HE most charming of our writers have given scintillations of genius to breakfast tables. Oliver Wendell Holmes' “Auto- crat of the Breakfast Table”1 associates his name with an institution that has outlasted em- pires. Washington Irving, sweet- est of bachelors, embalming in

Anglo-Saxon eloquence his ideas of English life in “Bracebridge Hall,”2 recognized the importance of breakfast. There is pathos and joy in breakfast, with kind faces, merry conversation, “nods and becks and wreathed smiles,” making a cheerful sacrament about the table, with snowy damask, illustrated in the colored Plate3. It would be what the Bard of Avon4 calls “ridiculous excess” to paint in words what the artist has so exquisitely delineated.

The napery of the breakfast table is a special charm. White in the center, with a border to match the room, or border utterly discarded, the beautiful whiteness is attractive. We have returned to a meal in a Swiss chalet, where the whole of the ingredients could not have cost one dollar for a party of seven, and yet the table-cloth and napkins made us feel that we were in a palace. The linen was not superfine, but it was white as if bleached to rival the eternal snows. There is witchery about table linen, as a voucher for purity that is to satisfy the æsthetic in man.

The picture shows the student where each article should be found; and observation reveals that our artist has carried his delineation to the delicately browned chop.

Customarily breakfast is exempt from ceremony,but it is losing that distinction in the old countries. We glance at the morning meal, in the three leading nations of the earth.

American society is of a piece with that of the English nation; one sketch might cover both countries, still there are differences. Tea and coffee are the beginning of the feast. The French take one cup of coffee and a roll, reserving greater gastronomic exercises for later hours.

The experienced French diner is seldom a family man. We do not say that M'sieu is not a man of family; the two statements widely differ.  He considers breakfast preparing

the way to do justice to the culinary mystery for which he loiters into the Cafe Anglais in the afternoon, selecting his snowy table looking on the boulevard. To be seen at dinner and to see others are essential.

When kings ruled in France, and nobles of the sword, with blood almost cerulean, were proud of the distinction of being “His Majesty's cup-bearer,” the monarch dined in public every day. The Frenchman, from the vender of charcoal to the first man in the Republic, delights in being seen. Next to that pleasure comes the felicity of dining. Others may eat to live; the true Frenchman lives to eat.

English families make society. Men that live at the club and dine à la carte are only hangers-on on the great world. The family breakfast is an institution. Every member of the circle is expected to put in an appearance, unless there is some well-known reason to the contrary. The stranger that is within their gates may have refreshment sent to the bedroom, but as soon as he is considered “at home” he is made aware of the hour for breakfast. There are houses where men live at free quarters—say at shooting boxes in the country—during the season, where the morning meal is at everybody's option; but where the family idea governs, the breakfast hour is strictly observed. The meal is substantial, conversation is bright and general, no person is in a hurry, the business of the day seems to be to enjoy life on a basis of beefsteaks, mutton chops and new-laid eggs, with, in some houses, oatmeal porridge.

The American breakfast has more hot cakes and sweets than the English table usually presents, but the coffee urn or teapot or both await the discretion of the family and friends, in the same hospitable elegance; and, apart from the distinguishing features already mentioned, there is ofered the same selection of meats and eggs that constitute the main attractions elsewhere. More haste is noticeable in the breakfast-room in this country than in England, although there is a tendency, which cannot be too highly commended, to give more leisurely attention to the amenities of life. The South is less governed by commerce, and does not save five minutes from the breakfast-room, at the cost of a life-long dyspepsia. Formal breakfasts—matters of invitation—are ruled like other parties, the cards intimating the hour of refection [sic], and some houses display much extravagance in that meal.

Formal breakfasts may be given at any hour after ten o'clock, and are sometimes as late as noon. Invitations in writing or by engraved card five days prior. Answers must be prompt. Elaborate costumes are in bad taste.

1. Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) wrote The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table for The Atlantic Monthly starting in 1857. The full text is provided by Project Gutenberg (here).

2. Washington Irving (1783-1859) worked on “Bracebridge Hall, or, The Humorists, A Medley,” which Prof. Richard Kelly describes as “a blend of fact and fiction that centers on an old manor house, its residents and guests, and their elaborate parties and tales,” during his stay in France and England, 1820-21. For U.Va. readers only, the text of Vol. 2 is available here.

3. The colored plate is unfortunately not present in the edition used as the original of this HTML.

4. The quotation is from Shakespeare's King John, Act IV, scene ii. See Bartleby for an expanded quote.