Attempt > Volume 1 and Select writings

THE ATTEMPT.
45
True it is tliat tlie quiltings and apple-parings mentioned in Queechy and the
Wide, Wide World, as occurring in America at the present day, appear to be gather¬
ings of a very similar nature; hut they not only differ from our old Scotch rockings in
the amount and quality of their industry and feasting, but are also stamped with the
distinctness of a separate national character, so that they cannot be included in the
same category.
Following the examples of rocks or distaffs and spinning wheels, rockings have
died a natural death, though we may find them living anew, with all their old genial
social spirit revived, and conformed to the character of the time, in a class of agreeable
reunions of which we proceed to ask the name.
They are certainly not those ceremonious dinner-parties, where course after course
of sumptuous fare, following in slow succession, spins out the time till the evening’s dull
enjoyment is over, and
“The rattling wheels stop short before the gates,”
to convey the full-dressed guests home.
bibr are they those parties, where the worshippers of Terpsichore assemble to whirl
in the giddy mazes of the dance; for however much improvement the modern valse and
galop may have caused in the character of these reunions since the days of Goldsmith,
(who bitterly complained that the only privileges of Edinburgh society were, that the
ladies might ogle, and the gentlemen sigh from each end of the dancing-room, except
when permitted to walk through the steps of a stately minuet or pavia,) it is never¬
theless true that the usual quantum of conversational happiness rarely exceeds such
common-place tattle as “ Have you seen the Exhibition V' or “ Do you like skating 1”
ISTor are they, yet, those pleasant summer parties where ladies and gentlemen meet
to play Croquet, a praiseworthy physical and mental exercise, but one for which the
charms of agreeable conversation must be relinquished, or the interest of the game
spoiled.
The only institutions in use at the present time, in which the genuine heartiness
of rockings is combined with an improved and cultivated modern taste, in which
industry may be united with pleasure, music with conversation, and singing with
dancing, are modern Tea Parties.
How much we owe to the person who brought such a delightful beverage as tea
into this country we cannot tell, but certainly he has not his praises sung in the same
manner as “ the generous Frenchman, whose noble perseverance bore the (coffee) tree
from Martinico’s shore,” and perhaps for a very good reason, viz., that his name is un-
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