THE DEATH OF HOSPITALITY
There is an old song, a very old song, the refrain of which runs thus: “’Twas merry in the hall, when the beards wagged all, We shall never see the like again, again!—We shall never see the like again!” Whether there was anything particularly hilarious in the wagging of beards we may not feel able to determine, but there is unquestionably a vague sense of something festive and social conveyed in the quaint lines. We feel, without knowing why, that it was, it must have been, “merry in the hall,” at the distant period alluded to,—while at the present time we are daily and hourly made painfully aware that whether it be in hall, drawing-room or extensive “reception gallery,” the merriment formerly so well sung and spoken of exists no longer. The Harp that once through Tara’s Halls—no!—I mean the Beards that once wagged in the Hall, wag no more. Honest laughter has given place to the nanny-goat sniggering bleat now common to polite society, and understood to be the elegantly trained and “cultured” expression of mirth. The warm hand-shake has, in a very great measure, degenerated into the timorous offer of two or three clammy fingers extended dubiously, as with a fear of microbes. And Hospitality, large-hearted, smiling, gracious Hospitality, is dead and wrapped in its grave-clothes, waiting in stiff corpse-like state for its final burial. Public dinners, public functions of all kinds,—in England at any rate,—are merely so many funeral feasts in memory of the great defunct virtue. Its spirit has fled,—and there is no calling it back again. The art of entertaining is lost,—together with the art of conversation. And when our so-called “friends” are “at home,” we are often more anxious to find reasons for declining rather than for accepting their invitations, simply because we know that there is no real “at home” in it, but merely an “out-of-home” arrangement, in which a mixed crowd of people are asked to stand and swelter in an uneasy crush on staircases and in drawing-rooms, pretending to listen to music which they can scarcely hear, and scrambling for tea which is generally too badly made to drink. Indeed, it may be doubted whether, of all the various ludicrous social observances in which our progressive day takes part, there is anything quite so sublimely idiotic as a smart “At Home” in London during the height of the season. Nothing certainly presents men and women in such a singularly unintelligent aspect. Their faces all wear more or less the same expression of forced amiability,—the same civil grin distorts their poor mouths—the same wondering and weary stare afflicts their tired straining eyeballs—and the same automatic arm-movement and hand-jerk works every unit, as each approaches the hostess in the conventional manner enjoined by the usages of that “cultured” hypocrisy which covers a multitude of lies. Sheep, herding in a field and cropping the herbage in the comfortable unconsciousness that they are eating merely to be eaten, are often stated to be the silliest of animals,—but whether they are sillier than the human beings who consent to be squashed together in stuffy rooms where they can scarcely move, under the sham impression that they are “at home” with a friend, is a matter open to question. Of course to some minds it may be, and no doubt is, extremely edifying to learn by the society papers that Mrs. So-and-So, or Lord and Lady Thingummy will “entertain a great deal this season.” People who have no idea what this kind of “entertaining” means, may have glittering visions thereof. They may picture to themselves scenes of brilliancy where “a thousand hearts beat happily, and when, Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage-bell!” Only these things do not happen. Anything but love is “looked” from soft eyes and hard eyes equally;—derision, contempt, indifference, dejection, malice, and (so far as champagne, ices and general messy feeding are concerned) greed, light up these “windows of the soul” from time to time during the progress of such festivities; but love, never! The women are far too busy finding standing-room wherein to show themselves and their newest frocks off to advantage, to waste any moment in mere sentiment, and it is a Christianly beautiful sight to see how the dear things who wear the dressmaker’s latest “creations” elbow and push and hustle and tread on the toes of their sisters who are less highly favoured than themselves in the matter of mere clothes. As for the men,—if they have, by dint of hard exertion, managed to get in at the “crush,” and near enough to the hostess to bow and touch her hand, their sole attention henceforward becomes concentrated on the business of getting out again as rapidly as possible. For let it be said to the praise, honour and glory of the sterner sex, that taken in the rough majority, they detest the fashionable “At Home,” with vigorous and honest intensity,—and unless they are of that degenerate class who like to be seen hanging round some notoriously press-puffed “professional beauty,” or some equally notoriously known leader of the Smart Set, they are seldom seen at such gatherings. They feel themselves to be incongruous and out of place,—and so they are. “At Homes” are curious sort of social poultry-yards, where the hens have it all their own way, and do most distinctly crow.
