Society as I Have Found It
“Know him?” I answered, “why, man, I know no one else. He has for years
asked me to visit his plantation. He lives like a prince. I saw him at a
great fête at Ochre Point, Newport, several years ago. He turned up his
nose at everything there, saying to me, ‘Why, my dear fellow, these
people don’t know how to live. This fête is nothing to what I can do, at
my place. Why, sir, I have so much silver I dare not keep it in my
house. The vaults of the State Bank of Georgia are filled with my
silver. This fête may be well enough here, but come to me at the South,
come to my plantation, and I will show you what a fête is. I will show
you how to live.’” My friend listened to all this with astonishment.
“Well,” said he, “I have nothing to say. That is ‘big’ talk. Go on to
your friend’s place and see what you will find.” On we moved, four as
hungry men as you could well see. We reached the plantation, on which we
found a one-story log cabin, with a front piazza, one large center room,
and two shed rooms. There was a small yard, inclosed with pine palings
to keep out the pigs, who were ranging about and ineffectually trying to
gain an entrance. We entered the house, and, seeing an old colored man,
my Southern friend opened on the old darkey with: “Where is your
master?”
“In Savannah, sir.”
“When does he dine?”
“At six o’clock, sir.”
“What have you got for his dinner, old man?”
“Pea pie.”
“Is that all that he has for his dinner?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What is pea pie?” I asked.
“Cow peas and bacon,” was the answer.
With this, my Southern friend stepped to the back door of the house,
asked the old man to point him out a fat turkey. The old darkey did
this, saying,
“There’s one, sir, but, Lord help me, Massa, don’t kill him.”
The protest came too late. Up to the shoulder went the gun, and down
fell the turkey. Now, turning to the old darkey, he said:
“Old man, pick that turkey and roast him, and tell your Massa four big
buckra men are coming to dine with him to-day, at six o’clock.” We got
some corn-bread from the kitchen and went off shooting. A few minutes
before six, we returned, and heard indeed a racket in that old cabin.
The “Massa” was there, as we saw by the buggy, standing in the front
yard; the horse browsing a few feet off, the harness in the buggy, and
the master shouting out, “You tell me white men came here, kill my
turkey, tell you to cook him, and you don’t know them? Who in the devil
can they be?” No sooner had he got this out, when I appeared on the
scene. Up went his arms in astonishment.
“Why, Mc., is this you? Glad to see you and your friends.”
Down we sat at his table, and had a dinner of small rice, pea pie, and
roast turkey, washed down by a bottle of fine old Madeira, which he
called “the blood of his ancestors.” I looked in vain for a side-board
to put silver on, or any evidence of any past fête having been given on
the premises. Our host was a thoroughly local man; one of those men who,
when in Paris, would say, “I’m going to town,” when he proposed
returning to Savannah, which, at that time, was to him the metropolis of
America. This gentleman then, like others in the South, cultivated the
belief that they alone lived well, and that there was no such thing as
good society in New York or other Northern cities; that New Yorkers and
Northern people were simply a lot of tradespeople, having no
antecedents, springing up like the mushroom, who did not know how to
live, and who, when they gave dinners to their friends, ordered them
from a neighboring restaurant.
At a large dinner in Savannah, given to an ex-Mayor of New York, one of
the best dinner-givers in that city made the foregoing statement, and
the ex-Mayor actually called upon me to substantiate it, declaring it
had always been his practice thus to supply his table, when he invited a
dozen or more people to dinner. So far from this being the case, I then
and there assured my Southern friends that no people in the world lived
better than New Yorkers, so far as creature comforts were concerned. I
have tested the capacity of the Southern cook alongside of the French
_chef_; I had them together, cooking what we call a “Saratoga Lake
Dinner” at Newport, a dinner for sixty people; serving alone Spanish
mackerel, Saratoga potatoes, soft shell crabs, woodcock, chicken
partridges, and lettuce salad. Both were great artists in their way, but
the _chef_ came off very much the victor. I doubted then, and I doubt
now, if the dinners in London are better than our New York dinners,
given by one of the innumerable good dinner-givers. Our material is
better in New York, and our cooks are equally as good as those in
England. The sauces of the French cuisine are its feature, while there
is not a single sauce in African or Southern cooking. The French get the
essence and flavor out of fowl, and discard the huge joints. Take for
instance, soup; give a colored cook a shin of beef and a bunch of
carrots and turnips, and of this he makes a soup. A Frenchman, to give
you a _consommé royale_, requires a knuckle of veal, a shin of beef, two
fat fowls, and every vegetable known to man. The materials are more than
double the expense, but then you have a delicacy of flavor, and a
sifting out of everything that is coarse and gross. The _chef_ is an
educated, cultivated artist. The colored cook, such as nature made him,
possessing withal a wonderful natural taste, and the art of making
things savory, i.e. taste good. His cookery book is tradition. French
_chefs_ have their inspirations, are in every way almost as much
inspired as writers. To illustrate this: when Henry IV. was fighting in
the Pyrénées, he told his French cook to give him a new sauce. The reply
was, “Where are the materials for it, your Majesty? I have nothing here
but herbs and cream.” “Then make a sauce from them,” was the King’s
answer. The _chef_ did this, and produced one of the best sauces in the
French cuisine, known as _sauce Bearnaise_.
