English essays; Great Britain -- Social life and customs
One more form of Supper remains to be recorded. In the circles in which
I was reared it was customary to observe one day in the year as a kind
of Festival of the Church Missionary Society or the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel, according as the principles of the Incumbent
were Low or High. The arrangements comprised a special service in
church, with a sermon by that mysterious stranger "the Deputation from
the Parent Society"; an evening meeting in the Town Hall; and a supper
at the Rectory or the Squire's house. Bidden to such a festival, a
friend of the Missionary cause wrote thus to the lady who had invited
him: "I greatly regret that I cannot attend the service, and I very
much fear that I shall not be in time for the meeting. But, D.V., I
will be with you at Supper."
XXVI
INNS AND HOTELS
"Anchovies and Sack after Supper" was honest Falstaff's notion of an
apt sequence. But Anchovies, even in their modern extension of "Hors
d'OEuvres," will not make a chapter; and Sack, in the form of Sherry,
has been exhaustively discussed. I must therefore betake myself from
Falstaff to Touchstone, whose enumeration of "Dinners and Suppers and
Sleeping-hours" may serve my present need.
Where to dine? Where to sup? Where to sleep? Momentous questions
these; and at this instant they are in the thoughts and on the lips
of thousands of my fellow-creatures as they journey through or
towards London. October in London is a season with marked and special
characteristics. Restaurants are crowded; Bond Street is blocked by
shopping ladies; seats at the theatre must be booked ten days in
advance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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