, began to regale ourselves at that elegant dinner. After our repast was over we were entertained with a concert of music, both vocal and instrumental, and an improvisatore recited some admirable verses in praise of the ladies.”
We could only on very rare occasions have rows of pots of jasmine placed behind our chairs, but we might easily grow an elder plant to keep off the flies. The Swiss scarlet-berried elder (Sambucus rufus) is graceful in growth, and will endure some hard usage.
Flower-pots may also be allowed to remain on the table, unless the plants are cherished pets, and then they will be placed where they can receive the sun and air.
Plants growing outside the windows, especially climbers wreathing the window-frames, give an appearance of size to rooms by bringing air into the perspective. The picturesque effect of the forms of foliage relieved against the paler sky is very pleasing, and it breaks the stiff straight lines of the window better than any drapery.
The glory of the dining-room is its large sideboard. This, where there is a second sideboard, may be either in the same style or in complete contrast to it. Here the larger pieces of earthenware and porcelain should be displayed to advantage. These are such things as salad bowls and outside pie-dishes, which may always remain in the dining-room, and the whole of the dessert-service, with the ornaments and table decorations.
The glasses and decanters should always be elegant, and although in my opinion the Venetian glass is by far the most beautiful kind, still our own crystal and engraved glass is often exquisitely lovely, and the sunshine playing through the prismatic decanter knobs, and other cut glass ornaments, gives an unrivalled lustre to the summer dinner-table. Breakages under careful, delicate handling would be less frequent than they are now, so that the expense of procuring glass and porcelain the best of their kind would not be felt to be the extravagance it is now.
It will be said that for all this display of glass and china an enormous sideboard will be required, at as enormous a cost. And the first objection I concede, without, however, admitting it to be a fault.
Why should not the sideboard be, if necessary, as large as the side of the room? But the cost may be less than that of an ordinary dinner-waggon. It might be constructed as a series of shelves, ranged as high as can be conveniently reached, broken by cellarettes and other cupboards or cabinets, hung with worked curtains, the shelves merely backed by paper made like embossed leather. There is an infinite variety of styles and forms in which the sideboard may be made; from the gorgeous mass of carved oak and velvet, set with golden shields, and cups, and services of gold plate, such as I have admired on the dining-room walls of a palace built on the ruins of an abbey, down to the stained deal dresser-shaped sideboard of a house of fifty pounds a year, where it would only be decked with graceful, yet unpretending, china and terra-cotta, where its curtains would be of brown holland worked in crewels, and its intrinsic ornaments the burnished brass locks, hinges, and handles. Yet as fine taste might be visible in one as in the other.
The table-cloth, table-napkins, and spoons and forks should be laid in drawers, as such seems their befitting place; and salt-cellars, and other diminutive articles containing condiments, may be put away behind small curtains, or veils, of decorative needlework, to shelter them from the dust, as well as to give an opportunity for the display of rich and elegant furniture embroidery, adapted in style to the carvings, plaques, inlaid work, or other adornments of the sideboard.
The piles of plates—as many of them must almost of necessity be in piles—will be also concealed and protected by curtains, or behind doors turning on pivots, which, where they are available, are far better than hinges.
The quantity of plates wanted for the daily use of the family must be kept in the kitchen, as they will be washed there, and need to be warmed in readiness for dinner; but dinner and dessert plates that are not used for greasy comestibles will be rinsed in the dining-room, and rearranged at once.
I know some old Bristol china butter boats of such simple but elegant form, that the curves of the nautilus shell are hardly more graceful. Yet these things had been banished to a kitchen dresser until I implored their release; and now, in the present Bristol china mania, they are promoted to a drawing-room table, a place quite as unsuitable as was the kitchen dresser.
Among useful decorations for the sideboard, some of the prettiest I have seen are the Venetian curved bottles for holding oil and vinegar. They are fixed in a glass stand, and as the curved necks of the flask-shaped bottles bend over across each other, by taking up the stand either oil or vinegar may be poured out without spilling the other condiment, and the flasks require no stoppers, as their curve is sufficient to keep out the dust, though occasionally a glass dolphin is stuck in the mouth of each bottle. This simple yet ingenious contrivance is far prettier than our somewhat vulgar cruet-stand. Moorish brass 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 substitute 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 quantity of vegetable produce we ought to consume, as the necessity of its seasonableness.
When our cooks, be they noble, 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 circumstances, 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 constitution. The blame is never laid on irregularity, want of air, exercise, or occupation, excitement or perhaps temper, or upon circumstances generally. Either the weather or the food, irrespective of the quantity 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 glass, so that we cannot now endure to see the mass 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-class 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 snobbish 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 massive, 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, glass, 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.