Myriads of people have no ear for music and derive but little pleasure
from sweet sounds. Strange as it may appear, many gifted and sensitive
mortals have been unable to distinguish one note from another, Apollo’s
harmonious art remaining for them, as for the elder Dumas, only an
“expensive noise.”
Another large class find it impossible to discriminate between colors.
Men afflicted in this way have even become painters of reputation. I
knew one of the latter, who, when a friend complimented him on having
caught the exact shade of a pink toilet in one of his portraits,
answered, “Does that dress look pink to you? I thought it was green!”
and yet he had copied what he saw correctly.
Both these classes are to be pitied, but are not the cause of much
suffering to others. It is annoying, I grant you, to be torn asunder in
a collision, because red and green lights on the switches combined into a
pleasing harmony before the brakeman’s eyes. The tone-deaf gentleman who
insists on whistling a popular melody is almost as trying as the lady
suffering from the same weakness, who shouts, “Ninon, Ninon, que fais-tu
de la vie!” until you feel impelled to cry, ”Que faites-vous, madame,
with the key?”
Examinations now keep daltonic gentlemen out of locomotives, and ladies
who have lost their “keys” are apt to find their friends’ pianos closed.
What we cannot guard against is a variety of the genus _homo_ which
suffers from “social color-blindness.” These well-meaning mortals form
one of the hardest trials that society is heir to; for the disease is
incurable, and as it is almost impossible to escape from them, they
continue to spread dismay and confusion along their path to the bitter
end.
This malady, which, as far as I know, has not been diagnosed, invades all
circles, and is, curiously enough, rampant among well-born and apparently
well-bred people.
Why is it that the entertainments at certain houses are always dull
failures, while across the way one enjoys such agreeable evenings? Both
hosts are gentlemen, enjoying about the same amount of “unearned
increment,” yet the atmosphere of their houses is radically different.
This contrast cannot be traced to the dulness or brilliancy of the
entertainer and his wife. Neither can it be laid at the door of
inexperience, for the worst offenders are often old hands at the game.
The only explanation possible is that the owners of houses where one is
bored are socially color-blind, as cheerfully unconscious of their
weakness as the keyless lady and the whistling abomination.
Since increasing wealth has made entertaining general and lavish, this
malady has become more and more apparent, until one is tempted to parody
Mme. Roland’s dying exclamation and cry, “Hospitality! hospitility! what
crimes are committed in thy name!”
Entertaining is for many people but an excuse for ostentation. For
others it is a means to an end; while a third variety apparently keep a
debit and credit account with their acquaintances—in books of double
entry, so that no errors may occur—and issue invitations like receipts,
only in return for value received.
We can rarely tell what is passing in the minds of people about us. Some
of those mentioned above may feel a vague pleasure when their rooms are
filled with a chattering crowd of more or less well-assorted guests; if
that is denied them, can find consolation for the outlay in an indefinite
sensation of having performed a duty,—what duty, or to whom, they would,
however, find it difficult to define.
Let the novice flee from the allurements of such a host. Old hands know
him and have got him on their list, escaping when escape is possible; for
he will mate the green youth with the red frump, or like a premature
millennium force the lion and the lamb to lie down together, and imagine
he has given unmixed pleasure to both.
One would expect that great worldly lights might learn by experience how
fatal bungled entertainments can be, but such is not the case. Many
well-intentioned people continue sacrificing their friends on the altar
of hospitality year after year with never a qualm of conscience or a
sensation of pity for their victims. One practical lady of my
acquaintance asks her guests alphabetically, commencing the season and
the first leaf of her visiting list simultaneously and working steadily
on through both to “finis.” If you are an A, you will meet only A’s at
her table, with perhaps one or two B’s thrown in to fill up; you may sit
next to your mother-in-law for all the hostess cares. She has probably
never heard that the number of guests at table should not exceed that of
the muses; or if by any chance she has heard it, does not care, and
considers such a rule old-fashioned and not appropriate to our improved
modern methods of entertaining.
One wonders what possible satisfaction a host can derive from providing
fifty people with unwholesome food and drink at a fixed date. It is a
physical impossibility for him to have more than a passing word with his
guests, and ten to one the unaccustomed number has upset the internal
arrangements of his household, so that the dinner will, in consequence,
be poor and the service defective.
A side-light on this question came to me recently when an exceedingly
frank husband confided to a circle of his friends at the club the scheme
his wife, who, though on pleasure bent, was of a frugal mind, had adopted
to balance her social ledger.
“As we dine out constantly through the year,” remarked Benedict, “some
return is necessary. So we wait until the height of the winter season,
when everybody is engaged two weeks in advance, then send out our
invitations at rather short notice for two or three consecutive dinners.
You’d be surprised,” he remarked, with a beaming smile, “what a number
refuse; last winter we cancelled all our obligations with two dinners,
the flowers and entrées being as fresh on the second evening as the
first! It’s wonderful!” he remarked in conclusion, “how simple
entertaining becomes when one knows how!” Which reminded me of an
ingenious youth I once heard telling some friends how easy he had found
it to write the book he had just published. After his departure we
agreed that if he found it so easy it would not be worth our while to
read his volume.
Tender-hearted people generally make bad hosts. They have a way of
collecting the morally lame, halt, and blind into their drawing-rooms
that gives those apartments the air of a convalescent home. The moment a
couple have placed themselves beyond the social pale, these purblind
hosts conceive an affection for and lavish hospitality upon them. If
such a host has been fortunate enough to get together a circle of healthy
people, you may feel confident that at the last moment a leper will be
introduced. This class of entertainers fail to see that society cannot
he run on a philanthropic basis, and so insist on turning their salons
into hospitals.
It would take too long to enumerate the thousand idiosyncrasies of the
color-blind; few, however, are more amusing than those of the impulsive
gentlemen who invite people to their homes indiscriminately, because they
happen to feel in a good humor or chance to be seated next them at
another house,—invitations which the host regrets half an hour later, and
would willingly recall. “I can’t think why I asked the So-and-sos!” he
will confide to you. “I can’t abide them; they are as dull as the
dropsy!” Many years ago in Paris, we used to call a certain hospitable
lady’s invitations “soup tickets,” so little individuality did they
possess.
The subtle laws of moral precedence are difficult reading for the most
intelligent, and therefore remain sealed books to the afflicted mortals
mentioned here. The delicate tact that, with no apparent effort,
combines congenial elements into a delightful whole is lacking in their
composition. The nice discrimination that presides over some households
is replaced by a jovial indifference to other persons’ feelings and
prejudices.
The idea of placing pretty Miss Débutante next young Strongboys instead
of giving her over into the clutches of old Mr. Boremore will never enter
these obtuse entertainers’ heads, any more than that of trying to keep
poor, defenceless Mrs. Mouse out of young Tom Cat’s claws.
It is useless to enumerate instances; people have suffered too severely
at the hands of careless and incompetent hosts not to know pretty well
what the title of this paper means. So many of us have come away from
fruitless evenings, grinding our teeth, and vowing never to enter those
doors again while life lasts, that the time seems ripe for a protest.
If the color-blind would only refrain from painting, and the tone-deaf
not insist on inviting one to their concerts, the world would be a much
more agreeable place. If people would only learn what they can and what
they can’t do, and leave the latter feats alone, a vast amount of
unnecessary annoyance would be avoided and the tiresome old grindstone
turn to a more cheerful tune.