New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1873-07-11
MODERN HOSPITALITY.
TIE Gassreaomic NIiseries Of eur Social
Obli4ations.

We are supposed to have civilized the
forms and perfected the art OF society. we
look back on the rude feasts Of our fore
fathers with disdain and wonder At their
gross gluttony and coarse 1avishness. But,
1T least. they fed the poor in those days OF
gastronomic art, was b0untiful in hospital
ity. As it is. hospitality is name; no more.
There is none of it in the sense OF sharing
your goods with others in our modern en-.
tertainments. A dinner or sOiree is social
obligation discharged perforce; or an occa-
sion for display, or both combined. 10 pre-
fer those who need is as far removed from
the calculations OF the host as me "nre
party" imagined by Punch. No one
who gives party, as il il called, thinks
of the real pleasure or good which 1t will
be to the guests; only whether it Is well
done" according to the conventional stand
ard-that is, rejecting honor on the giver.
The arrangements of society are in them
solves utterly barbarous, while affecting. to
be specially civilized. One could imagine
q simple, generous and most delightful ban
duet, with music and fiowere, and plenty
Of space and freedom Of actiOn-a banquet
that did not include three long hours Of
cfamp and surfeit, with an indigestion to
follow, or a crowded crush in sitting room
where conversation is impossible. and the
Spuslc not worth listening to. One could
imagine arrangements more artistlcally
Sovely than now, yet not more costly; vel
come more hearty and with less parade.
Bus our civilization doomR us to table
where enc side freezes and the other
burns; where draughts chill the naked
shoulders at one end, and the heated air,
loaded with unwhOlesome yapor. threatens
apoplexy at the other; to rooms wherein
delicate women turn sick and faint for
want of oxygen in fetid atmosphere used
up by 200 or 300 pairs of lungs; it desms us
90 accept invitations given byspeOple we
dislike, and to eat things that will disagree
with us, Just as it doOms US 60 an artificial
hanner, an insincere smile, false speech;
it dOOms US to open our own house 70 hun
Slreds OF our fellOw-creatures, not half .
dozen of whom we care ever to see again,
lust as 10 dooms us to the suppression OF
ALI emotion, of all earnest thought, OF
all honest words; and when we have
made ourselves tho most like animated
dolls in a manner and put ourselves to
most inconvenience for things we detest
and people we despise in fact, then We are
considered of the best breeding and the
most perfected civilization. Half the enter
tsinments, too, given by the middle classes,
are only possible through screwing and
punching in things more essential to the true
dignity of life than the giving of dinner
badly cooked and worse arranged, which no
ono who eats really enjoys. Yet it the food
is questionable kid gloves are de rige,r, and
you cut your fish with electro plated knives
and forks Of the cOvenanted pattern.
Honor to those who dare to offer simple
pleasures within their means of money and
service. and who invite to their house those
whom it will both delight and benefit not
those only whom they say they must" by
the queer law of social reciprocity in bore
dom and Dretenee.