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Society, under Paganism, was confined to men, at banquets or symposia, where women seldom entered, unless for the amusement of men, never for their improvement, and still less for their restraint.
If a young man of leisure, he probably needed all the virtue imparted by his moral teachers to restrain him from dice, quail-fights, and fine horses, and all his physical vigor to resist the dissipations of Athens or Corinth, and the potations of the symposia. So far the male rising generation was well cared for. What became of the girls?
But when my father got into the marrow of his theme; when, quitting these preliminary discussions, he fell pounce amongst the would-be wisdom of the wise; when he dealt with civilization itself, its schools, and porticos, and academies; when he bared the absurdities couched beneath the colleges of the Egyptians and the Symposia of the Greeks; when he showed that, even in their own favorite pursuit of metaphysics, the Greeks were children, and in their own more practical region of politics, the Romans were visionaries and bunglers; when, following the stream of error through the Middle Ages, he quoted the puerilities of Agrippa, the crudities of Cardan, and passed, with his calin smile, into the salons of the chattering wits of Paris in the eighteenth century, oh! then his irony was that of Lucian, sweetened by the gentle spirit of Erasmus.
Modern society, created by Christianity, since only Christianity recognizes what is most truly attractive and ennobling among women is a great advance over the banquets of imperial Romans and the symposia of gifted Greeks. But even this does not satisfy woman in her loftiest aspirations. The soul which animates and inspires her is boundless.
In these symposia the pleasures of the table were improved by lively and liberal conversation; the company was select, though various and voluntary. The society of Madame du Bocage was more soft and moderate than that of her rivals, and the evening conversations of M. de Foncemagne were supported by the good sense and learning of the principal members of the Academy of Inscriptions.
On their return from these excursions the two friends, neither of whom cared for dining in the College Hall, drank tea and supped together, Shelley's rooms being generally chosen as the scene of their symposia.
But he has refused to be photographed and interviewed, and he has refused to contribute to symposia in the monthly magazines. He has declined with thanks, moreover, invitations to half a dozen houses sent to him by hostesses who only knew him by reputation.
For myself, I chose not to be present at these symposia; I shrank partly from being held in any degree responsible for his extravagance, partly from the pang of seeing him yield to champagne and an admiring circle.
The modern coena might thus be made to surpass that of the ancients in refinement and elegance; and it would include, as a matter of course, some of the amusements varying from a song to a philosophical discussion which gave the charm to their symposia.
Very welcome is our pleasant contributor he who of late discoursed on 'honeyed thefts' and rural religious discipline and now, in the present letter, he gives us his views on meals, feeds, banquets, symposia, or by whatever name the reader may choose to designate assemblies for the purpose of eating. Please make room at this table, right here, for me.
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