ellow and fresh, some smoking hot-biscuits, a plate
of hot buckwheat cakes, with transparent syrup--could
words describe the gratitude of this exile?

The European dinner is better than the European breakfast,
but it has its faults and inferiorities; it does not satisfy.
He comes to the table eager and hungry; he swallows his
soup--there is an undefinable lack about it somewhere;
thinks the fish is going to be the thing he wants
--eats it and isn't sure; thinks the next dish is perhaps
the one that will hit the hungry place--tries it,
and is conscious that there was a something wanting
about it, also. And thus he goes on, from dish to dish,
like a boy after a butterfly which just misses getting
caught every time it alights, but somehow doesn't get caught
after all; and at the end the exile and the boy have fared
about alike; the one is full, but grievously unsatisfied,
the other has had plenty of exercise, plenty of interest,
and a fine lot of hopes, but he hasn't got any butterfly.
There is here and there an American who will say he can remember
rising from a European table d'ho^te perfectly satisfied;
but we must not overlook the fact that there is also here
and there an American who will lie.

The number of dishes is sufficient; but then it is such
a monotonous variety of UNSTRIKING dishes. It is an inane
dead-level of "fair-to-middling." There is nothing to
ACCENT it. Perhaps if the roast of mutton or of beef--a big,
generous one--were brought on the table and carved in full
view of the client, that might give the right sense of
earnestness and reality to the thing; but they don't do that,
they pass the sliced meat around on a dish, and so you
are perfectly calm, it does not stir you in the least.
Now a vast roast turkey, stretched on the broad of his back,
with his heels in the air and the rich juices oozing
from his fat sides ... but I may as well stop there,
for they would not know how to cook him. They can't
even cook a chicken respectably; and as for carving it,
they do that with a hatchet.

This is about the customary table d'ho^te bill in summer:

Soup (characterless).

Fish--sole, salmon, or whiting--usually tolerably good.

Roast--mutton or beef--tasteless--and some last year's potatoes.

A pa^te, or some other made dish--usually good--"considering."

One vegetable--brought on in state, and all alone--usually
insipid lentils, or string-beans, or indifferent asparagus.

Roast chicken, as