tality has been reduced to a very complete way to repay him, but am never to lose an system; which, though elastic enough to opportunity for the expression of my gratiadmit of variations to suit the ever chang- tude. If you give to your friend the use of ing methods and means of social life, has at your house, and feed him from your table the back of all certain fixed rules that both for a certain length of time, and set it down host and guest are bound to respect. In as a debt to be discharged by him in a like this country we have equal, indeed I believe manner at some future time, you do not greater heartiness of hospitality, but we treat him as well as you treat the tramp lose much of its good effect by certain false whom you feed on your door-step. notions, and a careless disregard of mutual Hospitality can never reach its highest rights. The Americans, says a French development in America till it is freed of journalist of note, “are a people who pour the taint of our national sin—ostentation. themselves out like water; they waste them- Whether we entertain as a nation or as in. selves in their violent attempts to be cour- dividuals we disturb the order of our lives, teous. They heap their civilities upon a man not that our guest may be comfortable, but until his back is well-nigh broken with the that he may be impressed with our material burden ; to make a man happy they fing prosperity. If an Emperor or a Prince ever their efforts at his head like paving stones. visits our shores, we cast him into a maelThey do it all so spontaneously withal that strom of sight-seeing that drags him away one caimot help but feel a sense of gratitude from what is best and most beautiful, and cropping up through his discomfort; and ‘nost orderly in our national life. We that to repel their cruel good intentions, make bim dance in halls less beautiful than would be contemptible.” There is a good his own halls; eat at dinners not as well deal of exaggeration in this expression of cooked as his own home dinners; review opinion, but there is a good deal of truth at troops that are but a travesty of his own the bottom of it. We often over-do our armies, and worst of all, make him listen to hospitality, as we over-do many of our speeches that have more sound than sense, social undertakings; and make a burden and more words than wisdom. Now and then for a man when we intend to provide a

a visitor rebels against this kind of treatpleasure. The one cardinal principle of ment, and persists in quietly studying our hospitality is to do much for our guest, institutions. That wise ruler, Dom Pedro, without seeming to do anything requiring a cared far more to see how we managed our special effort on our own part. The stranger national industries, how we cared for our within our gates should be made to feel poor and our criminals, and how we eduperfectly at ease, without any apparent cated our children than to listen to the fuleffort on the part of the host. We should some platitudes of chronic after-dinner babnot seem to put our guests under an obliga- blers, or to see how well our women looked tion to us ;-when hospitality is reduced to and danced at a ball, or to have a visible a mere matter of exchange of civilities—so demonstration of how many butchers and many weeks' board at my house to be repaid bakers and candlestick-makers we could get by an equivalent attention from you—it to don tawdry uniforms, and march about ceases to be hospitality and becomes a our streets. Within a score of years the mere matter of barter; a thing that be- whole country has had two spasms of gay longs to trade and not to friendship. Of madness over the visits of two sons of Eucourse, I do not mean to say that there is not ropean rulers. Those who remember these something of mutual benefit in all hospital- visits will not be likely to contradict me ity, but it is a thing to be put one side and when I say that neither the Prince of wholly lost sight of, so far as the host is Wales nor the Grand Duke Alexis gained himself concerned, and on the part of the as much knowledge of the real strength guest to be set down to gratitude and not and the solid resources of the country, as obligation. If I am entertained by some he could have gathered from a careful friend I am not to rack my brains for a reading of any half-dozen reliable books on

a

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those subjects. We did not of course dazzle food and a downy bed, but the host hides them with our troops or our civic celebra- away the best part of himself beneath a tions, or befool them into the belief that cloak of pretension, and has a contempt for they saw us in our normal condition; they himself for doing so. knew they were seeing America under ex- The truly hospitable man should never ceptional circumstances, and though they be so much himself as when he has a guest were bound to be civil, and treat our good in the house. Our best self should be the intentions with respect, they would probably home self, and there should be no guest in much rather have been left more to their our houses who does not love us for what own inclinations, and less at the mercy of the home self reveals in us. When the reception and entertaiument committees. friend crosses your threshold, forget what In more ways than one we did these young you have or have not to give him in the scions of royalty a moral wrong, and would way of material comforts, and let your have been equally guilty toward Dom whole soul go out in a benediction of wel. Pedro if he had no: had the moral courage

