p. 716 | Having Company

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 26, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 45.

Having Company.

AMERICAN housekeepers are apt to lose much of the enjoyment which comes from having guests in the home from making too much of the circumstance. Would there not be a gain in social enjoyment if the following hints were more generally regarded?

Let us not alter our dress or our mode of life because friends have come. If our clothes and our table, our manners and our habits, are what we judge fit for our means and our position, why should we improve them and give ourselves the needless confusion of change, just when we should be free to offer our guests the easy minds and ready thoughts which are much more important to them than seeing our best gowns or the unhomelike parlor in which we do not usually sit? Of course we give our best to our visitors. If flowers, fruit, a drive, or a concert, are rare luxuries with us, we naturally try to have them when we can share them with those under our roof to whom they are also luxuries, or, perhaps, daily pleasures. But let us give our real best, and not mistake our worse for it. Let us give cordiality and ease, not stiffness and pretense.

If a friend comes in upon a homely or scanty dinner, let us eke it out with bread and butter or a jar of canned fruit, and say nothing in depreciation. I remember hearing Agassiz tell of a visit he paid one day to Oken, the great naturalist, then living in some little village in Germany. The two men spent the entire morning in talk so interesting that time passed unob-

served. When they were called to dinner, there was upon the table literally nothing but a large dish of boiled potatoes, and salt. No remark was made; all sat down and were helped. "And," said Agassiz, his noble face glowing with genial pleasure at the recollection, "never in my life did I eat a better dinner."

When our occupations are such as can be seen and shared, let us admit our guests to them. This will make our intercourse fresh and natural, like that of young people and children, who fall into each other's ways instinctively. And we, in return, must adopt the hopes and fears, the wishes and curiosities of our guests, enrich our hearts by new sympathies, our lives by thoughts and feelings outside our immediate circle, and thus it may often prove that both the entertained and the entertainers have been to each other angels unawares.—Good Housekeeping.