Part 7 (2/2)

Let Lord Beaconsfield have the last word, as is his due; for truly did he know and love his London

”It was aabout, but vanquished by the cheerful lamps, and the voice of the enial sound that calls up visions of trim and happy hearths If we could only so contrive our lives as to go into the country for the first note of the nightingale, and return to town for the first note of the ht be more enjoyable”

FOOTNOTES:

[21] Lord Beaconsfield, _Tancred_

[22] Written in May, 1910

[23] A nickname invented by the famous Eton tutor, ”Billy Johnson,” for a florid journalist

[24] Lord Beaconsfield, _Lothair_

[25] See M Arnold's Letters, May 15, 1880

[26] The Right Hon J W Lowther

[27] Sir George Trevelyan, _The Ladies in Parliament_

VIII

HOSPITALITY

”I never eat and I never drink,” said the Cardinal ”I am sorry to say I cannot I like dinner-society very s which you do not hear otherwise”

LORD BEACONSFIELD, _Lothair_

The Cardinal was enius for society, and thoroughly enjoyed such forh he could not dine with Mr Putney Giles, he went to Mrs Putney Giles's evening party, where he made an important acquaintance He looked in at Lady St Jerome's after dinner; and his visits to Vauxe and to Muriel Toere fraught with h a staunch Protestant, was delighted to receive a Cardinal, and not less so that he should nificent Lothair That is all in the course of nature; but what has always puzzled me is the ease hich a youth of no particular pretensions, arriving in London froe or from a country home, swims into society, and finds himself welcomed by people whose names he barely knows I suppose that in this, as inare good-natured wo related to one or two, and acquainted with three or four more; and each of them says to a friend who entertains--”My cousin, Freddy Du Cane, is a very nice fellow, and waltzes capitally Do send hihbour of ours in the country If ever you want an odd man to fill up a place at dinner, I think you will find him useful” Then there was in those days, and perhaps there is still, a reat powers of helping or hindering the social beginner They were bachelors, not very young; who had seen active service as dancers and diners for ten or twenty seasons; and who kept lists of eligible youths which they were perpetually renewing at White's or the Marlborough To one of these the intending hostess would turn, saying, ”Dear Mr Golightly, _do_ give ratiate hihtly, invitations to balls and dances, of every size and sort, would soon begin to flutter down on hi that he had never seen his host or hostess, nor they him Corney Grain expressed the situation in his own inireat ball-- And of all his suests he knew no one at all

Old Mr Parvenu went up to bed, And the guest said 'Good-night' to the butler instead”

But light co and cheerful and active, but it is a pleasure which, for nine men out of ten, soon palls Dinner-society, as Cardinal Grandison knew, is a htly attained

When Sydney Smith returned from a visit to Paris, he wrote, in the fulness of his heart:

”I care very little about dinners, but I shall not easily forget a _matelote_ at the 'Rochers de Cancale,' or an alnon's These are ies in future life can obliterate”

I aly opened, but I forbear; for it really has no special connexion with the retrospective vein I a the years 1876-1880, and dinners then were pretty un Those frightful hecatombs of sheep and oxen which Francatelli decreed hadtyranny of ”The Joint” was already under-days, where a belated haunch of venison cried aloud for decent burial; but such outrages were even then becone of which a poet had beautifully said:

”How sad and bad and mad it was, And Oh! hoeet!”