The host has a sort of judicial function in this way. The guest has a right to look to him for protection on certain occasions, and he is likely to be profoundly grateful when it is given with tact and skill, because the host can say things for him that he cannot even hint at for himself. Suppose the case of a young man who is treated with easy and rather contemptuous familiarity by another guest, simply on account of his youth. He is nettled by the offence, but as it is more in manner than in words he cannot fix upon anything to answer. The host perceives his annoyance, and kindly gives him some degree of importance by alluding to some superiority of his, and by treating him in a manner very different from that which had vexed him.
A witty host is the most powerful ally against an aggressor. I remember dining in a very well-known house in Paris where a celebrated Frenchman repeated the absurd old French calumny against English ladies,—that they all drink. I was going to resent this seriously when a clever Frenchwoman (who knew England well) perceived the danger, and answered the man herself with great decision and ability. I then watched for the first opportunity of making him ridiculous, and seized upon a very delightful one that he unwittingly offered. Our host at once understood that my attack was in revenge for an aggression that had been in bad taste, and he supported me with a wit and pertinacity that produced general merriment at the enemy’s expense. Now in that case I should say that the host was filling one of the most important and most difficult functions of a host.
This Essay has hitherto been written almost entirely on the guest’s side of the question, so that we have still briefly to consider the limitations to his rights.
He has no right to impose any serious inconvenience upon his host. He has no right to disturb the ordinary arrangements of the house, or to inflict any serious pecuniary cost, or to occupy the host’s time to the prejudice of his usual pursuits. He has no right to intrude upon the privacy of his host.
A guest has no right to place the host in such a dilemma that he must either commit a rudeness or put up with an imposition. The very courtesy of an entertainer places him at the mercy of a pushing and unscrupulous guest, and it is only when the provocation has reached such a point as to have become perfectly intolerable that a host will do anything so painful to himself as to abandon his hospitable character and make the guest understand that he must go.
It may be said that difficulties of this kind never occur in civilized society. No doubt they are rare, but they happen just sufficiently often to make it necessary to be prepared for them. Suppose the case of a guest who exceeds his invitation. He has been invited for two nights, plainly and definitely; but he stays a third, fourth, fifth, and seems as if he would stay forever. There are men of that kind in the world, and it is one of their arts to disarm their victims by pleasantness, so that it is not easy to be firm with them. The lady of the house gives a gentle hint, the master follows with broader hints, but the intruder is quite impervious to any but the very plainest language. At last the host has to say, “Your train leaves at such an hour, and the carriage will be ready to take you to the station half an hour earlier.” This, at any rate, is intelligible; and yet I have known one of those clinging limpets whom even this proceeding failed to dislodge. At the approach of the appointed hour he was nowhere to be found! He had gone to hide himself in a wood with no companion but his watch, and by its help he took care to return when it was too late. That is sometimes one of the great uses of a watch.
ESSAY VIII.
THE DEATH OF FRIENDSHIP.