All the tact and good breeding at the command of the hostess should be exercised, first in choosing, then in arranging, the guests to be present. Not too many are to be bidden to the ordinary dinner; six, eight and twelve are desirable numbers, and four frequently forms the cosiest party imaginable.
The reason of thus arranging for even numbers arises from the fact that, in a mixed dinner party, it is well to have as many ladies as gentlemen. The conversation will then be prevented from dropping into long, or heated, discussions, both of which are destructive of pleasure. It will also be found pleasant to invite the young, and those of more advanced years, together for an occasion of this sort.
Large parties may be made very enjoyable, but where there are more than eight or ten at table general conversation becomes impracticable. Twenty-four, and even thirty, guests, however, when well selected, may make a very brilliant and successful gathering. Too brilliant a conversationalist is not always a desirable acquisition, since he may silence and put in the shade the remainder of the company to an extent that is hardly agreeable even to the meekest among them.
A small dinner of one’s most intimate friends is easily arranged. An eminent artist, author, musician, to pose as chief guest, renders it always easy to select among one’s other acquaintances a sufficient number who would be pleased with, and pleasing to, this bright, particular star. Or, if it be a bride, or a woman of fashion, to whom the courtesy is to be extended, it is equally easy to find a sufficient number of guests of similar social standing and aspirations to make the occasion a success.
There is also the satisfaction of knowing that, as one cannot possibly invite all of one’s dear five hundred friends to a little dinner, no one can be offended at being left out, thus rendering it easy to choose one’s list to fit the circumstances.
Do not invite more guests than there is room to comfortably seat. Nothing so spoils a dinner as crowding the guests.
Seating the Guests.
Since, at no social entertainment are the guests so dependent upon one another for mutual entertainment as at a dinner, both by reason of its smallness and the compactness of arrangement, it will be seen that an equal care devolves upon the hostess in seating as in inviting her guests.
The most tedious of one’s friends can be tolerated at a party where it is possible to turn to others for relief, but to be chained for two or three hours, with the necessity upon you of talking, or trying to talk, to the same dull or conceited individual that the fates have unkindly awarded as your companion, is a severe social strain upon equanimity of soul.
Hence, each hostess should strive to so arrange her guests that like-minded people should be seated together, and people with hobbies should either be handed over to those likewise possessed, or into the hands of some sympathetic listener, thus securing the pleasure of all.