Clarksville chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1857-1865, 1858-06-18
THE FREEDOM OF THE HOUSE.

THE FREEDOM OF THE HOUSE.
Most people are fond of having pleasant
company but very few people know how
to make their company feel themselves at
home. A great deal is said on the subject
of hospitality, and great exertions are fire.
quently made to prove ones richness in
this regard. But as a general thing, the
more extra effort and expense you make,
especially the more form and gentility you
get up for the occasion, the more ill at
ease and unnatural in manner you render
your guests.
True hospitality, we opine, consists in
the warm and hearty welcome of ones
friends, far more than in all fuss and show
which is made for their entertainment.--
Feed them well, of course, if you have
anything to eat yourselves but it is to
be presumed that your own daily fare is
upon things that. are pleasant to the tase
and good for food, also that your board is
cleanly and well ordered, even when you
are alone and if these presumptions be
correct, what is the use of an extra dis
play.
Any one who has mingled much in soci-
ETY., who has tasted the curious economy
of households, knows very well that he al
ways experiences the truest comfort and
pleasure when visiting those families which
allow him to enter as one of themselves,
and to partake of "the freedom of the
house with their own members.
What ''limbo of vanity is that house
in which one, when upon visit, must be
always upon his best behavior, where he
must be continually entertaining or enter
tanned where he has no feeling of free
dom in moving about, but must continue
in the parlors, though he shiver with cold,
when there is a genial fire in the basement
or nursery; where he must sit bolt upright
when he longs to lounge, and where he
feels constrained to say cannot and twill
not when he wants to say "can't" and
"won't," not to mention feelings expected
to nterlard his conversation with what
certain learned young lady called "tech-
nical phrases, and a smattering of French
or Italian, when he would rather confne
himself to simple vernacular where he
must incommode and annoy himself by
ridiculous table forms, which are Of no
possible benefit to anybody, in which a
sensible elderly woman once remarked,
'thero hain't no moral principle what
ever" 1L.
That disregard of polished manners
which is vulgarity, and that "plainness"
which is coarseness, are repulsive wherever
they are found, Yet many, both young
and old, pride themselves upon these dis
gusting ways, Such persons have not yet
learned what is religion.
Than that courteousness which springs
spontaneously from a truly refined and
kindly nature, few things are more beauti-
full.
When we hear one scofing at the idea
polish and refinement of thought and act,
we wonder that he does not consider of the
company which he is perchance (if so be
that his white garments be not forgotten)
soon to keep. Would not man about to
be asked into the court of some great king,
to talk and walk with dukes and princes,
take some thought about how he should
carry himself before them? But just be-
fore as, every one, there is a door which
will open to usher us into court such as
no earthly city ever held, and ace are to
walk and talk with angels and arohangels,
with principalities we shall have to do.-
Surely we all need to "mend our man
ncrs"