American clubs, again, are far more human and cheerful than English clubs. Anything more depressing than the average English club can scarcely be imagined: a series of rooms in which old men in different corners grunt, frown, and snore--the rest is silence. In American clubs you feel that everybody is alive and that people go to clubs not to avoid the society of their fellow creatures, but, on the contrary, to enjoy it. And that, after all, was the origin and the initial purpose of all clubs, because if a man wants solitude he can stop at home. But I forgot--some men are married. That, of course, certainly changes the question. In the category of human comforts belongs the food question. I don’t suppose it is necessary at this time of the day to sing the praises of the food you get in America. America has a national food, containing a quantity of delicious dishes you can get only in America, and Americans are, thank heavens, not unconscious of the fact. England has a national food also; but, alas! how rarely you get English food, good English food, in England, and how often you get a shockingly bad imitation of French food--a succession of entrées which a wit once said were like tepid lawn-tennis balls. How excellent a thing, on the other hand, is a fried sole, toasted cheese (like that you get at the “Cheshire Cheese”), English cold beef, English bacon, roast grouse, and currant-and-raspberry tart. These are all things which I believe you can get nowhere out of England; nowhere meat at such a peculiar pitch of perfection. There was once upon a time an English statesman (it was either Lord Melbourne or Lord Palmerston) who asked a schoolboy what his ideal luncheon would be. The boy thought for a long time and said, “Roast duck, with peas and new potatoes, and then some raspberry-and-black-currant tart.” And the statesman, struck by the extraordinary wisdom of the reply, prophesied a great future for the boy, who was none other than--well, I quite forget. But it was not Winston Churchill. It is on record, I believe, that Macaulay gave a house-warming dinner to two friends in Albany, and after expending much thought and all the resources of his immense erudition on the subject, came to the conclusion that the following would be the ideal menu for the occasion. The season was autumn. Mulligatawny Soup Broiled Turbot Roast Partridge Toasted Cheese I once asked a Frenchman who, at the time, was supposed to have, and rightly, the best cook in Paris, where and what was the best dinner he had ever had. He said the best dinner he had ever had was in a small country house in England and had consisted of a fried sole and roast grouse. If I were Emperor of Rome, and had at my disposal the manual labor of ancient Rome, the skilled cooks of all nations, and the railway service of the world, and if I liked to give a perfect dinner, I should arrange it thus. The season is, let us say, autumn or winter.