Year: 1873

We are supposed to have civilized the
forms and perfected the art of society.


We look back on the rude feasts of our
forefathers with disdain, and wonder at
their gross -gfuttony and coarse lavish
ness. But, at least, they fed the poor
IN those days of ruder living; and
feast, if wanting in gastronomic art,
ives boRntiful in hospitality. As it is,
hospitality Is a name no more. There
is none of It in the sense of sharing
your goOds-with others, IN our modern
entertainments. A dinner or a soiree is
a social obligation discharged perforee :;
or an occasion for display; or both
combined. TO prefer those who need
IS as far removed from the calculations
OF the host as the "fre-party" imag-
med by Punch. No one who gives a
party, as it is called, thinks of the real
pleasure or good which it will be to the
guests; only whether it is well done
according TO the conventional standard.
that is, rejecting honor on the giver.
The arrangements of society are in
themselves utterly barbarous, while af-
fecting to be specially civilized. One
could imagine simple, generous, and
most delightful banquet, with music
and flowers, and plenty of space and
freedom of action banquet that did
not include three long hours of cramp
and surfeit with an indigestion to fol-
low, or a crowded crush in a sitting
room where conversation is impossible,
and the music not worth listening to.
One could imagine arrangements more
artistically lovely than now, yet mot
more costly a welcome more heartily,
and with less parade. But our ci7ili-
cation dOoms us to table where one
side freezes and the other burns where
draughts. chill the naked shoulder at
one end and the heated air, loaded with
unwhOlesome vapOrs, threatens apo
plexy at the other to rooms wherein
delicate women turn sick and faint for
want of oxygen in fetid atmosphere
used up by two or three hundred pair
of lungs it ldooms us to accept invita-
tions given by people we dislike, and to
eat things that will disagree with us,
just as it dooms us to an artificial man
ner, an insincere smile, a false speech;
it dooms us to open our house to hun
dreds of our fellow-creatures not half a
dozen of whom we care ever to see
again, inst as 1T dooms MS to the sup
preston of all emotion, of all earnest
Thought, of all honest words; and,
when we have ourselves the most like
animated dolls in manner, and put our
selves 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 civiIi-
cation. Half the entertainments, too,
given by the middle classes, are only
possible through screwing and pinching
in things more essential to the true dig
nifty of life than the giving of a dinner
badly cooked and worse arranged,
which no one who eats really enjoys.
Yet, if the food is questionable, kid
gloves are de rigue1T, and you cut your
stale fish with electro-plated knives and
forks of the covenanted pattern. Honor
to those who dare to offer simple plea
sures within their means 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 reciprocity
in boredom and pretence.- CornltiU
Magazine.