Having exhausted quail and snipe shooting and made a failure at deer
hunting, we went on the banks of the rice plantations at night, to shoot
wild ducks, as they crossed the moon. Whilst whiling away the time,
waiting for ducks, we talked over England and America. Lord Frederick
Cavendish assured me that if I were then living in England, I could not
there lead a pleasanter life than I was then leading. He liked
everything at the South, the hospitality of the people, and their simple
contentment and satisfaction with their surroundings. On these three
places there were then six hundred slaves; the net income of these
estates was $40,000 a year. They would have easily brought half a
million. When the Civil War terminated, my brother-in-law was offered
$100,000 for them; by the war he had lost all his slaves. To-day the
estates would scarcely bring $30,000, showing the change in values
caused by the Civil War.
I was then able to show my guests a Savannah picnic, which is an
institution peculiar to the place. Leaving the city in a river steamer
our party consisting of one hundred people, after a little over an
hour’s sail we reached an island in the Atlantic Ocean, known as
Dawfuskie, a beautiful spot on which stood a charming residence, with
five acres of roses surrounding the house. The heads of families
carried, each of them, huge baskets containing their dinner, and a full
table service, wine, etc., for say, ten or a dozen people. On our
arrival, all formed into groups under the trees, a cloth was laid on the
ground, dishes, plates and glasses arranged on it, and the champagne at
once _frapped_ in small hand pails. There was then a dance in the open
air, on a platform, and in the afternoon, with cushions as seats for the
ladies, these improvised dinner-tables were filled. Each had its
separate hostess; all was harmony and pleasure. As night approached, the
people re-embarked on the steamer and returned home by moonlight.
LIFE AT NEWPORT.
CHAPTER IX.
_I Leave the South--A Typical British Naval Officer--An Officer of
the Household Troops--Early Newport Life--A Country Dinner--The Way
I got up Picnics--Farmers Throw their Houses Open to Us--A Bride
Receives us in her Bridal Array--My Newport Farm--My Southdowns and
my Turkeys--What an English Lady said of our Little Island--Newport
a place to Take Social Root in._
My English friends bidding me farewell, soon after, I gave up my
Savannah house and made Newport my permanent home, for I spent nine
months of the year there, with a winter trip to the West Indies. I must
not omit to mention here that while passing the winter at Nassau, N. P.,
I made the acquaintance of a most polished, elegant, and courtly man, a
captain in the British Navy, who entertained me as one can only be
entertained on a British man-of-war, giving me Devonshire cream and
every luxury, and all as well served as though it had been ashore.
Meeting him repeatedly at dinner at the house of the Governor of the
Bahamas, he suggested that as it was a most difficult thing to board the
steamship that was to take us to New York, she never crossing the bar,
he would himself, in his own gig, take us out to that vessel when we
left the island.
I had forgotten this kind promise, but on the day fixed for our
departure (it then blowing a gale, one of those terrible “northers” of
the West Indies), I received a note from this gallant captain, telling
me that his boat’s crew had already crossed the bar, boarded our
steamer, and learnt the precise spot where she would lie in the
afternoon when she would take on her passengers. In vain did I protest
against his undertaking this dangerous piece of work. Do it he would;
and taking the tiller himself, we were safely rowed in his gig, twelve
miles, and boarded the vessel.
I afterwards learned that while he was going from his vessel in full
evening dress, with his white gloves carefully buttoned (for he was
called the dandy of the English Navy), he sprang overboard and saved one
of his men from drowning.
On our reaching the deck of the steamer, I was struck with the
obsequiousness of the steamer’s captain to the naval officer, (she was,
by the way, a Cunarder). My friend, the captain, then introduced me to
one of his countrymen, saying to me, simply, “You will find him a nice
fellow.” He turned out to be one of the most distinguished young men in
England, an officer of the Household Troops, a most fascinating man, who
had been to Jamaica to look after his father’s estates there. I
introduced him to my friends in New York, and in return for the
hospitality extended to him then, heard later that he, on receiving
letters of introduction from me, had paid marked attention to the
bearers of the letters. I relate this as an evidence that Englishmen do
reciprocate attentions received in this country.
Newport was now at its best. The most charming people of the country had
formed a select little community there; the society was small, and all
were included in the gaieties and festivities. Those were the days that
made Newport what it was then and is now, the most enjoyable and
luxurious little island in America. The farmers of the island even
seemed to catch the infection, and they were as much interested in the
success of our picnics and country dinners, as we were ourselves. They
threw open their houses to us, and never heeded the invasion, on a
bright sunshiny day, of a party of fifty people, who took possession of
their dining-room, in fact of their whole house, and frolicked in it to
their heart’s content. To be sure, I had often to pacify a farmer when a
liveried groom robbed his hen roost, but as he knew that this
fashionable horde paid their way, he was easily soothed. I always then