150 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



HOSPITALITY. 



MISS MARGARET J. EVANS, NORTHFIELD. 



The very word is like a bell, not to toll us, like Keats' word 

 "forlorn," back from the ideal to the real, but to charm open to us 

 the realm of beauty in the practical world ; a word like the famous 

 "Mesopotamia," with the utterance of which, it is said, a fervid 

 orator could bring tears from any audience. 



Of hospitality Moses and other sacred and profane historians 

 have written; prophets have commended it; apostles enjoined it; 

 poets lauded it ; minstrels sung it ; the nobles of all ages from 

 Abraham to^ the honored hostess of today have practiced it. 



Hospitality graces all who offer it. Milton could think of no 

 greater charm to give to his heroine Eve than : 

 * * >ic * ^- ;ic * ^: i.jj^ haste 

 She turns, on hospitable thoughts intent." 



Shakespeare could add no truer touch to depict an ignoble 

 nature than his : 



"My master is of churlish disposition 

 And little recks to find the way to heaven 

 By doing deeds of hospitality." 



One of the greatest commendations of Scripture is : "I was 

 a stranger, and ye took me in." 



Hospitality, like the hunger of which George MacDonald writes, 

 has its many phases, its great stairs of ascent from the child's "Come 

 into my playhouse," up the white steps to the glorious hospitality 

 of that home whose entrance portal is one pearl and whose many 

 mansions lack never the welcoming "Come, ye blessed." But it is 

 only the practical phases of hospitality in the home which may claim 

 our thoughts today. 



The function of hospitality is to take others into our homes, 

 our minds, our hearts, our very souls, as welcome guests there — 

 and thereby give them profit or pleasure. Its means are a home 

 and a hospitable spirit. Whoever has these has the means, indeed 

 all the absolute requisites, of hospitality. The home may be only 

 like that of which Charles Warren Stoddard speaks in his ''South 

 Sea Idylls/' "A hut, woven like a wild bird's, of canes and grasses 

 and hung with pungent herbs," and yet be, like that home, ideal 

 in its hospitality. There he found the home spirit and a heart}' 

 welcome, since the invitation was extended to the traveller at the 

 first meeting of the eyes : "There is my home and yours also," 

 and "the only sorrow in the home was that the guest couldn't eat 

 every hour," 



