it is desirable to ignore, and for this purpose, every lady must keep a “visiting list.” It is on these occasions that we take care to invite our country friends, especially if we have stayed a few weeks at their houses during the preceding summer.
The next question is as to the entertainment; and this would be a still more anxious affair than it is, if its form and extent were not in good measure prescribed by fashion. There are certainly must-haves, and may-haves, here as elsewhere; but the liberty of choice is not very extensive. If you do not provide the must-haves you are “mean,” of course; but it is only by adding the may-haves that you can hope to be elegant. The cost may seem formidable, perhaps; but it has been made matter of accurate computation, that one large party, even though it be a handsome one, costs less in the end than the habit of hospitality for which it is the substitute, so it is not worth while to flinch. We must do our “duty to society,” and this is the cheapest way.
Do you ask me if there are among us no old-fashioned people, who continue to invite their friends because they love them and wish to see them, offering only such moderate entertainment as may serve to promote social feeling? Yes, indeed! there are even some who will ask you to dine, for the mere pleasure of your company, and with no intention to astonish you or excite your envy! We boast that it was a lady of our city, who declined giving a large party to “return invitations,” saying she did not wish “to exhaust, in the prodigality of a night, the hospitality of a year.” Ten such could be found among us, we may hope; leaven enough, perhaps, to work out, in time, a change for the better in our social plan. Conversation is by no means despised, in some circles, even though it turn on subjects of moral or literary interest, and parlour music, which aims at no eclat, is to be heard sometimes among people who could afford to hire opera singers.
It must be confessed that the wholesale method of “doing up” our social obligations is a convenient one on some accounts. It prevents jealousy by placing all alike on a footing of perfect indifference. The apportionment of civilities is a very delicate matter. Really, in some cases, it is walking among eggs to invite only a