Do less than this and you will give to resent being made the central figure in a your friend a heart chill as he enters in. show. The Grand Duke Alexis and the O, the pang of going to visit some dear old Prince of Wales came to study the country friend, perhaps a college chum or a playand its institutions; and we robbed them of mate of your childhood, and finding your. the possibility of doing so. They came to self among strangers ! To find the well at study us as a people, and we immediately which we have drunk many a draught of put away from them all that was best in sweetest familiar intercourse all frozen over our republican life, and instead of standing that is disappointment indeed. We put before them in dignified simplicity, we out our hand to grasp a hand that "lang arrayed ourselves in faunting rags of osten- syne" we have held warınly and lovingly tation.

in ours, and we find it gloved in mail. We And what is true of our national hospi- enter a house where we expect to find weltality is true to a great measure in the come, and we find formality. We strive to hospitality of our homes. We make an in- stay our time out, and then go home with a novator of our guest. Who has not made heavy heart, very sure that the world is hola visit when he has felt that his presence low, and our most cherished doll stuffed created a revolution in the whole domestic with the most unmistakable saw-dust. Our economy. We think we hide the effort, but old friend, whom we have loved and honthe guest knows if the whole establishment ored and laughed and joked with, has given is sustaining an immense and unnecessary us the best that his upholsterer and his strain to provide for his entertainment. butcher and his servants could furnish; but The family comforts are entirely hidden; of his own self we have found nothing but and the “company”

discomforts a lay figure. Such visits occur everywhere paraded everywhere. The guest feels as if and every day, and never without doing a the house had been especially “swept and moral wrong to all concerned. There is garnished for him ;” and to carry out the discomfort for the host, discomfort for the suggestion of the quotation, that he is very guest, discomfort for the housewife. The much like an evil spirit entered into it. host thinks less of himself, the guest thinks The host does himself a wrong and does less kindly of his host, and the housewife is the guest a wrong.

The guest is put in the made to bear a burden of extra care for no position of one whose delight is in a glazed praiseworthy purpose. formality; and the host, deprived of his True hospitality has nothing obtrusive or comfortably worn fire-side chair, his slip- intrusive about it. It is as hearty and shod slippers and his easy dressing-gown, spontaneous as a kiss. He is the best host finds himself playing a part that gives him who knows how to take away from the no pleasure. The guest is given plenty of heart of his guest the feeling that he is plate, elegantly appointed rooms, choice being entertained. A guest can never feel

are

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quite at ease when he knows that he is social plans for your entertainment are only expected to play the principal part in a arranged after your own will and inclinapageant especially prepared for him. We tion are consulted. There is about English verify the Frenchman's opivion, already society a barrier of reserve; but that once mentioned, by undertaking too much for broken over, you are in the midst of the our guests. The tired literary man goes to easiest and most delightful social system. visit at the house of a friend, and he finds The sense of freedom in an English country that a dinner party has been arranged for house is charming. You shoot, you drive, him on the very first night of his arrival, you walk, you join the other guests or reand before the fatigue of his journey has main in your room, as you like; and the worn off. He is expected to be beaming whole establishment is pervaded with an and lovable before a circle of people who atmosphere of country rest such as one exare almost entire strangers to him. He pects to find only in the family. You are, feels that he is put very much at a disad- indeed, for the time being adopted into the vantage, but there is no escape for him. family, to share all its comforts and joys, He tries to be brilliant, with the conscious- while you are left free of all family perplex. ness of being silly sitting heavily upon him. ities. Between host and guest there is an He tosses about all the night afterward honest recognition of individual rights and by the nightmare of his conversational fail- preferences, and the sense of personal freeure grievously tormented. The next morn- dom has so bracing an effect that the best ing there is a gathering at breakfast, and social points of both are brought out to a afterwards a drive and the sights of the remarkable degree. Yet all their easy soneighborhood to be gone over. On general cial courtesy is governed by certain social principles he hates sight-seeing, but cannot laws as unvarying as the laws of the Medes say so. In the afternoon there is another din- and Persians. It is to a large degree the ner at the house of some hospitable neigh- result of these laws, and until we adopt a bor, and perhaps a concert or some other similar code, we cannot have anything like entertainment in the evening. The quiet a complete social system. hour with his old friend becomes next to In America, hospitality is left too largely an impossibility. He longs for a little rest, to chance. We make visits when we feel for the ineffable sweetness of being left like it, or find it most convenient to do so, alone; but such a boon is denied him. In and think we have done our whole duty in some houses he might as well long for the the matter if we write a line and say we are moon. Willy-nilly he must be entertained, going—“if agreeable and convenient,”—as and so he drags through the weary days of if the two conditions went necessarily tohis visit and is glad when it is over. Some gether.

