HOSPITALITY

In my last chapter I was deploring the modern tendency of society to desert the country and cultivate London. And the reason why I deplore it is that all the educating influences of the Home are so infinitely weaker in the town than in the country. In a London home there is nothing to fascinate the eye. The contemplation of the mews and the chimney-pots through the back windows of the nursery will not elevate even the most impressible child. There is no mystery, no dreamland, no Enchanted Palace, no Bluebeard's Chamber, in a stucco mansion built by Cubitt or a palace of terracotta on the Cadogan estate. There can be no traditions of the past, no inspiring memories of virtuous ancestry, in a house which your father bought five years ago and of which the previous owners are not known to you even by name. "The Square" or "the Gardens" are sorry substitutes for the Park and the Pleasure-grounds, the Common and the Downs. Crossing-sweepers are a deserving folk, but you cannot cultivate those intimate relations with them which bind you to the lodge-keeper at home, or to the old women in the almshouses, or the octogenarian waggoner who has driven your father's team ever since he was ten years old. St. Peter's, Eaton Square, or All Saints, Margaret Street, may be beautifully ornate, and the congregation what Lord Beaconsfield called "brisk and modish"; but they can never have the romantic charm of the country church where you were confirmed side by side with the keeper's son, or proposed to the vicar's daughter when you were wreathing holly round the lectern.

Then, again, as regards social relations with friends and neighbours. "An emulous ostentation has destroyed hospitality." This I believe is absolutely true, and it is one of the worst changes which I have seen. I have already spoken of hospitality as practised in the country. Now I will say a word about hospitality in London.

Of course rich people always gave banquets from time to time, and these were occasions when, in Lord Beaconsfield's drolly vulgar phrase, "the dinner was stately, as befits the high nobility." They were ceremonious observances, conducted on the constitutional principle of "cutlet for cutlet," and must always have been regarded by all concerned in them, whether as hosts or guests, in the light of duty rather than of pleasure. Twenty people woke that morning with the impression that something was to be gone through before bedtime, which they would be glad enough to escape. Each of the twenty went to bed that night more or less weary and ruffled, but sustained by the sense that a social duty had been performed. Banquets, however, at the worst were only periodical events. Real hospitality was constant and informal.

"Come and dine to-night. Eight o'clock. Pot luck. Don't dress."

"My dear, I am going to bring back two or three men from the House. Don't put off dinner in case we are kept by a division."

"I am afraid I must be going back. I am only paired till eleven. Good-night, and so many thanks."

"Good-night; you will always find some dinner here on Government nights. Do look in again!"

These are the cheerful echoes of parliamentary homes in the older and better days of unostentatious entertaining, and those "pot luck" dinners often played an important part in political manoeuvre. Sir George Trevelyan, whose early manhood was passed in the thick of parliamentary society, tells us, in a footnote to "The Ladies in Parliament," that in the season of 1866 there was much gossip over the fact of Lord Russell having entertained Mr. Bright at dinner, and that people were constantly—

"Discussing whether Bright can scan and understand the lines
About the Wooden Horse of Troy; and when and where he dines.
Though gentlemen should blush to talk as if they cared a button
Because one night in Chesham Place he ate his slice of mutton."

Quite apart from parliamentary strategy, impromptu entertaining in what was called "a friendly way" had its special uses in the social system. There is a delicious passage in "Lothair" describing that hero's initiation into an easier and more graceful society than that in which he had been reared: "He had been a guest at the occasional banquets of his uncle, but these were festivals of the Picts and Scots; rude plenty and coarse splendour, with noise instead of conversation, and a tumult of obstructive dependants, who impeded by their want of skill the very convenience which they were purposed to facilitate." An amazing sentence indeed, but like all Lord Beaconsfield's writings, picturesquely descriptive, and happily contrasted with the succeeding scene: "A table covered with flowers, bright with fanciful crystal, and porcelain that had belonged to Sovereigns who had given a name to its colour or its form. As for those present, all seemed grace and gentleness, from the radiant daughters of the house to the noiseless attendants who anticipated all his wants, and sometimes seemed to suggest his wishes."

The mention of "Lothair" reminds people of my date that thirty years ago we knew a house justly famed for the excellent marriages which the daughters made. There banquets were unknown, and even dinners by invitation very rare. The father used to collect young men from Lord's, or the Lobby, or the Club, or wherever he had been spending the afternoon. Servants were soon dismissed—"It is such a bore to have them staring at one"—and the daughters of the house waited on the guests. Here obviously were matrimonial openings not to be despised; and, even in families where there were no ulterior objects to be served, these free-and-easy entertainings went on from February to July. Short invitations, pleasant company, and genuine friendliness were the characteristics of these gatherings. Very often the dinner was carved on the table. One could ask for a second slice or another wing without feeling greedy, and the claret and amontillado were within the reach of every guest. This, I consider, was genuine hospitality, for it was natural, easy, and unostentatious.

But now, according to all accounts, the spirit of entertaining is utterly changed. A dinner is not so much an opportunity of pleasing your friends as of airing your own magnificence; and ostentation, despicable in itself, is doubly odious because it is emulous. If A has a good cook, B must have a better. If C gave you ortolans stuffed with truffles, D must have truffles stuffed with ortolans. If the E's table is piled with strawberries in April, the F's must retaliate with orchids at a guinea a blossom. G is a little inclined to swagger about his wife's pearl necklace, and H is bound in honour to decorate Mrs. H with a riviÈre which belonged to the crown jewels of France.

And, as with the food and the decorations, so also with the company. Here, again, Emulous Ostentation carries all before it. Mr. Goldbug is a Yahoo, but he made his millions in South Africa and spends them in Park Lane. Lord Heath is the most abandoned bore in Christendom, but he is an authority at Newmarket. Lady Bellair has had a notoriously chequered career, but she plays bridge in exalted circles. As Lord Crewe sings of a similar enchantress—

"From reflections we shrink;
And of comment are chary;

But her face is so pink,
And it don't seem to vary."

However, she is unquestionably smart; and Goldbug is a useful man to know; and we are not going to be outdone by the Cashingtons, who got Heath to dine with them twice last year. So we invite our guests, not because we like them or admire them, for that in these cases is impossible; not—heaven knows—because they are beautiful or famous or witty; but because they are the right people to have in one's house, and we will have the right people or perish in the attempt.