A Select Party (From Mosses From An Old Manse)
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Nathaniel Hawthorne >> A Select Party (From Mosses From An Old Manse)
"My honored friends," said the Man of Fancy, after they had enjoyed
themselves awhile, "I am now to request your presence in the
banqueting-hall, where a slight collation is awaiting you."
"Ah, well said!" ejaculated a cadaverous figure, who had been
invited for no other reason than that he was pretty constantly in
the habit of dining with Duke Humphrey. "I was beginning to wonder
whether a castle in the air were provided with a kitchen."
It was curious, in truth, to see how instantaneously the guests were
diverted from the high moral enjoyments which they had been tasting
with so much apparent zest by a suggestion of the more solid as well
as liquid delights of the festive board. They thronged eagerly in
the rear of the host, who now ushered them into a lofty and
extensive hall, from end to end of which was arranged a table,
glittering all over with innumerable dishes and drinking-vessels of
gold. It is an uncertain point whether these rich articles of plate
were made for the occasion out of molten sunbeams, or recovered from
the wrecks of Spanish galleons that had lain for ages at the bottom
of the sea. The upper end of the table was overshadowed by a
canopy, beneath which was placed a chair of elaborate magnificence,
which the host himself declined to occupy, and besought his guests
to assign it to the worthiest among them. As a suitable homage to
his incalculable antiquity and eminent distinction, the post of
honor was at first tendered to the Oldest Inhabitant. He, however,
eschewed it, and requested the favor of a bowl of gruel at a side
table, where he could refresh himself with a quiet nap. There was
some little hesitation as to the next candidate, until Posterity
took the Master Genius of our country by the hand and led him to the
chair of state beneath the princely canopy. When once they beheld
him in his true place, the company acknowledged the justice of the
selection by a long thunder-roll of vehement applause.
Then was served up a banquet, combining, if not all the delicacies
of the season, yet all the rarities which careful purveyors had met
with in the flesh, fish, and vegetable markets of the land of
Nowhere. The bill of fare being unfortunately lost, we can only
mention a phoenix, roasted in its own flames, cold potted birds of
paradise, ice-creams from the Milky-Way, and whip syllabubs and
flummery from the Paradise of Fools, whereof there was a very great
consumption. As for drinkables, the temperance people contented
themselves with water as usual; but it was the water of the Fountain
of Youth; the ladies sipped Nepenthe; the lovelorn, the careworn,
and the sorrow-stricken were supplied with brimming goblets of Lethe;
and it was shrewdly conjectured that a certain golden vase, from
which only the more distinguished guests were invited to partake,
contained nectar that had been mellowing ever since the days of
classical mythology. The cloth being removed, the company, as
usual, grew eloquent over their liquor and delivered themselves of a
succession of brilliant speeches,--the task of reporting which we
resign to the more adequate ability of Counsellor Gill, whose
indispensable co-operation the Man of Fancy had taken the precaution
to secure.
When the festivity of the banquet was at its most ethereal point,
the Clerk of the Weather was observed to steal from the table and
thrust his head between the purple and golden curtains of one of the
windows.
"My fellow-guests," he remarked aloud, after carefully noting the
signs of the night, "I advise such of you as live at a distance to
be going as soon as possible; for a thunder-storm is certainly at
hand."
"Mercy on me!" cried Mother Carey, who had left her brood of
chickens and come hither in gossamer drapery, with pink silk
stockings. "How shall I ever get home?"
All now was confusion and hasty departure, with but little
superfluous leave-taking. The Oldest Inhabitant, however, true to
the rule of those long past days in which his courtesy had been
studied, paused on the threshold of the meteor-lighted hall to
express his vast satisfaction at the entertainment.
"Never, within my memory," observed the gracious old gentleman, "has
it been my good fortune to spend a pleasanter evening or in more
select society."
The wind here took his breath away, whirled his three-cornered hat
into infinite space, and drowned what further compliments it had
been his purpose to bestow. Many of the company had bespoken will-
o'-the-wisps to convoy them home; and the host, in his general
beneficence, had engaged the Man in the Moon, with an immense horn-
lantern, to be the guide of such desolate spinsters as could do no
better for themselves. But a blast of the rising tempest blew out
all their lights in the twinkling of an eye. How, in the darkness
that ensued, the guests contrived to get back to earth, or whether
the greater part of them contrived to get back at all, or are still
wandering among clouds, mists, and puffs of tempestuous wind,
bruised by the beams and rafters of the overthrown castle in the
air, and deluded by all sorts of unrealities, are points that
concern themselves much more than the writer or the public. People
should think of these matters before they trust themselves on a
pleasure-party into the realm of Nowhere.