and there are even to-day certain peoples who never talk while at their meals. The Japanese, Chinese, and other Orientals eat in silence. The Ahts, Maoris, Siamese, and Hindus rarely talk when eating. The Arabs of Syria mutter a Bismillah before eating, then take their meals in absolute silence. The Buddhist priests say that "to eat and talk at the same time is sin."

Everything is relative, however, and social life is something like a moving picture. The scenes change as the story develops, but the plot remains the same. Thus, a quarter of a century ago any Southern gentleman would have told you that the carving of a chicken or a duck was an art, and an art which every gentleman must possess. Yet to-day in almost ninety-nine families out of one hundred the carving is done in the kitchen, simply because it has been found more convenient and expeditious. Fifty years ago a young woman was considered well bred when she knew how to enter a drawing room correctly. To-day, instead of carrying books on her head in practice to gain poise and haughty bearing, she opens the books to find out what is inside. And instead of sitting demurely near her chaperon until someone invites her to dance, she uses the information obtained from the books to ensnare the handsome young college professor and engage him in an animated conversation concerning Palæolithic fossils, or perhaps the theory of relativity!

And so, too, has it been with dinner conversation. Among some peoples it was, and is, customary to eat in silence. Among us it was at one time customary to bar all intellectual conversation at the dinner table and "engage in simple, pleasant, light talk that everyone can enjoy."

To-day the clever hostess chooses her guests carefully, with a regard for their tastes in talk as in other things, and she permits them to introduce whatever subjects they themselves enjoy talking about, whether it be the latest Parisian fad or the newest best-seller. She makes no attempt to "lead" the conversation unless she finds it lagging. And if

the talk veers to things intellectual and her guests discuss the possibility of life on Mars, or of Japan joining other lost lands for ever at the bottom of the Pacific, so much the better! It is a reflection upon her good sense in inviting guests; for only a well-selected group of people can begin, and carry on for any length of time, an interesting intellectual discussion.

The first rule, then, is to choose your guests well. The rest will follow.

CHAPTER XIV

HOLIDAYS AND THEIR CUSTOMS; HOW THEY ORIGINATED

Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling 80 that we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruits of our labours. They four killed as much fowl as with a little help beside served the company about a week. At which times among other recreations we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king, Massasoyt, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer which they brought and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others.

-EDWARD WINSLOW (to a friend in England).
December 11, 1621

THE PLAYDAYS OF HUMANITY

AN was once free as the birds. He jumped and danced and shouted as his instincts prompted.

He slept when the sun made him drowsy and ate when he found his food. He laughed at the dancing moonbeams. He beat his breast in proud defiance of the rain. He jumped in glee from stone to stone, rocked wildly from the limb of a tree, gave animal vent to the instincts and impulses that crowded through him. So, short and happy, went the span of his life.

Then came civilization. Life was cut into slices and handed to some on a silver platter, to some on a wooden spoon. The powerful cut little squares from the heart of the universe and called them laws. Factories and offices grew where forests used to be. Days were divided into hours, each hour with its special duty. Man stifled his natural instincts, and walked silent with the masses.

But beneath the smoothness that is civilization there smoulders a great unrest. Man longs for the freedom that once was his. Sometimes, while civilization still was young,