Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1901-01-26
A Presidents Dinner Table Twenty
Five Years Ago.
bow WILL IT Be DECORATED IN 1925
The Evolution of Some Pieces Of
Household Furniture.
OLD MAHOGANY CHARMS

Written for The Evening Star.
The occasion Of the first formal White
House dinner Of the new century, given
few weeks ago, in honor of the cabinet,
was noticeable for the beautiful and pro-
fuse decoration Of the table and dining
room. Pink carnations, wax blossoms and
farleyence ferns extended down the center
and across each end of the table, and be-
sides the pink-shaded candles, numerous
electric lights were placed in the flower
decorations about the sideboard and mantel.
which made a bower of the great state
dining room.
The lavish use of lights and flowers
brought to my mind a description Of a
state dinner written only so long ago as
1878, which 1 quote for comparison:
1.-The dinner table at the Executive Man
sion of our country, on the occasion of a
dinner of ceremony, is laid with fine linen,
exquisite china and glass, gold-washed
knives and forks. A small bouquet and
cluster of colored wine glasses adorn each
plate, and the central ornament is a great
vase, running over with flowers, that
stands on long, fiat mirror laid down the
middle of the table, and edged with smaller
flowers"
Probably vase of flowers on the man.
tells was deemed sufficient adornment out
side the table. and 1t all sounds very mild
alton now employed. Before twenty-five
years more have passed, however, a Ie-
action may come, and the present profuse-
ness be deemed tasteess, and a return to
simpler things be hailed with joy by the
eyes, wearied with much seeing. 1t is quite
as likely, though, that we develop on the
present lines, and quarter of century
hence may see the way of living as much
in excess of today in point of lavishness
as 1901 is in excess of 1878. Who can tell
1t would only be going backward, after all,
for the writer of ''SalathieP' gives this
glimpse of Roman dinner table two thou
sand years ago, which far outshines the en-
tertainments of today:
The Roman Style.
1.-THE guests before me We're fifty or sixty
splenddly dressed men, attended by a
crowd of domestics attired with scarcely
less splendor, for no man thought of COM
ing to the banquet in the robes Of ordinary
life.
1.-The embroidered couches themselves
striking objects, allowed the ease of posi-
ton at once delightful in the relaxing eli
mates of the south and capable of combn-
ing with every grace of the human figure.
At slight distance the table, loaded with
plate glittering under a profusion of lamps
and surrounded by couches thus covered by
rich draperies, was like a central source of
light radiating in broad shafts of eve."y
brilliant hue.
THE wealth of the patricians and their
Intercourse with the Greeks made them
masters of the first performances of the
arts. Copies of the most famous statues
and groups of sculpture in the precious
metals, trophies of victories, models of tenn
pies, We're mingled with vases of flowers
and lighted perfumes Finally, covering
and closing all was vast scarlet canopy,
which combined the groups beneath to the
eye and threw the whole into the form that
painter would love-
We NAV Exceed All Tint
We may be coming to such scenes as this,
but in the meantime we go on living our
lives in the way our environment demands,
and unless is detained far from all
modern complications we make much of our
immediate surroundings and endeavor to