But if “At Homes” are bad enough, the smart, the very smart dinner-party is perhaps a little worse in its entire lack of the true hospitality which, united to grace and tact and ready conversation, should make every guest feel that his or her presence is valuable and welcome. A small private dinner, at which the company are some six or eight persons at most, is sometimes (though not by any means always) quite a pleasant affair, but a “big” dinner in the “big” sense of the word, is generally the most painful and dismal of functions, except to those for whom silent gorging and after repletion are the essence of all mental and physical joy. I remember—and of a truth it would be impossible to forget—one of these dinners which took place one season in a very “swagger” house—the house of a member of that old British nobility whose ancestors and titles always excite a gentle flow of saliva in the mouths of snobs. The tables—there were two,—were, to use the formal phrase, “laid for forty covers”—that is to say that each table accommodated twenty guests. The loveliest flowers, the most priceless silver, the daintiest glass, adorned the festive boards,—everything that taste could suggest or wealth supply, had its share in the general effect of design and colour,—the host was at the head of one table,—the hostess at the other—and between-whiles a fine string band discoursed the sweetest music. But with it all there was no real hospitality. We might as well have been seated at some extra-luxurious table-d’hôte in one of the “Kur” houses of Austria or Germany, paying so much per day for our entertainment. Any touch of warm and kindly feeling was altogether lacking; and to make matters worse, a heavy demon brooded over the brave outward show of the feast,—a demon with sodden grey wings that refused to rise and soar,—the demon of a hopeless, irremediable Stupidity! Out and alas!—here was the core of the mischief! For sad as it is to lack Heart in the entertaining of our friends, it doubles the calamity to lack Brain as well! Our host was stupid;—dull to a degree unimaginable by those who do not know what some lordly British aristocrats can be at their own tables,—our hostess, a beautiful woman, was equally stupid, being entirely engrossed in herself and her own bodily charms, to the utter oblivion of the ease and well-being of her guests. What a meal it was! How interminably it dragged its slow length along! What small hydraulic bursts of meaningless talk spurted out between the entrées and the game!—talk to be either checked by waiters proffering more food, or drowned in the musical growling of the band! I believe one man hazarded a joke,—but it was not heard,—and I know that a witty old Irish peer told an anecdote which was promptly “quashed” by a dish of asparagus being thrust before him, just as he was, in the richest brogue, arriving at the “point.” But as nobody listened to him, it did not matter. Nobody does listen to anybody or anything nowadays at social functions. Everybody talks with insane, babbling eagerness, apparently indifferent as to whether they are heard or not. Any amount of people ask questions and never think of waiting for the answers. Should any matters, small or great, require explanation, scarce a soul has the patience or courtesy to attend to such explanation or to follow it with any lucidity or comprehension. It is all hurry-skurry, helter-skelter, and bad, shockingly bad, manners.
I am given to understand that Americans, and Americans alone, retain and cherish the old-fashioned grace of Hospitality, which is so rapidly becoming extinct in Great Britain. I would fain believe this, but of myself I do not know. I have had no experience of social America, save such as has been freely and cordially taught me by Americans in London. Some of these have indeed proved that they possess the art of entertaining friends with real friendly delight in the grace and charm and mutual help of social intercourse,—others again, by an inordinate display of wealth, and a feverish yearning for the Paragraph-Man (or Woman), have plainly shown that Hospitality is, with them, a far less concern than Notoriety. However this may be, no sane person will allow that it is “hospitality” to ask a number of friends into your house and there keep them all standing because you have managed that there shall be no room to sit down, while strong, half-cold tea and stale confectionery are hastily dispensed among them. It is not “hospitality” to ask people to dinner, and never speak a word to them all the evening, because you, if a man, are engaged upon your own little “business affair,” or, if a woman, are anxious not to lose hold of your special male flatterer. If friends are invited, they should surely be welcomed in the manner friendly, and made to feel at home by the personal attention of both host and hostess. It is not “hospitality” to turn them loose in bewildered droves through grounds or gardens, to listen to a band which they have no doubt heard many times before,—or to pack them all into a stuffy room to be “entertained” by a professional musician whom they could hear to much more comfortable and independent advantage by paying for stalls at the legitimate concert hall. What do we really mean by Hospitality? Surely we mean friendship, kindness, personal interest, and warm-hearted openness of look and conduct,—and all of these are deplorably missing from the “smart” functions of up-to-date society in London, whatever the state of things may be concerning this antique virtue in New York and Boston. It would appear that the chief ingredients of Hospitality are manners,—for as Emerson says: “Manners are the happy way of doing things.” This “happy way” is becoming very rare. Society, particularly the “Upper Ten” society,—is becoming, quite noticeably, very rude. Some of the so-called “smartest” women are notoriously very vulgar. Honesty, simplicity, sympathy, and delicacy of feeling are, or seem to be, as much out of date as the dainty poems of Robert Herrick, and the love-sonnets of Sir Philip Sidney. Time goes on, say the iconoclasts—and we must go with it—we must, if our hurrying civilization requires it, pass friends by with a cool nod, mock at the vices of the young, and sneer at the failings of the old;—we are all too busy to be courteous,—too much in a hurry grabbing gold to be kind, and much too occupied with ourselves to be thoughtful of others. So let us bury Hospitality decently once and for all, and talk no more about it! It was a grand old Virtue!—let us inter it with honour,—and cease to hold our funeral feasts and entertainments in its name. For, being dead, ’tis dead and done with,—and amid all our twentieth-century shams, let us at least drop, for shame, our base imitations of the great-souled splendid Grace that was meant to link our lives more sweetly together, to engender love, and to make home more home-like. For nowadays, few of us are simple and truthful enough in our lines of conduct even to understand Hospitality in its real meaning. “Between simple and noble persons,”—says a great philosopher—“there is always a quick intelligence; they recognize at sight; and meet on a better ground than the talents and skills they may chance to possess, namely, on sincerity and uprightness.” Sincerity and uprightness are the very fibre and life-blood of true Hospitality. But the chief canon of modern society is hypocrisy, to begin with. Insincerity and lack of principle naturally follow, with their usual accompaniment, moral cowardice,—and so men and women sneak and crawl, and flatter base persons for what they can get, and reject all chances of faithful friendship for mere ephemeral show. Under such conditions as these, what can good old Hospitality do but draw its last breath with a gentle sigh of expiring sorrow for the mistaken world which prefers a lie to a truth, and still to this day crucifies all its loving would-be redeemers on miserable Calvarys of desolation! No happiness does it gain thereby, but only increased bitterness and weariness,—and the fact that all our social customs have greatly changed since the old time when households were wisely ruled and very simply ordered, is no advantage to the general social community. We may, if we choose,—(and we very often do so choose,) fly from one desire to another and thence to satiety, and back again from satiety to desire, but we shall never, in such pursuit, find the peace engendered by simplicity of life, or the love and lasting joy inspired by that honourable confidence in one another’s best and noblest attributes, which should frankly and openly set the seal on friendship, and make Hospitality a glad duty as well as a delight. “Old-fashioned” as it may be, no new fashion can ever replace it.