In England it is considered the of my readers will say that I am arguing height of ill-breeding to go anywhere uninfrom exceptions ; but I will venture to say vited; even intimate friends do not consider that every one who reads these pages will themselves absolved from this rule. In remember more than one such visit that he England the terms of an invitation, too, are or she has made, and will agree with me made very definite. You are asked to come when I say that there is not one host in at a certain time, and the limit of your stay fifty who knows how to entertain his guests is indicated. When your time is up you without more or less of the restraint and are expected to go away, and to consider discomfort of formality.

the host's invitation to prolong your stayIn France and in England they manage supposing he gives you one—as a mere pothe matter of entertainment better than lite form to which under ordinary circumwe do. The Englishman who invites you stances you must return an equally polite to his house makes his home your castle; but more sincere negative. How often a and the Frenchman whose guest you are whole American household is thrown into has so much social tact that he puts you at a spasm of disarrangement by a prolonged ease at once. In both countries all the visit. Mr. Smith comes for a week, and Jones comes,

Mrs. Jones is invited for the next week; or The obligation to be hospitable is a sacred the cook has given her notice of leaving, or one, emphasized by every moral code kuown a house-cleaning campaign has been plan- to the world, and a practical outcome of ned. When Mr. Smith's week is up he the second great commandment. concludes to stay another week, and Mrs. There should never be

guest in the and there is only one bed-room house whose presence requires any considfor both, or Mr. Smith and Mrs. Jones may erable change in the domestic economy. be uncongenial spirits, or the cook does leave, However much the circumstances of busior the house-cleaning has to be put over; ness or mutual interests may demand in and so it happens that Mr. Smith put every- entertaining a stranger, he should never be body to a world of trouble, and when he taken into the family circle unless he is does go you speed his going with a degree known to be wholly worthy of a place in of heartiness not consistent with the spirit that sanctum sanctorum of social life; but of hospitality, and are extremely careful when once a man is admitted to the home how you invite him again. Why, I can fireside he should be treated as if the place count a score of men and women among my had been his always. acquaintances that have visited away their The fact of an invitation gives neither friendship, simply because they hadn't the host or guest the right to be master of the good sense to go home when the designated other's time, and does not require even a limit of their visit was reached.

temporary sacrifice of one's entire iudividuIn this paper I have not spoken particu- ality or pursuits. larly of balls and parties, and such other A man should never be so much himself forms of entertainment as are wholly con- as when he entertains a friend. ventional. They are things that belong To stay at a friend's house beyond the only to the border land of hospitality, when time for which one is invited is to perpethe word is taken in its best sense. Every trate a social robbery. man must at sometime or other find it in To abide uninvited in a friend's house is the line of his duty to receive and entertain as much a misdemeanor as borrowing his his friends, but no man ever need give a coat without his permission. It is debasing ball or party. They are at best, for most the coin of friendship to mere dross when people, stupid things; handsome rooms a man attempts to make it pay his hotel turned into a millinery show, with a dash bills. of the florist's trade in the corners and on The fact of two men having the same the stairs; and a little further on, a pastry- occupation and nterests in lif gives to cook’s odorous display. Perhaps too, there neither a social right to the other's bed and is music-of anywhere least refining in a board. A traveling minister has no more place like this; but useful enough to drown right to go uninvited to a fellow-preacher’s the discordant voices of a crowd who strive house than a traveling shopkeeper or shoeto out-sound each other in empty social- maker has to go uninvited to the house of babble. That is not hospitality, but a his fellow craftsman. Men are ordained to comedy in which all concerned play parts the ministry as preachers, teachers and pasmore or less silly, and withal a fruitful field tors, and not as private hotel-keepers. for heart-burnings, envy, dyspepsia and some They who go into the country in summer score more of soul and body evils.

