Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-01-01
Should a guest be formidable?

Should guest be formidable?
| some happy hosts have by nature the
art of being at home in their oWr
houses, but common observation shows
that guests to most people mean some
perturbation.
Even so accomplished a man as Ralph
Waldo Emerson, accustomed to the lee.
ture platform and the best society o.
his day, wrote once in his journal:
If we could establish the rule tina
each man was a guest in his own house
and when we had shown our visitors thu
passages Of the house, the way to fire
to bread and water. and thus made
them as much at home as the inhabi.
tant. did then leave them to the acct
dents Of intercourse and went abou
our ordinary business, guest would NJ
longer be formidable"
The sage here seems to ask that
guests be made not only completely at
home by the simple procedure Of leav'
| ing them alone but that the host pu
himself exactly on the same footing
He must be, so Emerson says, "a guess
In his own house" BY this he mean;
that he should hold fast to the ordi.
nary courtesy which society demand!
Of guest.
But the guest, on the other hand
must be freed from a superfiuity Of
courtesy, or at least from the strici
/ formality which repeats to him with
every act, "Of course, you are my
guests, and must not act naturally"
4 4 4 +
There Is little question that If every
one concerned in q visit" could forget
the very fact of the visit much good
might be accomplished in freeing al
from such restraint as ordinarily hangs
to having visitors in the house.
Some people make a great pow-wow
about the thing. II there is but one
bath room, it is given over to the
guest, and the man Of the house" re-
tires to the basement to do his shaw
ing. This may be courtesy, but it is
carrying it too far. Unless the base
ment shaving Is made a deep secret, II
| cannot help having an adverse effect
on the guest.
Unless he is one Of the most unusual
persons In the world, fat in his own
conceit. he will feel embarrassed that
any one should be driven to the depths
Of basement shaving. A laundry tub
Is great institution, but 1t should be
used for laundry only, with the posi-
| BILE exception of baths for the family
pet. 1t may be submitted that no guest
| in his right mind would require of his
host that he use 1t for the daily shave
Shaving at best Is not exactly pleas
urable, although some men by inten-
sive investigation manage to make II
tolerable.
A primary rule, therefore, in the re-
lation Of host and guests is that neither
do anything to embarraSs the other
Such a little matter as sleeping on the
sofa in the living room, of course. will
not be counted. This is too time-hon-
ored. Even host has a right to sleep
on the sofa If by doing so he can make
his guests feel more at home. After he
gets to sleep he will not worry about
the possibilities of a centipede crawl
| ing into his ear. That was an OLD
wives tale. handed down from the days
when houses were dark, householders
were afraid of might air." and crawl
ing things had life pretty much Their
| own way.
| It would be a good thing for life in
the abstract II the rule could be estab-
lished, as Emerson desired, that each
man was q guest in his own home
This would end slippers, bathrobes and
similar comfortable but somewhat I'M
slightly appurtenances Of the modern
male.
Even the ultimate in making the
guest feel at home" would not enable
stranger to saunter into the living
room in bathrobe and slippers, or come
down to breakfast in-shall we whisper