The combat between a man's taste and his exchequer is never less agreeable than when it concerns a dinner. To feel that you have a soul for turtle and truffles, and yet must descend to mashed potatoes and herrings; to know that a palate capable of appreciating a salmi des perdreaux must be condemned to the indignity of stock fish,--what an indignity is that! The whole man revolts at it! You feel, besides, that such a meal is unrelieved by those suggestive excursions of fancy which a well-served table abounds in. In the one case you eat like the beast of the field,--it is a question of supporting nature, and no more; in the other, there is a poetry interwoven that elevates and exalts. With what discursive freedom does the imagination range from the little plate of oysters that preludes your soup, to pearl fishery and the coral reefs, "with moonlight sleeping on the breaking surf!" And then your soup, be it turtle or mulligatawny, how associated is it with the West Indies or the East, bearing on its aromatic vapor thousands of speculative reflections about sugar and slavery, pepper-pots, straw hats, pickaninnies, and the Bishop of Barbadoes; or the still grander themes of elephants, emeralds, and the Indus, with rajahs, tigers, punkahs, and the Punjaub! And so you proceed, dreamily following out in fancy the hints each course supplies, and roving with your cutlets to the "cattle upon a thousand hills," or dallying with the dessert to the orange-groves of Zaute or Sicily. I do love all this. The bouquet of my Bordeaux brings back the Rhone, as the dry muscat of my Johannisberg pictures the vine-clad cliffs of the Vaterland, with a long diminuendo train of thought about Metternich and the Holy Alliance--the unlucky treaty of '15--Vienna--Madame Schrader--and Castelli. And how pleasantly and nationally does one come back with the port to our "ancient ally, Portugal," with a mind-painted panorama of Torres Vedras and the Douro,--with Black Horse Square and the Tagus,--"the Duke" ever and anon flitting across the scene, and making each glass you carry to your lips a heartfelt "long life to him!" Alas and alas! such prandial delights were not for me; I must dine for twelve cents, or, by accepting the brilliant entertainment announced yonder, price half-a-dollar, keep Lent the rest of the week. The temptation to which I allude ran thus:-- Ladies and Gentlemen's Grand Ordinary of all Nations At 5 o'clock precisely. Thumbo-rig--Mint julep--and a Ball. The "Half-dollar." Monsieur Palamede de Rosanne directs the Ceremonies.