The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1874-07-24
The Dinner Hour.

The Dinner Hour.
Nothing in nature or society appears
to have so much specified gravity as
the dinner hour. It has gradually
sunk down, taking a century or two for
its descent, from IL o'clock, when it
makes its first appearance in history, to
o'clock, the hour when extreme fashion
dimes in London. Queen Elizabeth
and her court dined at noon. and we
may trust that the present prime minis
ter of England was not giving a loyal
world an erroneous impression of the
proper hour for dinner when in "Lo-
THAR" he fixes the time as ga late
eight" This is the lowest point yet
reached. The fashionable hour for din
ing in continental cities is much earlier,
and thousands of noble families in Ger
many and France adhere resolutely to
their two-o'cleck dinner. OF course,
the vast majority of mankind never
dine at all, but eat what they can get,
aud at any hour which may be conven-
lent. But there is throughout the we'll
to-do world among the people who
have enough "goods laid up' to ena-
bic them to invite their souls to make
th9ir di119r SON >thtny n ore than a
mere necessity, and evident tendency
to postpone the principal meal of the
day to the evening, and as the life of
fashionable people becomes every year
fuller of varied occupation, to assign a
later hour for dining.
This is probably due not SO much to
the progress of luxury as the gradual
increase of objects of interest to men
of wealth. A few generations ago peo-
pie in society were composed of the
classes who neither toiled nor spun, and
to whom the advent of the dinner hour
was welcome as it is on shipboard or in
the country An apparently impossible
line separated people of fashion from
those who did any regular or gainful
work. And however agreeable it may
appear from the outside, it is probable |
that mere dawdling, even when ellliv- |
ened by the pursuit of women, does not |
fill the day like a regular occupation. |
There are comparatively few people |
who have nothing to do. It |
is especially unusual to find among |
those who possess sufficient energy and |
ambition to assume and hold leading |
positions in society, any who are not
impelled by these same qualities to ac-
tive participation in the practical work
of life. Those who have inherited |
wealth like to increase it, or at least to
employ it nationally. Those who have
received from their parents merely
good name are inclined to giId it by
their own exertions. And in every CON
5picuous social circle in the world, ex-
cedt, perhaps, in the first society, the
oourt-capables of Vienna, you will find
among its leaders energetic people who
have made their own names and their
own fortunes. The tendency of the
lime being to an active employment of
The day, it is not surprising that mos
people prefer to finish their days work,
whatever it may be, before entering upt
IN SO solemn and serious business as
modern dinner now is. It was one of
'ur gI eat historians who said that the
Inner party was the highest expression
II cIVII1AaIfUn; and when we Consider
he number of trades, arts, and sciences
which concur to produce the daily re-
ult, the dres ses, the plate, the furni-
ure, the flowers, the viands, and the
vines which are to be seen in the mod
IN formal dinner, it will be hard to
ontest the apothegm.
But there are some drawbacks insepa-
ably connected from this custom of
ate dining. Two of the most evident
re the gradual abolition through this
1eans of informal evening visits, and
he startling decadence of the English
rama. In London the higher classes
ave almost ceased to frequent the the 1
ter. 1t is simply impossible to dine at I
light and go to play the same evening,
nd therefore the people who habitually {
inc at eight have ceased to go to the
heater. The middle classes follow the
xample of their betters and stay away
4 fact, one attraction of places of {
is taken away when the i
entlefolks cease to gc. The prices of t
omission are too high for the masses {
he consequence is that the theaters
re filled every night with transient ,
rowd, composed chiefly of the popula- i
ion of hotels. The same causes are 6
persting powerfully against theaters '
l New York, though in less degree, t
8 here the dinner hour is still some {
hat earlier, and the hotel population V
not SO much inferior to the educated /
eople of the city. The opera is less J
ffected than the stage for, while it l
emains fashionable, people are willing I
} dine little earlier and more simply. {
nd yet, even in New York, the first {
ct of an opera is always sung to full c
alIery and empty boxes. The effect of {
ate dining upon dramatic art is undeni- {
bic, and is continually increasing I
1eaO York Tribune. 7