Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1890-02-06
WIT AROUND THE BOARDS.
,1tofa Higher Order Today Than
in Olden TIMES?
p.of David Swing of the Opinion That
the Intellectual Dinner Party or
Tea Party Has not Made
Much Progress.

s'-.,as and similar social meetings differ
pp'.'--ortiallv from the social affairs of the
.a,os Kind in the present. There has come
- IN MS all a rumor that there were
,rorderful conversations, wonderful bursts
= wit and eloquence In the olden time
,rben friends of the higher order met
,-onud the dinner table or at an evening
-onnion. but we all know the power of a
b,ndred wears to ornament past landscape
Il saams easier for the human mind to say,
apow great he was!' than How great he
49, How beautiful she was" than
aHow beautiful she isl" Hope is no great
ar "a laiuter than memory neither of them
being affected much by realism.
Some assume greater change to the
disadvantage Of the present; and having
sssumed this decline of the conversational
9rt they find a reason in the growth at
famed by the newspaper and the review
and magazine. 1t is alleged that these
have made readers and writes out of those
who we're takers in the days of the fathers
in letters Constant reading creates a
disposition to be alone and to be silent;
and furthermore men who have much to
saw keen their lips closed at dinner parties
because they are full of the intention to
make of out their thoughts a ffty-dollar
Paper for some popular publication. Thus
argue those who feel that our dinners
and teas are poor things compared with
those given at the Holland House, and
1T similar famous resorts of the day. At
the Holland House assembled, according to
Macaulay. wits, beauties painters and
poets, scholars, philosophers, and states
men.
AS MUCH WIT AND WISDOM NOW AS LONG
AGO.
True! true! But the particulars as to
what was said and done by those persons
when they were thus grouped are not Civ
en- us by Macaulay nor by any painstaSlng
annalist 1t is ON recoad that many fine
things were said-things witty and things
wise-but witty and wise things are said
in Boston when her leading men and wo-
men are at dinner with each other; and
even in Washington at entertainments
where Chase, Cox, Sumner and Lincoln sat
down for a four hour feast and chat there
we're words spoken of frst-cass wit or
wisdom The truth is that cultivated
minds are much alike, be they at Athens,
around the table of Socrates; in Rome,
around the viands and wines of Cicero, in
the times of Elizabeth, which produced
the Shakespeares and Addisons; in the
times of Victoria. which produced Dick
ems, Ihackeray, D'lsraei, and Gladstone;
and in the times of Abraham Lincoln
which could point to Emerson, Holiness
Hawthorne and small army of such in
teIIects A social meeting among cultiyat-
ed people has always implied fun, laugh
ter Jokes, wit, wisdom, food and wine
We do not see that any of the modern in
yenlOns have taken away or added much
It is probable that Socrates walked three
or four miles TO a dinner ate with his
fingers, spilled the wine over his half-nak
ed bosom, while the recent Londoner goes
in cab, eats with fork, does not waste
any wine, and wears white shirt with
with ample white space in the foreground
he Socratic symposium expected at times
the appearance of clown or dancing
girl or beautiful boy to afford a new SEN
sauon; while at the Cicero dinners the
Roman was himself as full of ancedote as
was our Abraham Lincoln, Cicero even
made puns. At one of his dinners Julius
Caesar was present, and from the quantity
he ate and drank we may infer that the
literary powers which composed the Com
mentarIes were quite dormant for at
least that one long evening. The essential
oneness Of the educated mind compels us
to imagine that an evening with PericleS
or Socrates or Cicero was much like an
evening at the Holland House in London
1r at DR.. Holmes in Boston.
a DULL PARTY AT LADY BLEssINGToN S.
From what we can learn Of the Holland
House meetings they were not so full Of
beauty wit, and wisdom as to be peculiar
At Lady Blessington's affairs had once
lrnn dragging perhaps all the evening
when tn e beautiful woman urged Theodore
iia' TO wake up and let them have some
~ has wit. His reply was that he was like
her canary blT5 unable to lay an egg when
anyone was looking at him. II would
seem from this reply that the great Hook
was not so witty in IA crowd as when in his
room along with a lead pencil; and it also
appears that Lady Be>sington parties
sometimes put those present into long
mig Tor the hour OF the homeward move
Uent
history and memory are 50 full Of char
ny mat they permit unpleasant things to
gi''p out OF the story quietly, as dumbheads
drop ont Of the college course When the
sel'ember term opens there are many stu
dents who are not seen returning with
cane and ydlise. No questions are asked.
ih9s history comes back again and again
.ta' at each return the picture of the past
Do wonderfully toned down. So the men
who meet in the Holland House are now
seen as Just ready to die over the wit of
come one or dumb with amazement over
..' 9riillancy Of another. But this was not
ne exact state of the case in some of the
Ha"mg-rooms where the poet Rogers was
[,i,q.apal,hgure. At Grote's he blurts out
19 Is that Fellow over there with red
aF Thai is Mr.. CLorley. "Oh, !
Fever heard If him before and then
haSer- would 90 at his soup as though it
were some valuable acquaintance.
NOW, tins seems within the reach Of an
american intellect. How easy it is to in
t-lFr at dinner: "Who is that man or
aal woman with a red head?' The
..1'" Yer having been satisfactory, how easy
i g return 70 the soup or the quail on
20 at a musical soiree this great
'Ie. hogers expressed his perfect con-
lJ Ter 'hddlers and for Beethoven 5
-asle he was blunt, rude. when Mrs
.ai,orls sang a song for little company
~ gentleman who had composed the