UNCHEONS are as various as people. There are limits to the feasts that any man can welcome. The English farmer can take coffee before he goes afield at sunrise, breakfast at seven, lunch at eleven, dine at one, tea at four and come smiling to supper at nine.

Average epigastria1 would not venture on such exploits. The Romans at great feasts considered an emetic part of their outfit. Luncheon is an affair supplying pabulum for wasted tissue, of brain, as well as biceps, an elegant repast, served with grace, on tables bright as the snow flake. Crystal glistens with the sheen of silver and damask, viands are choice as skill could ask, and guests, the crowning charm, display the genius of the hostess. Sometimes a novice is temporarily in charge.

To meet such possibilities our engravings are designed. The attendant need only consult our plate² on page  to ascertain where each article should appear, with what surroundings, and what general effect.

Luncheon was, in rude days, bread taken at the sideboard. Occasionally now it is little more in well-kept houses. But some luncheons tax the hostess, who is not content to devolve on others her providence.

An informal luncheon on the day set apart for calls, tests housewifely skill more than a dinner. Autograph³ invitations give zest, which does not always attach to the most récherché menu that Brillat Savarin⁴ devised. The lady's calling card will serve with written words to convey, “Luncheon at two, Wednesday, Sept. 1st.”

There is nothing massive, but all suggests resources that have left nothing undone for comfort or pleasure.

The dishes all on the table leave the guests free from servants; but the hostess may bring on the meal in courses. The lady of the house presides at the urn at the table. Guests are in walking dress, not superbly, but elegantly, appareled. Negligence betokens want of attention to the hostess.

Occasionally luncheon becomes formal, as at a bridal party. Sunlight is too garish, and the mild radiance of gas, through ground glass globes must suffice.  Floral decorations

are demanded. There are but few incidents in life, social or personal, that may not be made beautiful by flowers.

The care of the carte at such times is too severe a strain on the nerves of the lady, who is to be the center of hospitality in the luncheon-room. Her mind has other and more delicate anxieties than supervision of choice dainties.

It is enough for her to say to her lieutenants that the table shall not groan; appetites must be tempted by delicate dishes to distinguish between luncheon and dinner, and yet leave no unsated appetite. Bouquets should be given in damask napkins.

Costumes of ladies and gentlemen must mark appreciation of the friends whom they honor, and there can hardly be too conspicuous elegance, unless the guest is engrossed with his attire.

Gentlemen are, as a rule, more likely to err on the side of thinking too little about personal adornment. Ladies have the happy faculty of wearing the richest fabrics molded to their forms, as though they had passed into the product of the modiste in the melting mood, while yet unconscious of the triumph in art and nature that they offer to contemplation.

That “art which conceals art” is the highest point of excellence that humanity attains, and it is but natural that woman should excel in that department in which the feminine quality, tact, is supremely fitted to reign.

The invitations for a formal luncheon will not vary from others of a formal kind, except in the fact announced and the language necessary to convey the polite summons “from labor to refreshment.”

There is no rigorous observance for formal luncheons; so that the dishes are various and elegant the graces will be content, and no amount of prodigality can atone for a graceless presentation.

The Russian⁵ method for serving has many admirers for banquets after the manner indicated, the carving being, in fact, completed by professional art, while the form is preserved by the use of ribbons, which need only to be deftly severed to leave the turkey ready to be handed to each guest.

The rules that would govern calls after an evening party apply to a formal luncheon party also; but no such obligation attaches to an informal gathering.

More might be said if it were required that items of information already given should be duplicated, but we cater for the most intelligent section of the reading public, and a thought once conveyed serves its purpose in a dozen different relations as surely as though it were reiterated on every page. Recognising that pleasant fact we commend our friends to their luncheon, formal or informal, with the benediction of Shakspere[sic]:

“Now, good digestion wait on appetite,
And health on both.⁶”

1. Epigastria: digestive systems.

2. Regrettably, there is no plate in the edition used for this site. In fact, this reference, along with the very overwrought prose style, discloses that Gaskell undoubtedly lifted this page, like the one on Breakfast, from some other work which I have been unable to trace.

3. Autograph: in this context, handwritten.

4. Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826), French lawyer and gastronome, and author of La Physiologie du goût (1825). He is widely quoted as saying, “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are.” (Récherché: choice, exotic.)

5. The Russian style of serving a meal, a novelty in mid-nineteenth century America, simply meant that each course was served one at a time and the table cleared between courses.

6. The quotation is from Macbeth, Act III, sc. iv.