Florida Pier : writings and about / jmcvey.net
Italian Tea, Etc.
“The Gentler View,” Harper’s Weekly (June 4, 1910) : 27
U Michigan copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link
archive.org : link
One surprise which, when it comes, seems so natural and right as to double one’s surprise into amazement at not having suspected this precise outcome from the very first is supplied in the unnecessarily gloomy restaurant at the Metropolitan Museum. The tea is — and the miracle and simplicity of the thing refuse to diminish a jot — the tea is of that rare awfulness hitherto only to be found in Italy. One could cry with joy over the badness of it and drop tears of convulsed rejoicing in each and every cup. Not for worlds would one ask the brand, for the first sip brings with it such a rush of feeling that one is moved to hug the teapot. It is the very identical tea that used to amaze and bewilder us in small Italian towns. It always seemed impossible that a second cup should possess the exact, untraceable, terrifying, and yet harmless flavor of the first. It was so plainly not tea at all, and yet never has the faintest inkling as to the whatness of it ever been hit upon. It was so plainly not tea at all, and yet never has the faintest inkling as to the whatness of it ever been hit upon. It was taken on a tiny table on the sidewalk from a tray principally occupied by the biggest carafe ever seen, which was daily sent away by you and as surely brought back the next day by the waiter, who seemed to feel that, if you would insist upon drinking tea, you at least might let the table look as though you were drinking a proper and known beverage. It was for long months your delight and your despair. With all hope of toast long since abandoned, you drowned the appalling taste of the tea in countless little cakes filled with delectable zabaglione, while in your mind endless Madonnas of the Siennese school settled and adjusted themselves, making room, a little grumblingly, for gonfaloni and Perugino angels, while your legs moaned softly and you wondered if, using your parasol as a crutch, you would eventually be able to hobble slowly home, or whether you would have to sit on the comfortless iron chair blinking at the softly glowing Duomo until night came and in its friendly darkness permitted you to crawl sleepily to your hotel on hands and knees, visions of Bonfigli garlands and head-dresses dancing before your wearied but instructed eyes.
With this experience half forgotten, but lying ready to be remembered on the instant, figure the sensation of spending a long afternoon at the Metropolitan — it happened to be with Tanagra figurines, but that had not the slightest effect on the taste of the tea — and descending to the basement restaurant, where an Italian waiter failed to prod your memory or arouse your suspicions, and, having a horrid little metal teapot that you knew instinctively intended to burn your fingers, suddenly pour forth into the cup a liquid something that was neither more nor less (and, what is more, frankly admitted it) than villainous Italian tea. The inspired fitness of the thing was over-whelming. It could not have been arranged. Even under the new régime, with all the wonderfully wise curators rearranging and changing, it is too much to suppose that one of them would have had the time or the genius to import this unspeakably bad, completely hallowed tea. It has just blessedly, ridiculously happened, and the propriety of the jest makes a third cup imperative. To stop there even is almost churlish and half bespeaks a failure of recognition. Conjectures naturally dance in one’s head, but they fail to bring a ghost of an answer. Is it that there is so much Italy in the air that it taints any brand of tea entering the museum, or does a tongue maudlin with admiring adjectives become incapable of tasting tea as it really is, or — and this is the theory clearly to be clung to after the others have been discarded — is it just one of those details arranged by a jocose little god with a feeling for occasions, a touch that stands for, “Don’t you remember the day?” and in the same instant makes you remember everything with enthralling distinctness? Whatever the explanation, an afternoon at our admirable museum should be ended with a cup of this reminiscent tea, which is warranted to possess an aroma so heavy with Italian atmosphere that on leaving the building one calls, absently, “Cocchiere!” and is jarred to realities by a Fifth Avenue ’bus stopping noisily and a dejected driver of a hansom calling, “Keb, miss, keb?”
Asking questions is a weakness like any other and should be as assiduously guarded against. Some people steal and others overeat and still others ask questions. They are varying manifestations of flaccidity. It is just as easy to say, “How jolly it is out!” as it is to demand with a silly, rising inflection, “Have you been out?” when you are coming in hatted and gloved and could not very well have been anywhere else but out, unless you are materializing at that moment on the doorstop. There is something so bungling about a direct question. It is obtuse, and its crassness stirs one to belligerency. It is a challenge to stand and deliver, and one hurriedly rams oneself with whatever happens to be handy, determined at least to put up a good fight; and if in the end one is unable to keep the information that was asked, the knowledge that it was partially taken by force will be some consolation. A direct question brings about, or is supposed to bring, a direct answer, and the baldness of the proceeding so takes away one’s appetite for the subject under discussion that one is very apt to do something so different as to make the answer given a direct lie a crime which it is most difficult to make any one believe should be laid at the door of the questioner.
People ask questions from laziness. They have not anything to say themselves, and they march up to you and pull the bell-cord with an audacity that pictures them in one’s mind as standing at a strange house door saying to the astonished maid: “Who lives here? I just thought I’d ask.” The natural retort is to slam the door in the inquirer’s face. A delicately protruding tongue will sometimes serve the purpose. “Who lives here? I just thought I’d ask.” The natural retort is to slam the door in the inquirer’s face. A delicately protruding tongue will sometimes serve the purpose. It is not as though there is anything in the world that could stop one if one felt inclined to be discursive. When garrulity comes it just has to be endured by every one, even the speaker; but there is something in the human make-up that will not permit loquacity to come at the call of a blunt question, which is sometimes very annoying, as a question has been known to arrive one second before complete confidence was to be given, and limits the flow to a monosyllable and leaves the questioned person feeling uncomfortably clogged.
Nothing is simpler than substituting, “Dear! dear! here’s another day to be planned for!” for, “What are you going to do to-day?” The results are so much better . A general subject has to be made personal. Human nature can be counted on for that, and general mornings mused on vaguely are sure to bring forth personal mornings dwelt on with particulars. But, “What are you going to do to-day?” is such an unattractive worm that one swims behind a shadowed rock and keeps a fishy eye out for a more ornate fly.
On reading these complaints On reading these complaints over the writer is amazed to find what a masculine flavor they have. She is quite unable to account for their discontented before-dinner tang.
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