as uninvited guests of their farmer friends True hospitality is a thing that touches should be rated as social brigands, and the heart and never goes beyond the circle treated accordingly. of generous impulses. Entertainment with These few social maxims are by no means the truly hospitable man means more than to be taken as a complete code of laws. the mere feeding of the body; it means an Others quite as important will spring up interchange of soul gifts. Still it should out of the personal experience of every have its laws, as all things good must have reader of this article, and the justice and laws to govern them.

equity of all may be tested by that infallible standard of society—the Golden Rule. the fullest and most perfect measure of enThere can be no true hospitality that in tertainment to your neighbor if you have practice is a violation of this rule; and you done exactly as you would be done by. may safely rest assured that you have given

Wim. M. F. Round.

THE FAMOUS BLACKSMITH OF ANTWERP.

I.

fame for its reward. And beside all that, In the fifteenth century ? But what dif- a true artist is not so common a thing in ference does that make with a brave old Antwerp. Here, Vosterman!”-turning to city of the Netherlands ? A hundred years, a clerk,-—“run to the iron-dealer and say more or less, leave a light mark on such I must know what workman sent him the solid stuff as the Antwerpers built into rails I bought yesterday.” their wide straight streets, their burly Vosterman left the warehouse with a citadel, and their cathedral, famous even in measured step, for the run of an Antwerper famous days for its rare tall tower and is not what we are accustomed to on this magnificent walls. The city lay as fair side of the water, and the answer was as and rich on the blue breast of the Scheldt, in slow in coming back, for it took time in those days as to-day; while the wooden those days for the iron-dealer to send a shoes of the lace and carpet-weavers clat- message twenty miles from the city, and tered busily through the streets, a countless hear from the forge-master again. But it flock of white sails filled the harbor, or came at last. glided by canals into the city's heart, and “And a poor answer, too, after all the the long lace-trimmed waistcoat that every trouble thy master has taken, Vosterman,” rosy burgher wore was hardly deep enough said the iron-dealer. It seems God is not for the florins crowding in his purse. always pleased to show us a wonder when

Indeed, the weight of these purses seemed we think we have found one, and those almost the only serious trouble the Ant- marvelous rails were only made by a boy werpers knew in those days; ways and after all;—a mere boy of fourteen, who means must be found for relieving them; hammers at his master's forge like any and it was a lucky morning, one of the other blacksmith, when he cannot get leave rosiest of the burdened Burgomeister's to idle at some such piece of work as this. thought, when he spied a lot of iron-rails, Quintin Matsys is the child's name, but most skillfully and delicately wrought, that, of course, a citizen of thy master's awaiting sale.

state will hardly care to hear.” “ That is well; now I can have flowers “ Will he not indeed !” cried Herr Burgher, around my garden as well as in it,” said in double excitement when he heard. “QuinIIerr Burgher, and he bought them all; but tin Matsys, a boy of fourteen, made my rails? before they were fairly in their places, a Then let news be sent to Quintin Matsys to new determination took possession of him, appear here without delay, and I will find a for every study of the rails brought their master for him who shall let him “idle' to rare and exquisite designs more fully to his his heart's content, for one three months view.

at least! We will have one more famous “ Now this will never do!” said Herr artisan in Antwerp before many years!” Burgher again, who like many of his Ant- The second message set off at the same werp brothers needed his waistcoat large deliberate rate as the first, but when the for his heart as well as for his florins; twenty miles were passed at last, it dropped “only the hand of a genius ever finished like a bombshell of excitement into the such work as this, and genius must have little mud-walled cottage near the forge.