The Actress in High Life | Page 9

delight, and civilization of
the world."
"It may, perhaps," said Lady Mabel, hesitating, "be said to do all that
you attribute to it."
"Does it not strike you as passing strange, Lady Mabel, (apropos to our
subject, pray take a glass of wine with me,) that the Romans, who were,
doubtless, a great and a wise people, should have been masters of Spain
and Gaul, and of their forests of cork trees for centuries--that these
Romans," continued he, growing eloquent on the subject, "who had the
tree in their own country, though not, perhaps, in the full perfection of
its cortical development, and did apply its bark to a number of useful
purposes, including, occasionally, that of stoppers for vessels, should
yet never have attained to the systematic use of it in corking their
bottles!"
"Strange, indeed," said Lady Mabel. "It was shutting their eyes against
the light of nature; for, we may say, that the obvious final end of the
cork tree is to provide corks for bottles."
"A great truth well expressed," said the colonel. "Such an oversight has
hardly a parallel; unless it be in their invention of printing and never
using it. For we see, in the baker's name, stamped on the loaves found
in Pompeii, and words impressed on their pottery and other articles,
what amounts to stereotype printing; yet they never went on to separate
the individual letters, and so become compositors and printers in the
usual sense of the art. But they could certainly get on better without
printing than without corks."
"Undoubtedly. For the world may--indeed, has--become too full of
books; while there is little fear of its becoming too full of bottles; they
get emptied and broken so fast."
"I wonder whether Horace," continued Colonel Bradshawe, with a
thoughtful air, "when he opened a jar of Falernian, was obliged to
finish it at a sitting, to prevent its growing sour? Wine out of a jar!
Think of that. With a wooden or earthen stopper, made tight with pitch.

Think of having your wine vinho-flavored with pitch! like the vinho
verde of these Portuguese peasants, out of a pitchy goat-skin sack."
Lady Mabel looked nauseated at the idea, and the colonel swallowed a
glass of Madeira, to wash away the pitchy flavor. "Yes," said he,
shaking his head gravely, "they must have often felt sadly the want of a
cork. How would it be possible to confine champagne (I am sorry this
cursed war prevents our getting any,) until it is set free with all its life
and perfection of flavor, just at the moment of enjoyment! They had
glass, too, and used glass, these Romans, yet persevered in keeping
their wine in those abominable jars. It proves how little progress they
had made in the beautiful art of glass-blowing; and, of course, (here the
colonel took up a decanter of old Madeira and replenished his glass,
after eyeing approvingly the amber-colored liquor,) they were ignorant
that wines that attain perfection by keeping, ripen most speedy in
light-colored bottles."
"Indeed!" said Lady Mabel, "I did not know that. But I learn something
new from you every moment."
"And that," said he, nodding approvingly at her, "is something worth
knowing. I doubt, after all, whether these Romans, with the world at
their beck, really knew much of the elegant and refined pleasures of life.
Setting aside their gladiatorial shows, and the custom of chaining the
porter by the leg to the doorpost, that he might not be out of the way
when friend or client called on his master, and similar rude habits, there
is enough to convict them as a gross people. They put honey in their
wine, too! What a proof of childish, or rather, savage taste! Lucullus'
monstrous suppers, and Apicius' elaborate feasts, are better to read
about than to partake of. Give me, rather, a quiet little dinner of a few
well-chosen dishes and wines, and three or four knowing friends, not
given to long stories, but spicy in talk, and I will enjoy myself better
than 'the noblest Roman of them all.'"
"But, Colonel Bradshawe, how did you become so familiar with Roman
manners? Many of us know something of their public life, their wars,
conquests, seditions and laws; but you seem to have put aside the
curtain, and peered into the house, first floor, garret and cellar."

"You overrate my learning, Lady Mabel; my tastes naturally lead me to
inform myself on some points that may seem to lie out of the common
road. Some people take the liberty of calling me an epicure. I admit it
so far as this: I hold it to be our duty to enjoy ourselves wisely and well.
Much as I esteem a knowing bon vivant, I despise an ignorant glutton,
or undiscriminating