- end_line
- 7510
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T03:55:03.883Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 7449
- text
- plan of operations. But anyone knows that a good genial dinner is a sort
of pell-mell, indiscriminate affair, quite baffling to detail in all
particulars. Thus, I spoke of taking a glass of claret, and a glass of
sherry, and a glass of port, and a mug of ale--all at certain specific
periods and times. But those were merely the state bumpers, so to speak.
Innumerable impromptu glasses were drained between the periods of those
grand imposing ones.
The nine bachelors seemed to have the most tender concern for each
other’s health. All the time, in flowing wine, they most earnestly
expressed their sincerest wishes for the entire well-being and lasting
hygiene of the gentlemen on the right and on the left. I noticed that
when one of these kind bachelors desired a little more wine (just for
his stomach’s sake, like Timothy), he would not help himself to it
unless some other bachelor would join him. It seemed held something
indelicate, selfish, and unfraternal, to be seen taking a lonely,
unparticipated glass. Meantime, as the wine ran apace, the spirits of
the company grew more and more to perfect genialness and unconstraint.
They related all sorts of pleasant stories. Choice experiences in their
private lives were now brought out, like choice brands of Moselle or
Rhenish, only kept for particular company. One told us how mellowly he
lived when a student at Oxford; with various spicy anecdotes of most
frank-hearted noble lords, his liberal companions. Another bachelor, a
gray-headed man, with a sunny face, who, by his own account, embraced
every opportunity of leisure to cross over into the Low Countries, on
sudden tours of inspection of the fine old Flemish architecture
there--this learned, white-haired, sunny-faced old bachelor excelled in
his descriptions of the elaborate splendours of those old guild-halls,
town-halls, and stadthold-houses to be seen in the land of the ancient
Flemings. A third was a great frequenter of the British Museum, and knew
all about scores of wonderful antiquities, of Oriental manuscripts, and
costly books without a duplicate. A fourth had lately returned from a
trip to Old Granada, and, of course, was full of Saracenic scenery. A
fifth had a funny case in law to tell. A sixth was erudite in wines. A
seventh had a strange characteristic anecdote of the private life of the
Iron Duke, never printed, and never before announced in any public or
private company. An eighth had lately been amusing his evenings, now and
then, with translating a comic poem of Pulci’s. He quoted for us the
more amusing passages.
And so the evening slipped along, the hours told, not by a water-clock,
like King Alfred’s, but a wine-chronometer. Meantime the table seemed a
sort of Epsom Heath; a regular ring, where the decanters galloped round.
For fear one decanter should not with sufficient speed reach his
destination, another was sent express after him to hurry him; and then a
third to hurry the second; and so on with a fourth and fifth. And
throughout all this nothing loud, nothing unmannerly, nothing turbulent.
I am quite sure, from the scrupulous gravity and austerity of his air,
that had Socrates, the field-marshal, perceived aught of indecorum in
the company he served, he would have forthwith departed without giving
warning. I afterward learned that, during the repast, an invalid
bachelor in an adjoining chamber enjoyed his first sound refreshing
slumber in three long, weary weeks.
It was the very perfection of quiet absorption of good living, good
drinking, good feeling, and good talk. We were a band of brothers.
Comfort--fraternal, household comfort, was the grand trait of the
affair. Also, you could plainly see that these easy-hearted men had no
wives or children to give an anxious thought. Almost all of them were
travellers, too; for bachelors alone can travel freely, and without any
twinges of their consciences touching desertion of the fireside.
- title
- Chunk 5