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Updated: May 3, 2025
Such were the ghostly sounds that roared and murmured in our ears when I took leave of the circle round the fireside of the Province House and, plunging down the doorsteps, fought my way homeward against a drifting snow-storm. Mine excellent friend the landlord of the Province House was pleased the other evening to invite Mr. Tiffany and myself to an oyster-supper.
It was otherwise, and profanely called by its votaries a camp-meeting; it would be hard to tell why, unless it was that some of the insiders grew very happy before it was over. For an egg-supper at Mandluff's store was to Brayville what an oyster-supper at Delmonico's is to New York. It was one tenth hard eggs and nine tenths that beverage which bears the name of an old royal house of France.
But the agent of the Lady-of-the-Lake was not distinguished for enthusiasm of that sort, and he turned into his berth having no oyster-supper to eat at a very early hour, and betook himself to dreaming not "of antres vast and desarts idle," or of what is sublime and glorious in creation, but of piston-rods and safety-valves pence and passengers.
Silsbee came to read some letters which he has written to his friends, chiefly giving his observations on Art, together with descriptions of Venice and other cities on the Continent. They were very good, and indicate much sensibility and talent. After the reading we had a little oyster-supper and wine.
The envy of this man had, in fact, become so intolerable, that he had let the cat out of the bag. No one now remained but the party entrenched behind the smoke, and the mistress of the house. Pindar solemnly proposed to the captain that they should go and enjoy an oyster-supper, in company; and, the proposal being cordially accepted, they rose in a body, to take leave.
We soon noticed that we were never invited to visit any of them at their dwellings. At their places of business we were cordially welcomed, and they seemed to take a great deal of pleasure in giving us information and affording us any amusement in their power. Having some canned oysters among our stores, we twice invited a number of our friends to an oyster-supper.
That the grand banquet, celebrating some great man's birth, or the success of some noble public enterprise, with its assemblages of the great and the good from every part of the country; the Fourth of July festival, in honor of our nation's independence, with its speeches, its drums, its toasts, and its cannon; the 'table d'hôte, or in plain English, the hotel dinner-table, so remarkable for the multitude of its dishes and the meagreness of their contents; the harvest-feast, the exact opposite of the last-named, even to the mellow thirds and fifths that come floating over the valleys from the old-fashioned dinner-horn, calling in the tired laborers; its musical invitation in such striking contrast with the unimagined horrors of the gong that bellows its expectant victims to their meals; the family repast, where one so often feels gratified with the delicate compliment of a mother, a sister, or a wife, in placing some favorite dish or flower near his plate; the annual gatherings of jolly alumni; the delightful concourse of relatives and friends; the gleesome picnic lunch, with its grassy carpet and log seats; the luxurious oyster-supper, with its temptations 'to carry the thing too far; the festival at the donation-party, which, in common parlance, would be called a dish of 'all sorts; the self-boarding student's desolate corn-cake, baked in a pan of multifarious use: all these are so many modifications under their respective species.
They were very good, and indicate much sensibility and talent. After the reading we had a little oyster-supper and wine.
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