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Hospitality

Hospitality image
Parent Issue
Day
18
Month
November
Year
1864
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

The home education is incomplete nuless it iuoludes the idea of hospitality and eharity. Hospitality. is a biblical and apostolic virtue, and not so often recoinmended in Holy Writ without reason. Hospitality is much neglected in America, lor the veiy reasons tonched npon above. We have received ' our ideas of propriety and elegance of living from old 09 un tries, where labor is cluap, where domestic serviceis a well underslood, )iirraan(jnt occupation, adoptcd cheer'ully for hfe, and where, of course, there s such a subdivisión of labor as insures rreat thoroughness in all ils branches. We ure ishamed or afraid to conform honestly to a state of things )urely Ainorican. We have not vet aecornplisbed what nur friend the doctor calis " our weanitig," and learned that dinners with circuitous courses, and divers other continental an 1 English ra ineinents, well enough in their way, can iot be accf mplisbed in families with two or three untrained servants, without an expende of care and anxicty which makea them heart-withering to the delicatt; wite, and too severo a trial to occur often. America is a land of subdivided fortunes, of a general average of wealth and comfort., and there ought to be, therefore, au urdeistanding in the social basis far more simple thau in the Old Woild. Many fanilies of small fortunes know this - tlny are quieily living so - but they have not the steadiness to share their datly average living with a friend, a truveler, or a guost, ju--t as the Arub shares bis tont and the Indiiin bis bowl of' succotash. They can not have company, they say. VVhy ? J5ecauso it ip 8ich a fuss to get out the best thinjis ? Why not give your frieud bat he would like a thousand times better, a bit of your average home life, a seat at any time at your board, a seat at your fire ? If he sees that tuere is a batidle off your teacup, and tbat there is a crack aoross ouo of your platos, he on'y thinks, witti a sigh of relief, " Well, mine aint the only things that meet with accidenta," and he feels nearer to you ever after ; he will let you come to h s table and Boe the cracks iu his tea-cups, and you will condole with each othnr on the transient nature of earthly possessions. If it be come apparent in these entirely undiessed rehear8iils that ynur clüldren are scmiotimes diíorderly, and that your cook sometimes overdoes the moat, and that your second girl is sometimes awkv;ird in waiting, or bas forgotton a table propriety, your friend only feels, "Ah, well, other people have trials as well as I," and he thinks, if you come to gee him, be shall feel easy witb you. -

Article

Subjects
Old News
Michigan Argus