Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1871-11-18
The Tortures of the Dinner.TabIe.

Scribner's Monthly has made good many hits,
but never a greater one than the mauling it
gives that abOminable nuisance, the custom of
speech making at the dnner-table. Who that
has ''been there" fails to recognize i'm Dr. Hol-
lands description the horrors of that task, the
anticipation of which is torture, and the per-
Torrance of which is usually failure? There
is something, he argues, very absurd i'm the sub
mission of 30 many men to this custom. There is
never a public dinner, or a dinner which may
possibly merge into formality Of toast and talk,
without its overhsDging dread. There is prob
ably not one man present, from him who ex-
poets to be called upon for a speech to him who
is afraid that the demand will at last reach
him, who would not pay a handsome price
to be out Of the room and its dangers. To
multitudes of men the viands of a feast
are gall and bitterness, through this haunt
ing dread of the moment when, with bellies
full and brains empty, they shall find them
selves on their feet, making frantic endeavor
Ia saw something that shall bring down the
fOrk-bandles and give them leave to subside.
The drinking which is resorted to for loosening
the tongue or putting the company into that
sensitively appreciative mood which responds
to buncombe and bathos, is often shameful and
always demoralizing. Not good thing comes
of il all, nobody ENJOYS il, speakers and hearers
u.
This is all very true, and just, as every one
must cOncede, but ScribHer, in its noble rage
against the detestable custom, seems to infuse
something of the gall and bitterness 1t describes
as visited upon the victim of the dinner table
into its as rtiOn "that as a rule the successful
dinneT-table orator is a shallow man-One whose
thoughts are on the surface, whose vocabulary
Is small and at quick command, and whose lack
of any earnest purpose in life leaves him free
to talk upon tTihes.'' Unfortunately, there
are so many notable exceptions to this rule that
the shallow fellows have too much countenance
to feel properly absshed by this dictum. Among
the felieitOus speakers Of the dinner table of the
past and present, one calls to mind the names OF
Henry Clay, Sargent 5. Prentiss, Rufus Choate
James J.. Orr, Reyerdy johnson, Caleb Cush-
ing, Perley Poore, Schuyler Colfax, James G.
Il aine, James Brooks, and this is but the begin
mig OF the list. Charles Summer at the Forney
dinner by his exceedingly happy response to
various kindly references 10 his course, '.pokedI
at him from different parts of the table, rather
a>toEiShed II ose who had got the notion that hC
could say nothing Ofi-hand.
Charles Dickens wasinimitable at the dinner
table presiding officer or as speech-maker
while 1haekeray, his great eompeer in letters
Vas as dumb as an oyster, and in one of his essay.
4 elirgly depicts the miseries of the man who
when called upon to speak, hOpelessly forgets al
the neat things he had conceived while i'm tn,
cab Dickens. however, had overlooking ami ma
spirits, which Thaekeray lacked.
Among our own writer's the late VI. NJ Noah
rather solemn-IoOking individual was one o.
the Wittiest and haPpiest of table speakers
Ub,,@ y. p. Willis, brilliant society man. ant
Who's I. fictitious wOrd-painting indicated prea,
command .. language, had a dread of beine
called to his LEGS Ike thatOf Thackeray. and in
Houe Jos,rndI editoria. lac argured humorouSly
against the injustice OF reqCtring writer e
SPOUT through both the nozzle and the handle OF
the pump. That everybody appreciates the alb
surdity and tediOusness of the speech making
business, is shown by the fact that the speaker
who has the courage and originality to denOunce
its humbuggeTy is sure to be yociferoasly APP
Elauded; rs when Mark Twain, az the Pres.
Dinner here, made his famous response to the
toast to woman" and 20 deIieiousiy burlesquet
that stereotype sentiment and its faded old com
paHiOns of the dinner-table.