Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 5, November 1847Various
General
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 5, November 1847
Various
Literature -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals
Connected with the Conversation House is a _restaurateur_, who is at the
same time a _limonadier_ and _glacier_. There is nothing that the _Café
de Paris_, the _Maison d’or_, _Tortoni_, the _Rocher de Cancale_, or the
_Trois frères Provençaux_ can furnish, that you do not find on the
_carte_ of this practical _epicure_; while instead of the glass-boxes in
which you are obliged to dine or sup, in Paris, you are here served in a
spacious gallery, ornamented with plants and flowers from the four
quarters of the globe, a thousand times reflected in gigantic mirrors.
Every thing here seems to be arranged by the hands of a kind fairy, and
the repasts themselves are served with a promptitude and a precision as
if the spirits attending you were obeying the magic wand of an
enchanter.
A reading-room and a circulating library are also connected with the
establishment. The latter contains the standard works, and the latest
publications in English, French, and German you are sure to find there
the best; and there is no club in England that can furnish a greater
variety of newspapers, English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish
journals, with the New York Herald, and the Courier and Enquirer.
It is long past midnight when you return home, but the hotels, and many
private residences, are still lit up, and music, that sweet concomitant
of life in Germany, is still greeting you as you wind your way through
the crooked streets.
In no part of Europe do you see a British peer dining _table d’hôte_;
but the watering-places of Germany make an exception from the rule. I
have seen the most aristocratic leaders of the Tory party (that
was)—certainly not without a proper train of English
toadies—lieutenant-generals in the army of the historical house of
S——t, and India nabobs, content with the public ordinary, though the
ladies of the party are seldom seen without a _dragon_. “What is a
dragon?” will some of my readers ask. I will explain. A dragon, applied
to a young English gentlewoman is what an “_elephant_” is applied to a
German. It consists of an old maiden aunt, or some other distant
relation, whose business it is to superintend the conduct of a young
lady that is just “out.” Her functions resemble those of the old nurse
in Romeo and Juliet, only that she is much more watchful, and seldom or
ever to be bribed. If you attempt to corrupt her, you rouse the British
lion, or the Dragon of St. George; hence the name, which has been given
them by the French. The acerbity of the temper of English dragons
renders them generally lean and gaunt; but in Germany, where good nature
abounds, they grow fat, though with a dogged obstinacy which is as
insulting as it is provoking, they will squat down on the sofa right
between you and the lady you wish to entertain; proving a most palpable
objection to a _tête-à-tête_, for which reason they are properly called
“elephants.”
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