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Show uu iAN EDITORIAL BY FLORENCE DAVIES III! VXISH1XG HOSTESS "Memories .if a Hostess." is the title of a new book, which was promised, for the first of this month. One won-jders won-jders how many American women of today could have written it for the I announcement-, explain that it is tale-n i from the diaries of Mrs James T. i Fields, who entertained s great many I notable people fifty or sixty years ago "Probably very few of us could furnish fur-nish the materia! for such a volume. The truth Is that about the only people who could write a book like that today , are the stewards of our best clubs and tho managers of our best hotels and favorite tea rooms. i "Tin- Blilingses are going to bq in town next week." we nay; "those nice I people wo met at the lake last sum-;ltier, sum-;ltier, dear, dear, what shall we do?" 'Oh, well; let's take them over to the club." Or perhaps It's a hotel, and we' decide to meet John; who comet, straight from thr office, at the hotel for dinner; and then go to the theater. Perhaps a drive seems easier and a' dinner at a road house or tea room somewhere near town, any thing but I home and i homo dinner and the1 home life and fireside shared. "It's too much troublo," we explain I and there's nothing that an American! seems to hate more than that kind of "troubh " We an- long en the check hook and short on patience. John pays the bill and we eat around. I wonder if that isn't a mistake We women explain it by saying that n's s.i hard to get help nOw. If one has ii-. servants the home dinner Is tou much of an undertaking and if one has servants they objot. But that's all wrong, for there is all the difference between sharing a home diner with a friend and taking j him to a public eating place that there is between seeing him p.-isonally and sending your maid V tal-e a message. One give;, of tuseif the other only pays the bill. The fault is twofold In the first place we have tho wrong notion about what is necessary for the entertainment entertain-ment of guests; and in the second place we women folks make too muclij work of the ordinary meal under any circumstances. We must leavn more simple combinations. it wasn't the number f dinner courses which Mrs Fields provided for I er guests, or the stylish neyv way that she mixed the salad, which made her. hospitality shine for half a century. It was Just herself. Most women seem to forget that guests are only plain folks l.ko themselves, who eat. sleep, walk end talk just as we all do, and that in their own homes they welcome h pork chop for dinner occasionally or a plate of corn beef hash or even a warmed over meal in a perfectly human hu-man way. If once we had the courage to offer p ople simple entertainment embellished em-bellished with goo.l che. r and a warm A lc me. we might redls. over the real delights of hospitality and not leave nil the honors to be shared between the club steward and our husband S check book. |