Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/109

 whose ancestors and titles always excite a gentle flow of saliva in the mouths of snobs. The tables—there were two,—were, to use the formal phrase, "laid for forty covers"—that is to say that each table accommodated twenty guests. The loveliest flowers, the most priceless silver, the daintiest glass, adorned the festive boards,—everything that taste could suggest or wealth supply, had its share in the general effect of design and colour,—the host was at the head of one table,—the hostess at the other—and between-whiles a fine string band discoursed the sweetest music. But with it all there was no real hospitality. We might as well have been seated at some extra-luxurious table-d'hôte in one of the "Kur" houses of Austria or Germany, paying so much per day for our entertainment. Any touch of warm and kindly feeling was altogether lacking; and to make matters worse, a heavy demon brooded over the brave outward show of the feast,—a demon with sodden grey wings that refused to rise and soar,—the demon of a hopeless, irremediable Stupidity! Out and alas!—here was the core of the mischief! For sad as it is to lack Heart in the entertaining of our friends, it doubles the calamity to lack Brain as well! Our host was stupid;—dull to a degree unimaginable by those who do not know what some lordly British aristocrats can be at their own tables,—our hostess, a beautiful woman, was equally stupid, being entirely engrossed in herself and her own bodily charms, to the utter oblivion of the ease and well-*being of her guests. What a meal it was! How interminably it dragged its slow length along! What small hydraulic bursts of meaningless talk