1879 Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines

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Conclucling Facts and Hints.

lace, embroidery, ribbons, white satin shoes, and eau-de-Cologne, for champagne is simply one of the elegant extras of life." This is all very well, still the adva,ntageous effect of sparkling wine at an ordinary British dinner-party, composed as it fre– .quently is of people pitchforkeCl together in accordance with -the exigencies of th9 hostess's visiting-list, cannot be gainsayed. After the preliminary glowering at each other, morre B1-itannico, in the drawing-room, everybody regards it as a relief to be .summoned to the repast, which, however, commences as chillily .as the soup and as stolidly as the salmon. The soul of the hostess is heavy with the anxiety of, prospective dishes, the brow of the host is clouded with the reflection that our rulers are bent upon dragging us into war. Placed between a young lady just out and a dowager of grimly Gorgonesque aspect, _you hesitate how to open a conversation. Your first attempts, like those of the Russian batteries on the Danube, are singularly in– effectual, only eliciting a dropping fire of monosyllables. You .envy the placidly languid young gentleman opposite, limp as his fast-fading camellia, and seated next to Belle Breloques, who is -certain, in racing parlance, to make the running for him. But -even that damsel seems preoccupied with her fan, and, ·dei pite lb.er aplomb, he.sitates to break the icy silence. The two City friends of the host are lost in mute speculation as to the future p'rice of indigo or Ionian Bank shares, while thefr wives seem to be men– -tally summarising the exact cost of each other's toilettes. Their daughters, or somebody else's daughters, are desperately j erking -0ut monosyllabic responses to feeble i·emarks concerning the weather, lawn t ennis, operatic clebiitantes, the gravel in the Row, the ill-health of the Princess, ancl kindred topics from a couple ?f F. 0. men. Little Snapshot, the wit, on the other side of the •Gorgon, has tried to lead up to a story, but has found himself, .as it were, frozen in the bud. When lo! the butler softly :sibillates in your ear the magic word "champagne," and as it flows, creaming and frothing, into your glass, a change comes .over the spirit of your vision. The hostess brightens, the host coruscates. The young lady