St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-11-26
ABOUT The DINNER.
Desirable Reforms in Setting the
Table.

DeSIraDle reforms in Setting the
Table.
It was perfect dinner with which to
inaugurate the season.
Somehow" said one woman hest
tatingly, sit made you feel as if great
many other dinners you had eaten were
almoSt--yes, one might as well say it.
vulgar"
lit was very pretty affair."" broke in
second lady, land to my thinking it's
bound to revOlutiOniZe the whole fashion
of dinner giving"
1t was all interesting meal. In the
first place, the cloth; i'll the second
place, the flowers. This revolutionary
dinner ignored plush scarfS and table
mirrors. 1t reinstated linen; fine. sill
very. silky linen; white linen; white on
white, for change after the monotony
of buff or blue or pink or cream. 1t
ignored also fruit or flower pyramids
and specimen glasses two feet high.
There was no craning your neck and
thruSt!ng your hairpins into your neigh
boris face in desperate effort to catch a
glimpse of your ViS-a-viS around the
shoulders of the mountain sleeps that
loOmed between. This dinner was not
PERCEPTIONS. 1t had not even table
land. 1t was tiatter than prairie, flat
as the lie rel sea.
1t had flowers? Yes, most certainly,
but not in vases. Bright trails of the
Virginia creeper were caught here and
there across the table CLOTH and show
erS of brilliant autumn leaves had
showed down between. By the plate of
each guest lay two or three twigs of witch
hazel, covered with wierd yellow bios
SONS, or bunch of chiySanthemumS lOOS-
ly tied with long, dull golden cords. 1t
was an autumnal dinner, frost dinner,
with the glowing tints of autumn, but it
pinned its faith to sheeny damask, and
it overSet the theory that true pictur-
esqueneSS consists in Obstructing con-
versatiOn and ObScuring the view.
This will be a winter of linen dinners
and fiat dinners to boot Plush and
velvet as table decorators have seen
their day. COlOred glass is on the wane.
Now is the reign of linen, silver and
crystal. White on white. We have only
just begun to realize its possibilities.
German linen satiny and smooth. 1t
| has a wide border of the old Italian cut
work so placed as to come over the
table, showing the polished wood of the
| board through its interSticeS. Hither
and thither OH the cloth runs Spanish
| design embroidered in silk floss or white
| filOSelle, here one art stitch, there an
| other, making you wonder how one
needle could compass them all and how
| so many could be so perfectly harmon
| lied in one pattern.
White linen. HOuSekeepers will de-
| light in 1t again. And not cOlored? Yes,
| in moderation. Gold on white to cor
respond with the white and gold pOrce-
lains and art chinas the most fastldious
allow. Let flight of swallows har-
messed by cupids wing their way over
the snowy surface. The birds that bring
70. Il
| golden cords, and the grOteSQue loves
| turning somersaultS on their backs are
| executed in a delicate tracery of dead
gold threads, and guide their aerial
steedS by silken threads of brown and
gold. These are dinner cloths. For
| lunches and teas there are imported
| linens in half a dozen shades of blue, dull
red, buff, cream, sea green, straw, and
| every tint which modern art furniSherS
delight in. All these. darned, en-
broidered, braided, gotten up with
| closets store. The napkin has its mon
ogram, or, better, spray of flower from
| the table cloth design embroidered on
it, and the finger bowl dolly is sheer,
cObweb-like, in the shape of an oak or
| an ivy leaf, surrounded by a delicate
tIacery of drawn threads and ambroid-
cred vines.
And the dinner table has got rid Of
the watershed in its middle. The huge
dishes of fruits and flowers piled to the
skies have gone by the board. 30 have
high chandeliers Of candles or lights of
any description. SO have all flower vases,
almost without exception. For people
who can afford them the proper flower
receDtacleS just now are low. flaring
bowls of silver delicately etched, and
almost too beautiful to be hidden by the
poSies. These bowls are big and little,
simple and elaborate. Sometimes they
have twisted twigs for handles or with
ing serpents, and sometimes they have
no handles at all. They are wreathed
sometimes with irregular cloud bands
of gold, giving peculiar enamel effect
obtained by mixing the metals cold.
They are Ornamented sometimes with
rough pearls. One buys the NJ In a
variety of sizes, and puts them down on
the table cloth wherever there may be
room for the fragrance of violets or the
bloom Of roses. Yellow flowers are the
favorites, partly because white and gold
worship is popular. and partly because
yellow on silver lights up prettily in the
evening.