Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/112

"Upper Ten" society,—is becoming, quite noticeably, very rude. Some of the so-called "smartest" women are notoriously very vulgar. Honesty, simplicity, sympathy, and delicacy of feeling are, or seem to be, as much out of date as the dainty poems of Robert Herrick, and the love-sonnets of Sir Philip Sidney. Time goes on, say the iconoclasts—and we must go with it—we must, if our hurrying civilization requires it, pass friends by with a cool nod, mock at the vices of the young, and sneer at the failings of the old;—we are all too busy to be courteous,—too much in a hurry grabbing gold to be kind, and much too occupied with ourselves to be thoughtful of others. So let us bury Hospitality decently once and for all, and talk no more about it! It was a grand old Virtue!—let us inter it with honour,—and cease to hold our funeral feasts and entertainments in its name. For, being dead, 'tis dead and done with,—and amid all our twentieth-century shams, let us at least drop, for shame, our base imitations of the great-souled splendid Grace that was meant to link our lives more sweetly together, to engender love, and to make home more home-like. For nowadays, few of us are simple and truthful enough in our lines of conduct even to understand Hospitality in its real meaning. "Between simple and noble persons,"—says a great philosopher—"there is always a quick intelligence; they recognize at sight; and meet on a better ground than the talents and skills they may chance to possess, namely, on sincerity and uprightness." Sincerity and uprightness are the very fibre and life-blood of true Hospitality. But the chief canon of modern society is hypocrisy,