s, gammon
(smoked ham), fowls, etc. This was the dinner. The middle of the
table was garnished in the usual tasty way, with small images,
artificial flowers, etc. The dessert was first apple-pies,
pudding, etc., then iced creams, jellies, etc., then
water-melons, musk-melons, apples, peaches, nuts.... The
President and Mrs. Washington sat opposite each other in the
middle of the table; the two secretaries, one at each end....

"It was the most solemn dinner ever I sat at. Not a health
drank, scarce a word said until the cloth was taken away. Then
the President, filling a glass of wine, with great formality
drank to the health of every individual by name around the table.
Everybody imitated him and changed glasses and such a buzz of
'health, sir,' and 'health, madam,' and 'thank you, sir,' and
'thank you, madam' never had I heard before.... The ladies sat a
good while and the bottles passed about; but there was a dead
silence almost. Mrs. Washington at last withdrew with the ladies.

"I expected the men would now begin but the same stillness
remained. He (the President) now and then said a sentence or two
on some common subject and what he said was not amiss. Mr. Jay
tried to make a laugh by mentioning the Duchess of Devonshire
leaving no stone unturned to carry Fox's election. There was a
Mr. Smith who mentioned how _Homer_ described AEneas leaving his
wife and carrying his father out of flaming Troy. He had heard
somebody (I suppose) witty on the occasion; but if he had ever
read it he would have said _Virgil_. The President kept a fork in
his hand, when the cloth was taken away, I thought for the
purpose of picking nuts. He ate no nuts, however, but played with
the fork, striking on the edge of the table with it. We did not
sit long after the ladies retired. The President rose, went
up-stairs to drink coffee; the company followed. I took my hat
and came home."

After all, it was well that our first President and his lady were
believers in a reasonable amount of formality and dignity. They
established a form of social etiquette and an insistence on certain
principles of high-bred procedure genuinely needed in a country the
tendency of which was toward a crude display of raw, hail-fellow-well-met
democracy. With an Andrew Jackson type of man as its first President,