show our hospitality by inviting our friends to teas, to luncheons, to dinners.

Early Hospitality. It seems that hospitality, in early life, found expression in great feasting. Tribal chiefs gave great feasts in honour of some important event or to do homage to a visiting chief. The Greeks and Romans gave great banquets to which they invited everyone of importance. The Israelites had a simpler hospitality, but they too gave great feasts. And we know that the Egyptians always feasted in great halls, offering food to their gods before they themselves touched a morsel.

There is no doubt whatever that the Israelites were a hospitable people, and that others emulated their customs of hospitality.

And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. As one born in the land among you, shall be unto you the stranger that sojourneth with you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. (Leviticus XIX, 33, 34.)

We know from Homer's Iliad that the Greeks were great entertainers. There are descriptions of magnificent banquets and extravagant feasts. It appears that the Greeks gave feasts to celebrate all important events in their lives births, marriages, holidays, victories in warfare; and practically everyone was invited.

The Roman feasts were greater than any, because they had the food products which enabled them to give great feasts. What they lacked they usually sent for, and their messengers went far and wide to obtain choice fruits and viands. The Romans were noted for their hospitality. Nothing was too rich or too costly for the entertainment of their guests. They had elaborate tables, beautiful ewers and drinking vessels. They appear to have been highly advanced in the art of entertaining.

The Egyptians of 4000 years ago were fond of dinnergiving as a form of entertainment. We are told that their dinners lasted several hours, and that both men and women

were invited, which was an unusual thing. In early life women did not usually attend feasts or dinners with the men. Dining couches and small tables were provided, and the guests regaled themselves with geese, game, fish, bread, and wine. During the progress of the meal household slaves stood behind the guests waving ostrich plumes.

This luxurious type of hospitality and entertainment lasted for many generations among those people who could afford it. The lower classes knew no hospitality in the sense of feasting. They shared their bread when they had bread. They celebrated their marriages and births

GUESTS SEATED IN CHARS ARE BEING SERVED WITH FOOD AND DRINK AND ADORNED WITH ORNAMENTS BOTH MEN AND WOMEN WEAR
COLLARS AND BRACELETS AND HAVE CONES OF FRAGRANT OINTMENT ON THEIR HEADS THE WOMEN ALSO WEAR CAR-RINGS AND FIL
LETS WITH LOTUS FLOWERS DACOPING OVER THE FOREHEAD

LADIES KNEELING ON MATS have
THEIR BAR-RENGS ARRANGED BY A
UTTLE SERVING-MAD

FROM A WELL-PAINTING FROM A THEBAN TOMB NOW IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM OVN (ABOUT 1500 BC)

GUESTS AT FEASTS WITH ATTENDANTS

as best they could. But they were too vitally concerned with the business of living to develop among themselves the art of hospitality. It would appear that for a long time there were only two great classes-the wealthy and the powerful who entertained lavishly; and the toiling classes who knew only the simple kind of hospitality that comes from the heart.

With the coming of Christianity there was a great impetus toward simple, unostentatious hospitality. Christ preached against luxury and display. He taught simple kindliness and generosity. Feasting and lavish entertaining continued unabated among those who were accustomed to it, but something seemed to have happened in the lives of the people. A new, wholesome kind of hospitality permeated their social fabric and made its influence very definitely felt.

It became the custom to "share one's bread with the stranger at the gate." Hospitality was extended for the sole purpose of being hospitable, and not because of vanity or the desire to impress.

Among the early European peoples simple hospitality took a firm hold. The Anglo-Saxons "invited all the countryside" to the wedding feast, to the celebration. The French shared wine and bread at the tavern, and helped one another make merry. In Spain, in Italy, in Germany, in Russia, wherever we wander, we find traces of the new kind of hospitality that had marched, like some pioneer, at the head of Christianity.

Hospitality is such a vast subject, it has so many beautiful threads that reach out across the tapestry of life, that we cannot do justice to it in a book of this nature. Perhaps some day someone will write of hospitality alone, and tell of its great and far-reaching influences upon civilization. But we who discuss it here must be satisfied with the briefest kind of outline. We let our eyes rest but for a moment upon the beautiful design it traces on the tapestry, and then on again to mankind, its habits, its customs, its instincts, its manners!

A Curious Custom of Hospitality.-A widespread custom of hospitality in early savage life, and a custom still prevalent in various spots throughout the uncivilized world, is that of "lending" the wife to the visitor (see p. 264). The Eskimo, the Australian aborigines, and almost all South Sea Islanders still practise this age-old custom, regarding it as one of the most essential duties of the hospitable host. This sexual hospitality has its parallels in modern life, in highly modified form, of course.

The books on etiquette tell us, for instance, that "the hospitable host mingles with his wife's guests and tries to make them feel 'at home.' When going in to dinner "the host does not offer his arm to his wife but to the most important woman guest. The hostess enters on the arm of the most important man guest." On the golf links or

tennis courts the hostess who plays well should not join her husband but "play with the man she feels will be most pleased to have her."

Modern life abounds with just such laws of hospitality

The names and symbols of important guests at the Pharaoh's palace were engraved upon the "guest wall." This was accounted a high honour, as it is accounted an honour to-day to sign one's name in the guest book of a famous hostess.

as these. We do not realize, as we observe them, that their origins lie buried in the dim past of yesterday.

Possible Origin of the Guest Book.-Browsing for a while in old Egypt, we stumble across an old custom which is startlingly like a custom observed to-day.

It seems that it was customary for all important guests at the Pharaoh's palace to have their names and symbols engraved on the "guest wall." This was accounted a high honour. Modern guests inscribe their names in the guest book. The more fashionable and important the hostess, the more honourable the guest accounts it to inscribe his name in the book. One cannot fail to see the strange similarity between these two customs, separated by so many ages of civilization.

The Favoured Guest.-It has always been the custom to show deference to the favoured-that is, the most important-guest. In savage feasts the most important guest sits at the right of the chief. When Europe was young, the favoured guest always sat at the right of the host, at feasts, and was helped to the choicest joints, the rarest fruits, the costliest wines.

It seems that there have always been methods of showing deference to the favoured guests, even in the earliest times. Among the Romans there was one place at the head of the table reserved for the host, the hostess, and one guest of honour. Among the Egyptians the highest in rank sat with the host at the head of the table. Among the Greeks the highest in rank had their hands washed first, the lowest in rank last.

With us, "The host leads [into the dining-room] with che lady who is to sit at his right. If the dinner is in honour of a married couple, the host goes in to dinner with the wife of the honoured guest; the hostess goes in with that lady's husband." We see here the same inclination to show deference to the guest of honour by extending to him, or her, the place of importance at the table.

The Arabs welcomed their guests by pouring melted butter on their heads, to refresh them. The Greeks instantly showed their guests to the public baths. The Egyptians anointed their guests with oil upon their arrival. With us, as soon as the house-party guest arrives, "he is