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Updated: May 24, 2025
Actæon found Sónnica on the wall, gazing at the hostile camp in the first streak of dawn. The beautiful Greek had taken refuge in Saguntum the night before, followed by slaves and flocks, moving part of her riches from the villa to her warehouse. She had left behind rooms filled with paintings and mosaics; rich furniture, sumptuous table-service, all which would fall into the hands of the victor.
Only the quick rustle of a skirt, or a hurried view of a reboso, as its wearer flashed for an instant before some window or half-open door, told of their presence. The greater portion of his table-service was solid silver, and at his hospitable board there were rarely any vacant chairs.
Upon the whole, it cannot be denied that our table-service, simple as it was, has its advantages: it involved no necessity for any washing of dishes, no anxiety on the score of broken crockery, and we could indulge in the extravagance of a new dinner set every day, or even at every meal, for that matter, if so disposed.
I should like to have seen such assemblages as must have gathered in that reception-room, and walked with stately tread to the dining-hall, in times past, the Mayor and other civic dignitaries in their robes, noblemen in their state dresses, the Consul in his olive-leaf embroidery, everybody in some sort of bedizenment, and then the dinner would have been a magnificent spectacle, worthy of the gilded hall, the rich table-service, and the powdered and gold-laced servitors.
It is melancholy to read how his neighbors had to compassionate his destitution: how the Grand Duke of Tuscany sent him upholstery for two state chambers; how the Duke of Parma supplied his table-service; how Alfonso of Modena gave him a hundred pairs of oxen, and as many peasants to till his desolated lands.
In all Rome there existed but a single table-service of silver, the property of the Republic, which passed from the house of one patrician to that of another when an envoy arrived from Greece, an ambassador from Sicily, or an opulent merchant from Carthage, habituated to Asiatic refinements and in whose honor banquets had to be given.
This appreciation of his host's welcoming him into the conversation was a rare compliment from little John to his older friends and to their interest in child-life. Another external and demoralizing interruption to talk is poor table-service. There can be no good conversation at table where the talk is constantly interrupted by wordy instructions to servants.
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