Our habit of listening to lectors,
especially at the evening repast, and then of reasoning upon what we
have heard, prolongs our stay at the board; but the fondest listener,
the greatest talker among us, would be impatient of the delay eked out
here by the great number and the slow procession of the courses served.
Yet the poorest American would find his ideal realized rather in the
long-drawn-out gluttony of the society dinner here than in our temperate
simplicity.
At such a dinner it is very hard to avoid a surfeit, and I have to guard
myself very carefully, lest, in the excitement of the talk, I gorge
myself with everything, in its turn. Even at the best, my overloaded
stomach often joins with my conscience in reproaching me for what you
would think a shameful excess at table. Yet, wicked as my riot is, my
waste is worse, and I have to think, with contrition, not only of what I
have eaten, but of what I have left uneaten, in a city where so many
wake and sleep in hunger.
The ladies made a show of lingering after we joined them in the
drawing-room; but there were furtive glances at the clock, and presently
her guests began to bid Mrs.
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