Springfield Weekly Republican

Hospitality.

Does it pay? There is little use in discussing it from any other stand-point. The few who practice it need not to be told, the many who do not ought to know how much they lose. Genuine hospitality is in danger of becoming one of the lost arts. The good old-fashioned tea-drinkings are fading out. Dinner parties are rare, especially in country towns. White kid evening parties are a very poor substitute. The finer spirit of hospitality will not abide in them. The old fashioned stage coaches, the leisurely journeys, and wayside inns, and blazing hearths belonged to a more hospitable era. But express trains, first-class hotels, our faster ways and general extravagance have materially altered the case. It has come to be considered well nigh an imposition, a kind of cheeky presumption or beggarly economy to quarter one's self on the hospitality of anybody. The right way to do is to pass by your friend's door and put up at the hotel, or stay at home. Entertaining strangers, however intelligent and worthy, is hardly to be thought of. If the stranger clergyman is coming to stay over Sunday, and the parish is rich, put him up at the best hotel. If poor, board him out with widow A., who has no children and plenty of spare room. When the religious or educational convention is expected to receive hospitality, prelude the entertainment by groaning over it and magnifying the burden, begrudging it, and shirking it through the proxy of paying hotel bills.

But, fairly considered, is hospitality a burden? Is it not rather a pleasure and a benefit of the choicest kind? "Madam," said a pitying neighbor to a clergyman's wife, "they make your house such a hotel that you must be worn out with so much company. It is a shame that ministers should be so imposed upon." "I don't quite view it so," replied she; "for, although our household cares have always been great for the reason you mention, we have been abundantly repaid in the pleasures we have received from so many intelligent guests, and, especially, in the unconscious education which our children have received by the table-talk. No possible education of ours, either through books or our own family conversation alone, could ever have given them this valuable culture."

Here was an intelligent woman's insight and good sense. Hospitality does pay, especially if one understands how to make it. What is the use of money, pictures, furniture, spare rooms, darkened parlors, serving their highest use when visitors and flies are excluded, or when made mere occasional reception rooms for stiffly ceremonious calls of etiquette? Let us live all over the house, and have something cheerful and inviting in every room. Why not have the table always neatly spread and ready enough for an extra plate without any question or fuss, cake or no cake? Let us bring up our children, not with one set of every-day manners and another for company, but in a daily atmosphere of hospitality.

One of our "self-made" men, who occupies an eminent position in social and political life, revealed his good judgment and at the same time one secret of success, in the remark that he never permitted any respectable and intelligent stranger to come into town, whose conversation might add to his own stock of knowledge or sharpen any of his faculties, or give pleasure and information to his family, whom he did not, if possible, invite to his house. He well understands that such hospitality is a good investment, while he undoubtedly makes his guests feel themselves his grateful debtors.

"But this man is rich,—he has the means. He has the cake always ready." Yes and so have we all the means, cake or no cake. The poorest American citizen ought to have a home, and one that ministers to self-respect and good citizenship. And this always may and should include hospitality.

We were riding the other day through a rural street of scattering houses quite remote from any village, and chanced to find an old Springfield neighbor, formerly a mechanic on the Hill. He had established himself on a little farm. His premises were so tidy, the garden by the road side so well kept, the flowers so choice and beautiful, that we felt the welcome in the very aspect of the door-yard. Entering the house, it was more evident in all the interior arrangements. The little round dining table, though no company was expected, was as neatly spread as Voisin's or Delmonico's, and to crown its neatness there was in the center a tasteful bouquet of fresh flowers. There was a welcome in the flowers, and, cake or no cake, one feels sure in such a home of good bread, and sweet butter, and a cup of tea; and that, if nothing more, with your honest neighbor's cheery, wholesome country talk, and genuine hospitality and the smell of new mown hay, is better than any Fifth Avenue hotel.