There is an impression that the fashion for quickly served dinners came to us from England. If this is true (which I doubt; it fits too nicely with our temperament to have been imported), we owe H.R.H. a debt of gratitude, for nothing is so tiresome as too many courses needlessly prolonged.
Like all converts, however, we are too zealous. From oysters to fruit, dinners now are a breathless steeplechase, during which we take our viand hedges and champagne ditches at a dead run, with conversation pushed at much the same speed. To be silent would be to imply that one was not having a good time, so we rattle and gobble on toward the finger-bowl winning- post, only to find that rest is not there!
As the hostess pilots the ladies away to the drawing-room, she whispers to her spouse, "You won't smoke long, will you?" So we are mulcted in the enjoyment of even that last resource of weary humanity, the cigar, and are hustled away from that and our coffee, only to find that our appearance is a signal for a general move.
One of the older ladies rises; the next moment the whole circle, like a flock of frightened birds, are up and off, crowding each other in the hallway, calling for their carriages, and confusing the unfortunate servants, who are trying to help them into their cloaks and overshoes.
Bearing in mind that the guests come as late as they dare, without being absolutely uncivil, that dinners are served as rapidly as is physically possible, and that the circle breaks up as soon as the meal ends, one asks one's self in wonder why, if a dinner party is such a bore that it has to be scrambled through, COUTE QUE COUTE, we continue to dine out?
It is within the bounds of possibility that people may have reasons for hurrying through their days, and that dining out A LA LONGUE becomes a weariness.
The one place, however, where you might expect to find people reposeful and calm is at the theatre. The labor of the day is then over; they have assembled for an hour or two of relaxation and amusement. Yet it is at the play that our restlessness is most apparent. Watch an audience (which, be it remarked in passing, has arrived late) during the last ten minutes of a performance. No sooner do they discover that the end is drawing near than people begin to struggle into their wraps. By the time the players have lined up before the footlights the house is full of disappearing backs.
Past, indeed, are the unruffled days when a heroine was expected (after the action of a play had ended) to deliver the closing ENVOI dear to the writers of Queen Anne's day.
Thackeray writes:-THE PLAY IS DONE! THE CURTAIN DROPS, SLOW FALLING TO THE PROMPTER'S BELL!
A MOMENT YET THE ACTOR STOPS, AND LOOKS AROUND, TO SAY FAREWELL!
A comedian who attempted any such abuse of the situation to- day would find himself addressing empty benches. Before he had finished the first line of his epilogue, most of his public would be housed in the rapid transit cars. No talent, no novelty holds our audiences to the end of a performance.
On the opening night of the opera season this winter, one third of the "boxes" and orchestra stalls were vacant before Romeo (who, being a foreigner, was taking his time) had expired.
One overworked matron of my acquaintance has perfected an ingenious and time-saving combination. By signalling from a window near her opera box to a footman below, she is able to get her carriage at least two minutes sooner than her neighbors.
During the last act of an opera like TANN-HAUSER or FAUST, in which the inconsiderate composer has placed a musical gem at the end, this lady is worth watching. After getting into her wraps and overshoes she stands, hand on the door, at the back of her box, listening to the singers; at a certain moment she hurries to the window, makes her signal, scurries back, hears Calve pour her soul out in ANGES PURS, ANGES RADIEUX, yet manages to get down the stairs and into her carriage before the curtain has fallen.
We deplore the prevailing habit of "slouch"; yet if you think of it, this universal hurry is the cause of it. Our cities are left unsightly, because we cannot spare time to beautify them. Nervous diseases are distressingly prevalent; still we hurry! hurry!! hurry!!! until, as a diplomatist recently remarked to me, the whole nation seemed to him to be but five minutes ahead of an apoplectic fit.
The curious part of the matter is that after several weeks at home, much that was strange at first becomes quite natural to the traveller, who finds himself thinking with pity of benighted foreigners and their humdrum ways, and would resent any attempts at reform.
What, for instance, would replace for enterprising souls the joy of taking their matutinal car at a flying leap, or the rapture of being first out of a theatre? What does part of a last act or the "star song" matter in comparison with five minutes of valuable time to the good? Like the river captains, we propose to run under full head of steam and get there, or b- explode!
