Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/111

 less concern than Notoriety. However this may be, no sane person will allow that it is "hospitality" to ask a number of friends into your house and there keep them all standing because you have managed that there shall be no room to sit down, while strong, half-cold tea and stale confectionery are hastily dispensed among them. It is not "hospitality" to ask people to dinner, and never speak a word to them all the evening, because you, if a man, are engaged upon your own little "business affair," or, if a woman, are anxious not to lose hold of your special male flatterer. If friends are invited, they should surely be welcomed in the manner friendly, and made to feel at home by the personal attention of both host and hostess. It is not "hospitality" to turn them loose in bewildered droves through grounds or gardens, to listen to a band which they have no doubt heard many times before,—or to pack them all into a stuffy room to be "entertained" by a professional musician whom they could hear to much more comfortable and independent advantage by paying for stalls at the legitimate concert hall. What do we really mean by Hospitality? Surely we mean friendship, kindness, personal interest, and warm-hearted openness of look and conduct,—and all of these are deplorably missing from the "smart" functions of up-to-date society in London, whatever the state of things may be concerning this antique virtue in New York and Boston. It would appear that the chief ingredients of Hospitality are manners,—for as Emerson says: "Manners are the happy way of doing things." This "happy way" is becoming very rare. Society, particularly the