human
Olives?
gpt
No, said Wilmington, declining.
human
Nothing cleans the palate like bread. For red wines, a peach helps one’s taste. Your table is perfect, Hamilton; and, turning to the servant,
gpt
It does you credit, Uncle John. How many a fellow must have rolled under it when it was young! Ah, your old decanters and those coasters could tell some queer tales.
human
A pretty word, ’coaster,’ remarked Chestnut.
gpt
Coasters delivering wine at the human harbors around the table.
human
It is not in the dictionaries,
gpt
Odd, that, returned Hamilton.
human
You may like to know, Chestnut, that at this table Washington, Lafayette, and Franklin have dined.
gpt
All Madeira men, I doubt not, said Wilmington;
human
Perhaps, said the host, smiling.
gpt
Ah, I see you glancing at the cigars, Chestnut. But, alas! they are forbidden until the Madeira has been tasted.
human
Cigars! exclaimed Wilmington.
gpt
The mere odor in a room destroys the palate.
human
I have never held to this belief, said Francis, addressing Chestnut.
gpt
But it is common among the lovers of wine. I would like to put Wilmington on oath as to this strange opinion. At least he will permit me to ask him if he believes that smoking affects the taste of all wines?
human
There is but one wine,
gpt
And his name is Madeira, of course, laughed Francis.
human
But there are other juices of the grape which cannot be quite set aside as bastards.
gpt
I might give a little corner of esteem to the highest grades of Burgundy, said the old gentleman.
human
No other, not even the finest claret, but is underbred compared to this aristocrat.
gpt
I can’t go quite so far as that, said Francis.
human
Ah, me! Do you remember, Hamilton, that gay day at Dijon, long years ago, in the Hôtel Jura, and the way that old innkeeper fell in love with you, and lavished on us a varied harem of wines ever better and better, until at last you admitted, as to a famous Beaune, that it was equal to any Madeira—
gpt
What—what—I, sir? No, sir! My judgment must have been disturbed.
human
Oh, it is true.
gpt
Well, maybe; but—it is not so to-day, said Wilmington.
human
There is but one wine. I loved it when I was young; no new mistress can disturb my affections. I never touch it now without a thought of the friends at whom I have smiled a health across it in days long past. For the fool, a wine is wine and nothing more.
gpt
True, true, said Francis.
human
For me too, it is a magician. I never lift to my lips a glass of this noble wine without seeing faces that are gone, and hearing the voices and the laughter and the jests that are no more.
gpt
Wine makes poets of us all! exclaimed Hamilton.
human
Once I asked Wilmington what he saw, for he was staring down into his glass, and he said he saw memories. By George! we were all as still as mice for a moment. But he is right; there is but one wine, and that, like tobacco, is an American discovery.
gpt
I can talk tobacco with you all day, said Chestnut.
human
Wine is another matter. We should have a monument to that unknown Indian brave who evolved the pipe. How did he do it? There is the simplicity of genius about it. I can understand the discovery of America, and the invention of printing; but what human want, what instinct, led up to tobacco? Imagine intuitive genius capturing this noble idea from the odors of a prairie fire! Surely, Lamb’s roast pig was nothing to the discovery of the gentle joy of a wholesome pipe.
gpt
What a droll fancy! said Francis.
human
I envy that fellow his first smoke—the first pipe of man.
gpt
My envy, said Chestnut,
human
We were talking about Madeira, remarked Wilmington, impatiently.
gpt
You were about to say, Hamilton,—
human
Only that I am not quite so clear as to our credit for discovering Madeira,
gpt
No? It is all in Smith’s ’Wealth of Nations.’ Great Britain allowed no trade with France or Spain; but as to what were called non-enumerated articles we were permitted to trade with the Canary and Madeiras. We took staves and salt fish thither, and fetched back wines. It so happened that the decisive changes of weather our winter and summer afford did more to ripen this wine than its native climate. The English officers during the French war found our Madeiras so good that they took the taste to England.
human
And yet, said Chestnut,
gpt
Madeira is never good in England. Is it climate, or that they do not know how to keep it?
human
Both—both, returned Wilmington.
gpt
They bottle all wines, and that is simply fatal. Madeira was never meant to be retailed. It improves in its own society, as greatness is apt to do.
human
I myself fancy, said the host,
gpt
How all this lost lore comes back to me as I used to hear it at my father’s table! said Chestnut.
human
I recall the prejudice against wine in bottle.
gpt
Prejudice, sir? retorted Wilmington, testily.
human
Your demijohn has one cork; your five gallons in bottles, a dozen or two of corks, and the corks give an acrid taste. Some wise old Quaker found this out, sir. That is why there is so little good wine in Charleston and Boston. They bottle their wine. Incredible as it may seem, sir, they bottle their wine.
gpt
That is sad,
human
Keep it in demijohns in moderate darkness under the roof, returned Francis.
gpt
Then it accumulates virtue like a hermit. I once had a challenge from the Madeira Club in Charleston to test our local theory. They sent me two dozen bottles of their finest Madeira. When we came to make a trial of them, we were puzzled at finding the corks entire, but not a drop of wine in any of the bottles. At last I discovered that some appreciative colored person had emptied them by the clever device of driving a nail through the hollow at the base of the bottles. I found, on experiment, that it could easily be done. A letter from my friends forced me to tell the story. I fancy that ingenious servant may have suffered for his too refined taste.
human
But he had the Madeira, said Wilmington grimly, glancing at the old servant.
gpt
I have no doubt Uncle John here has a good notion of Madeira.
human
It’s de smell ob it, sar. Ye gets to know ’em by de smell, sar.
gpt
That is it, no doubt, laughed Francis.
human
By and by we shall all have to be content with the smell. It is becoming dearer every year.
gpt
I found yesterday, said Hamilton,
human
My father, returned Wilmington,
gpt
I remember, said Francis,
human
Who? What? cried Wilmington, who was a little deaf.
gpt
Oh! Graydon—yes, I know the man and the book, of course, but I do not recall the passage.
human
He says: ’Our company’—this was in 1774—’our company was called The Silk-Stocking Company.
gpt
How delightful! exclaimed Chestnut.
human
Capacious demijohns in the yard, and the descendants of Penn’s Quakers—anti-vinous, anti-pugnacious Quakers—drilling for the coming war! By George! one can see it. One guesses that it was not out of such fairy glasses as these they drank the captain’s Madeira.
gpt
I am reminded, cried Hamilton,
human
And so saying, he left the table, and presently returning said,
gpt
I will read only the bit about the wine. It shows how much store they set by their good wine even in those perilous days.
human
Take particular care of the red chest clampt with iron herewith sent, which contains some bonds and mortgages which I could not take out, the key being lost; and also that you would be kind enough to let the two quarter-casks of Madeira, painted green, be deposited in some safe place under lock and key in your cellar, if possible where you keep your own liquors in a safe place, as I value them more than silver and gold in these times of misfortune and distress.
gpt
Then he goes on to tell the news of Washington’s victory at Trenton.
human
What a glimpse at the life of those days!