The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-01-02
FOR FEMININE READERS
TRUE HOSPITALITY NOT THE PAY
ING OF SOCIAL OBLIGATIONS.
Simplicity I'm Gowns Means Expense
This season The White-Capped
Cook-Art of Managing Help.

The practice of looking on an invitation
to all entertainments as a debt that must be
paid in similar coin is fast destroying the
last semblance of that delightful hospitality
which had it's origin in the Christian graces
of charity, good will and loving kindness,
says a writer in the New York Times. We
read much of such hospitality, we hear
much of 1t from people of the ''old school,, y
but when we look around for its counter
part in the society of to-day we find only a
miserable system Of You invite me and
I'll invite YOU"
An ambitious woman who is dissatisfied
with her own circle of acquairances, de-
termiL IS to get into another set She takes
time by the forelocks, and ere the season
has fairly opened gives luncheon or a
party and invites the set on whom she has
designs. The set, willing or unwilling, must
put her down on the list of those to whom
they are under obligations, and the am
bilious woman scores a point, at the ex-
pense of her self-respect, one would think.
A wealthy society leader gives recep-
ton, an omnium gatherum that takes in
every woman of her acquaintance. Some
silly little woman in very moderate cir
cumstances takes up the idea that she is
under obligations to her late hostess. and
by giving something as nearly like the
society leaders reception she can pos
sibly make it, with only the resources of
thousand-dollar salary and parlor Is
x15, in very small cottage She invites
her late hostess and the set to which that
lady belongs, and becomes at once the de-
rision of her sensible friends.
Celia Thaxter's idea of heaven was to
with hnxs o1xr aesIaa
and this is what society should be = the
companionship of congenial, loving souls.
But under the present system of obliga-
lions it is too often only heterogeneous
tumble of people who are trying to dis
charge their obligations" to certain per-
sons. and at the same time lay certain
others under obligations" to themselves.
As for love and congeniality, who looks
for these in the flower-decked drawing
rooms where society revels?
There is chapter in one of George Mac
donalds rovels, 1.-The Wears Daughter"
which ought to be read and poadered by
every young hostess. 1t is the chapter in
which Winnifred and Percival discuss the
question of paying back" the hospitality
they had received since their entrance into
London life. After lover-like quarrel they
settle the matter on a basis of common
sense, good breeding and Christianity sell
dom displayed in real life.
This idea of obligation in the matter of
entertainments is a source of unnumbered
woes. In every community, and especially
in small towns, you will find women who
are straining every nerve to meet their
social obligations and keep up with the
set to which they aspire to belong. They
will work beyond their strength and deprive
their families of the neceSsariea of life in
order to give a luncheon or a party, and
they do this often in the name of hospi-
tally.
1t is one thing to give dinings and lunch
cons and euchre parties, and quite another
be hospitable is laid on every one who has
a home and a table of her own. But the
obligation to give fashionable or semi
fashionable functions is one that a woman
LAYS on herself. and she can throw it off
if she only uses a little common sense and
moral courage.
For the average woman of to-day there
is one safe rule: Be always ready to well
come and entertain the friend or the stran-
ger who may prove to be an angel This is
hospitality, but the form of entertainment
demanded nowadays by society is so COM
pick, so expensive, both to time and mon
ey that the sensible hostess will leave such
things to those who have the trained serv-
ice, the eleganceS of table and dining room,
and the expansive income that make en-
pertaining easy and pleasant. Remember
that there is no style, no elegance, about
your entertainment if you have to enlist all
of your obligng friends in the work, ana
then borrow or hire most of the china. sill
Dor hood.
You will make no mistakes in your visit
ing list if YOU will only repudiate the false
idea Of obligation. You will invite only
those whom YOU really want as your guests,
whose society IS q pleasure to you and to
each other you will give an entertainment
entirely within your means; you Will realize
the true meaning of hospitality, and you
will find yourself the next day at peace
with yourself and your neighborS. A rare
state OF affairs. this last. as any one Knows
who has watched the heart-burnings and
quently by an invitation list made out on
the wrong principle. If invitations were
tokens Of love or friendship or esteem. as
they really ought to be, going into society
would be like going to heaven. We snail
make some approach to this blisSful condl-
ton when the earthen pots stop trying TO
swim down the stream with the brass ket-
monies that should be sacred to hospitality
for the base purpose of getting into set
or paying off a fictitious obligation.
There is but one thing that could excuse
our ''social unrest" If it sprang from a
desire to better ourselves intellectually and
tions. If what we call the upper circles OF
society represented the highest degree OF
culture education and moral purity, then
women would be doing the best thing pos
sible in trying to win a foOthOld within the
charmed ring But is this the case? An
swer the question yourself, ana be sure that
the next invitation list will tell you whether
you are striving for higher conditions men,
tai and spiritual, or whether you are moved
nv base desire to see your name In the So
ciety column of a paper along with the
names of those whose claim to distinction
is founded on their ability to wear dia-
monds. to drive in carriages and give 'tunc-