Page:The Promise of the Bell (1924).pdf/9

 afternoon call upon Mrs. Robert Morris, it was not because he doted on the beverage. No Frenchman has ever shared Dr. Johnson's passion for tea. It was for love of the warm brightly lit rooms (warm rooms were no everyday indulgence in the era of open fires and Franklin stoves), and for love of his agreeable hostess, and of the animated and purposeful conversation. When John Adams "drank Madeira at a great rate" at the house of Chief Justice Chew, "and found no inconvenience in it," it was not because he was a tippler; but because the generous wine quieted his anxious thoughts, and stimulated him to match mind with mind in the sympathetic society of his friends.

Indeed, the drinking of Madeira was in the nature of a ceremonial rite. Even in the days of Penn no serious business was enacted, no compact sealed, no social gathering complete without this glass of wine. It signified good-fellowship and good-will; and when Penn returned to England for the last time, he left his little store of wine in the cellar of the Letitia House "for the use and entertainment of strangers," which was a gracious thing to do.

According to Dr. Weir Mitchell, Philadelphia was famous for its Madeira, which, being a temperamental wine, throve best in that serene atmosphere, and in the careful hands of Philadelphians. It was kept by preference in demijohns, and lived in moderate darkness under the roof, where it "accumulated virtues like a hermit." For seventy years—the allotted