Attempt > Volume 1 and Select writings

THE ATTEMPT.
47
the young gentlemen, as a standard joke, throw out dark hints of their having enjoyed
previous cups at home. The sole persons who form exceptions to this rule are old
ladies “ in maiden meditation fancy-free,” and comfortable bachelors, a class who,
endowed as they are with strong nerves, are troubled with no qualms of conscience in
drinking four cups, and so many as six on extraordinary occasions.
Notwithstanding the feats of the old maids and bachelors, the conversation often
languishes till the tea-things are taken away, when the most approved and successful
toAvn mode of raising the spirits of the party is through the medium of a dance, after
which the cheeks of the younger portion of the party, glowing “ celestial rosy red,
love’s proper hue,” from the exercise, and smiles and conversation going the round
of the elder circle, “ Perche non ho del vento ” is warbled by a nice young lady, and
the company thrown into laughing hysterics by the comic humour and irresistible
singing of “ I’m a young man from the country ” of the bachelor singer, of which an
encore is rapturously demanded.
A table surrounded by players at “ Yingt-une,” or “ Snip, snap, snorum,” is often
a sight that may be seen in the background both of our town tea parties and those in
the country, the company of which is included in the sons and daughters of the
minister, doctor, and dominie; but in a certain class of provincial society, cards are
utterly ignored, on the principle that
“ They were superfluous here, with all the tricks
That idleness has ever yet contrived
To fill the void of an unfurnished brain,
To palliate dulness, and give time a shove,”
when so much more real enjoyment can be derived from the intellectual pleasures of
good conversation.
The slumbering spirit of a tea party once aroused, it is impossible to enumerate
the manifold amusements which are entered into with all the warmth of youth, not
only by the younger but the elder portion of the company. It were useless to try to
enumerate the number of songs that are sung, the quadrilles that are danced, the
charades that are acted, and the conundrums that are propounded, and still more
useless to endeavour to describe the hilarity that prevails at a tea party. How can I
tell of the numbers of young misses who apprentice dozens of sons to all kinds of
trades, of the awful punishments that befall ladies for not attending to their “ toilet,” or
the dreadful “ consequences ” that ensue from a lady and gentleman meeting in a coal¬
scuttle 1 Such astonishing incidents as little misses biting an inch olf the poker, fops
proclaiming to the assembled company that they bear the character of an ass, old ladies