to know the
best and the most suitable people in the town, and to be on such terms
with them that on short notice they will step across to help to entertain
such travellers as had come to Mr. Mnason's table. And it is an
excellent thing to be sure that when we are so invited we shall not only
get a good dinner, but also, as good "kitchen" with our dinner, good
company and good conversation. It is nothing short of a fine art to
gather together and to seat suitably beside one another good and suitable
people as Mr. and Miss Mnason did in their hospitable house that
afternoon. And then, as to the talk: let the host and the hostess
introduce the guests, and then let the guests introduce their own topics.
And as far as possible, in a city and a day like this, let our topics be
books rather than people. And let the books be the books that the guests
have read rather than those that the host and the hostess have read.
Books are a fine subject for a talk at table. Only, let great readers
order their learned and literary talk so as not to lead the less learned
into temptation. There is no finer exercise of fine feeling than to be
able to carry on a conversation about matters that other people present
are ignorant of, and at the same time to interest them, to set them at
ease, and to make them forget both you and themselves. I had a letter
the other day from an English Church clergyman, in which he tells me that
his bishop is coming this month to his vicarage for a kind of visitation
and retreat, and that they are to have William Law's _Characters and
Characteristics_ read aloud to them when the bishop and the assembled
clergy are at their meals. For my part, I would rather hear a good all-
round talk on that book by the bishop and his clergy after they had all
read the book over and over again at home. But such readings at
assembled meals have all along been a feature of the best fraternal life
in the Church of England and in some of the sister churches.

6. Now, after dining and supping repeatedly with garrulous old Gaius,
and with the all-but-silent Mr. Mnason, I have come home ruminating again
and again on this--that a good host, the best host, lets his guests talk
while he attends to the table. If the truth may even be whispered to
one's-self about a table that one has just left, Gaius did his best to
spoil his good supper by his own over-garrulity. It was good talk that
he entertained his waiting guests with, but