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Ginger-Snaps
Ginger-Snaps
PREFACE
WHEN I was a little girl, I used to play "make ginger-snaps;" and I always tossed in all the ginger in the spice-box, be it more or less; so if you find these rather biting, attribute it to the force of early habits. Beside, they are not intended for a "square meal;" only to nibble at, in the steamboat, or railroad-car, or under the trees in the country; or when your dear, but tardy John, is keeping you waiting, with your gloves buttoned, and your bonnet-strings tied; or, best of all, when you are sitting in your rocking-chair, nursing that dear little baby. I do not think the milk of human kindness is wanting in these Ginger-Snaps, and I trust they are —kneaded.
Fanny Fern.
DINNER-PARTIES
TO fasten as many drags as possible to the social machinery of to-day, seems to be the first idea of hospitality, which, there is every reason to fear, will gradually be smothered in the process.
Perhaps the lady who gives the dinner-party would really prefer a plain dinner with her friend Mrs. Jones, than all the elaborate dinners she is in the habit of giving and attending; but her husband likes wines and French cookery, and would consider anything else a poor compliment to a guest; and so there's an end.
And now, what are these fine dinners? Just this: a pleasant gleam of silver and china; a lovely disposition of fruit and flowers; a great deal of dress, or undress, on the part of the ladies; much swallow-tail, and an exquisite bit of cravat and kid-glove, on the part of the gentlemen. Brains – as the gods please; but always a procession of dishes, marched on and marshalled off, for the requisite number of tedious hours, during which you eat you know not what, because you must be ready with your answer for your elbow neighbor, or your vis-a-vis; during which, you taste much wine and nibble much confectionery, and finish up with coffee; and under the combined influence of all this you sink supinely into a soft chair or sofa, and the "feed" is over.
Everybody there feels just as you do. Everybody would like to creep into some quiet corner, and be let alone, till the process of digestion has had a chance.
Instead – they throw a too transparent enthusiasm into the inquiry, "How's your mother?" If the gods are kind, and there has been an inroad of measles or fever, the narrator may possibly give you ten minutes' reprieve from pumping up from beneath that dinner another query about "the baby." But if he – or she, too – is laboring, like yourself, with duck and quail, and paté and oyster, and wine and fruit and bon-bons, then may a good Providence put it into the distracted brain of the hostess to set some maiden a-foul of the piano!
Oh, but that is blessed! no matter what she plays, how hard she thumps, or how loud she screeches. Blessed – to lean back, and fold your kid gloves over your belt, and never move them till you applaud the performance, of which you know, nor care, any more than who struck Billy Patterson.
This over, you see a gentlemen coming towards you. You know by his looks, he too is suffering the pangs of repletion. Good heavens! how full of deceit is his smile, as he fastens on you, thinking you will talk! Mistaken man! you smile too, and both together agree that "the weather has been fine of late." This done, you look helplessly, with the untold pain of dumb animals, in each other's faces, and then glance furtively about to see if that piano-young-woman really means to leave your anguish unassuaged. She does. Hum! – you make an errand across the room to pick up a suppositious glove you dropped – and get rid of the parasite.
At last! – relief – there is your husband. How glad he is to see you! It's really worth going to the dinner-party to witness that man's affection for you at that moment. Now he can yawn behind his glove. Now he takes a seat so near, that no man or woman can interrupt his lazy heaven. He even smiles at you from very gladness of heart, and in thick utterance tells you, in order to keep you from going from his side, that "he don't see but you look as well as any woman in the room." You only needed that unwonted display of gallantry from the hypocritical wretch, to rise immediately and leave him to his fate, though you should, in doing it, rush madly on your own.
And this is "a dinner-party." For this men and women empty their purses, and fill their decanters and wardrobes, and merge their brains in their stomachs, and – are in the fashion!
Better is a leg of mutton and caper-sauce, and much lively talk, whensoever and wheresoever a friend, with or without an invitation, cares enough about you and yours with impromptu friendship to "drop in." Best clothes, best dishes, best wine, best parlors! – what are they, with rare exceptions, but extinguishers of wit and wisdom and digestion and geniality. Who will inaugurate us a little common-sense?