194 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



thought. Some of us need the intellectual enlivening of reading 

 circles, study classes or clubs, where some topic, book or phase 

 of philanthropy will give subject for research, thought and con- 

 versation. Is it true, as has been written to me, that many such 

 clubs would be formed among country women were it not for the 

 burden of refreshments laid upon the hostess of the day? One 

 club at least in one of our larger Minnesota towns is suffering 

 from that same burden. But scores of clubs flourish without even 

 the symbolic cup of tea to suggest physical needs. A recent letter 

 says : "I know of a club of ten members that met weekly for four- 

 teen years, and there was never a sign of refreshments at any of 

 their meetings, and the members can testify to enjoying the meet- 

 ings much better than if they had felt the responsibility of always 

 seeing that something to eat was provided." 



The country home, like the city home, gives true hospitality 

 when it gives itself for an afternoon or evening without an offer- 

 ing to the palate. Groups of women in my neighborhood might 

 find great profit in little reading circles if the really hospitable 

 thought of giving the personality of the home instead of food pre- 

 vailed. 



An Englishman objected to American dinners on the ground 

 that the first course was always "roast hostess." The hostess of all 

 little reading circles where refreshments are to be provided would 

 be sure to be an abstracted listener before they were served, and a 

 distracted one later. 



The great gift of hospitality is that of the personality of the 

 home, that which makes it different from all others, that of letting 

 our books, our furniture, our belongings speak their own message 

 to our guests. It is the gift of ourselves in our best thoughts, 

 our views of life, our impressions of what we have read, our high- 

 est aspirations. Such hospitality receives honor from those who 

 share it. Samuel Rogers' long poems have been forgotten, but 

 the table talks of his breakfasts have perennial charm. The echoes 

 of the spirited discussions on great subjects in the evenings of 

 Charles and Mary Lamb give today melody which the Elia essays 

 or the Tales from Shakespeare do not excel. 



The oak and the linden or basswood may well speak their myth 

 to us. When two weary travellers, refused hospitality at all other 

 doors, were received into^ the poor hut of Baucis and Philemon in 

 old Phrygia, upon the broken table the olives and wild berries and 

 eggs cooked in the ashes, they were pleased as heartily as if they had 

 furnished a feast and as if the earthenware dishes and wooden 

 cups were daintiest china. But when the poor wine, as fast as it 



