ainly let the board be spread,
and let the bed be dressed for the traveller, but let not the
emphasis of hospitality lie in these things. Honor to the house
where they are simple to the verge of hardship, so that there the
intellect is awake and reads the law of the universe, the soul
worships truth and love, honor and courtesy flow into all deeds."

If the American people had heeded such wise words as these the
old-fashioned virtue of hospitality would not have become so rare among
us. The "emphasis of hospitality" has been placed upon the material
things to such an extent that one hardly dares to invite his friend now,
unless it be to an elaborate feast; and the labor, to say nothing of the
expense, of preparing the elaborate feast is so great that more and more
we neglect to call our friends around us, and to bind their hearts to
ours by loving and tender ministrations.

Let us learn of Emerson the meaning of economy. He says:--

"Parched corn eaten to-day that I may have roast fowl to my dinner
Sunday is a baseness; but parched corn and a house with one
apartment, that I may be free of all perturbations, that I may be
serene and docile to what the mind shall speak, and quit and
road-ready for the lowest mission of knowledge or good-will, is
frugality for gods and heroes."

This was the sort of frugality that Thoreau practised in his hut on
Walden Pond, and it is a frugality which has made him famed throughout
the hero-worshipping world.

The charm of Emerson's home life lay largely in his manners, which were
simple, yet faultless. He greeted his friends with all the mildness and
serenity of the very god of repose, and induced in them that most
enjoyable sensation, a feeling of entire contentment with all the world.
No heat, no fret, no hurry, no great call to strenuous exertion to
appear well or make a fine impression. All was ease, calm, unstudied
attention to every little want, and talk fit for the noblest and the
best. He was an example of what he himself honored most.

"I honor that man whose ambition it is, not to win laurels in the
state or the army, not to be a jurist or a naturalist, not to be a
poet or a commander, but to be a master of living well, and to
administer the offices of master or servant, of husband, father,
and friend."

In all these relations Emerson shone resplendently, and in the
old-fashioned relation of