The Madisonian

Social Intercourse.-Most of the refined nations of our time entrust the usages of hospitality to the keeping of the gentler sex. Especially in this new western world, those Lares and Penates of the Romans are cordially entrusted to our care. Elevated as we are, by intellectual advantages, beyond all previous example, it might rationally be expected that a degree of lustre and dignity heretofore unknown would dignify social intercourse. Still we see it very prominently identified with the pleasures of the table. To make the satisfaction of the palate the principal test of hospitality, seems to accord with a less refined state of society, or to argue some destitution of intellectual resource. Would our ladies set the example of less elaborate entertainments, or less exuberant feasting- more room would be left for the mental powers to expand, and the feelings to seek interchange in conversation. At least, they might save husband's purses, their servants' tempers, and themselves a world of fatigue. Let them recollect that it is but a relict of barbarism which they cherish, when they allure their guests to indulgence of appetite, perhaps to hurtful excess; for temptations of the palate, though they may be multiplied by the hospitable lady out of pure benevolence, cannot be yielded to with impunity by all whom her invitations thus expose. Her skill in culinary compounds may wound the health of those whom she best loves.

It would be but a sorry compliment for the dyspeptic husband to murmur forth, like him of Eden, his sad extenuation, " The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, gave me, and I did eat;" or for the more indignant guests, when seeking his physician, to exclaim, " The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat."

It was formerly too much the custom to press among the pledges of hospitality, the draught that inebriates. More light, and a better creed, have modified this practice. But still it is not extinct. If it be asked, why the Christian inhabitants of a most Christian land should choose, as the interpreter of their hospitality, a usage more dangerous than the sword of Damocles, there is no better answer than " Because it is the fashion." The cup will not, indeed, mark him who partakes with its immediate poison: but may it not foster what shall rankle in his veins with fatal contagion, threatening not only the body, but the soul!

When philosophers have inquired, how women, whose happiness and safety are so deeply involved in the purity of those around, could thus dare to trouble the fountains of temperance and of virtue, the only reply has been, " It is the fashion." Holy men, the guardians of God's altar, have demanded why she hath been thus faithless to her trust. And she hath answered, " It is the fashion." But when the garniture is thus stripped from all earthly things, when that dread assembly is convened, where none dare to plead the omnipotence of fashion : when a voice from the throne of the Eternal questions of the plague spot upon the soul of the guest, the brother, the husband, or the child-what shall the response be !Mrs. L. H. Sigourney.