But when the thing has
been done, fully and guardedly at all points, it does not seem to have
been done for pleasure, either by the host or the guest. The dinner is
given in payment of another dinner; or out of ambition by people who are
striving to get forward in society; or by great social figures who give
regularly a certain number of dinners every season. In either case it is
eaten from motives at once impersonal and selfish. I do not mean to say
that I have not been at many dinners where I felt nothing perfunctory
either in host or guest, and where as sweet and gay a spirit ruled as at
any of our own simple feasts. Still, I think our main impression of
American hospitality would be that it was thoroughly infused with the
plutocratic principle, and that it meant business.
I am speaking now of the hospitality of society people, who number, after
all, but a few thousands out of the many millions of American people.
These millions are so far from being in society, even when they are very
comfortable, and on the way to great prosperity, if they are not already
greatly prosperous, that if they were suddenly confronted with the best
society of the great Eastern cities they would find it almost as strange
as so many Altrurians.
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