Gilded Age Etiquette of Hospitality

Let us clear the ground by fairly acknowledging that to have visitors in one’s house demands the sacrifice of our leisure, our attention, our little personal “ways” that are so dear to us, and that notwithstanding the exquisite pleasure of close intercourse that often comes to us in this way alone, a large part of our care as hosts is spent upon people who are only moderately interesting to us, and sometimes upon those who require our utmost patience and indulgence to put up with them at all. I am speaking of prolonged visits, and not of special banquets, when fatigue will sometimes so overpower every other sensation, that we shamefacedly sympathize with the poor hostess who flung herself back in her chair after the door closed, with “Thank heaven, they're all stuffed and gone!” and shudder with her at the squeaking voice from the corner where a little old lady was still putting on her overshoes, “All stuffed, my dear, but not all gone!” 

Wealthy or Poor… 

A Lovely Fire-Light on the Hearth of Home-Keeping

As we all feel: Our houses are hardly our own till we share them. Who does not celebrate the taking possession of a new dwelling by calling his friends together to rejoice with him in its beauty and comfort, as if no mere material fires were enough for a true house-warming without that glow and radiance which, shining from sympathetic hearts and eyes, vivifies every nook and corner of the new habitation, and transforms what was mere carpenters’ and masons’ work into that heaven’s vestibule, a how, in which the happy owners feel themselves at once masters and servants, priests and hosts, always busy and yet infinitely at rest? And what house has not its “spare room,” its guest chamber, sacred to those whom love, duty, or compassion invite to its shelter? Hospitality is one of the primal instincts of man. Nor is it only an instinct. It is a virtue, and sometimes a very lofty one. It is most touching among the poor, most graceful in the rich, and most difficult in the middle classes. 

To receive guests has been the pride of the English noble, the religion of the Arab, the amusement of the country squire, the sign of brotherhood among pioneers, the polite show of the Chinese, the joy of children, the delight and terror of young wives, and the duty, performed with a varying mixture of pleasure and fatigue, of the average American. If there are any thoughts by which the pleasure can be made more and the fatigue less to our own country men, and especially countrywomen, for it is upon these that the care and labor chiefly come, let us consider them. 

Let us clear the ground by fairly acknowledging that to have visitors in one’s house demands the sacrifice of our leisure, our attention, our little personal “ways” that are so dear to us, and that notwithstanding the exquisite pleasure of close intercourse that often comes to us in this way alone, a large part of our care as hosts is spent upon people who are only moderately interesting to us, and sometimes upon those who require our utmost patience and indulgence to put up with them at all. I am speaking of prolonged visits, and not of special banquets, when fatigue will sometimes so overpower every other sensation, that we shamefacedly sympathize with the poor hostess who flung herself back in her chair after the door closed, with “Thank heaven, they're all stuffed and gone!” and shudder with her at the squeaking voice from the corner where a little old lady was still putting on her overshoes, “All stuffed, my dear, but not all gone!” 

I am thinking of visits within the range of the formal three days, “the rest day, the drest day, and the prest day,” and three weeks, after which time a visitor becomes as one of the family, and, granting the unavoidable trials and inconven iences of company to a household of moderate means, behind and deeper than all these lies the happy consciousness of a home to which others can be asked, of the opportunity of giving, the joy of serving, the privilege of showing attention, and offering kindness and comfort, the stirring, in short, of the old native instinct of hospitality, which puts firm ground under our feet and stamps our invi tations with that genuine honesty without which they are not worth the paper they are written on. With these feelings uppermost, lightening all the air, cordial will be the welcome, and sweet the atmosphere. And let us not make such a circumstance of company. 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 the theatre 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 worst for it. Let us give cordiality and ease, not stiffness and pretence. 

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 deprecation. 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 unobserved. 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.”

And let us take our visitors into our confidence. I do not mean as to our little worries or greater griefs, still less as to our private opinions of each other, which belong only to the communion of perfect intimacy, although they are frequently served as a garnish to general conversation, but as to the way we live and pass our time. 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 angels to each other unawares.— Mary E. Dewey, 1895

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