Hospitality, Abuse Of
Abusing hospitality by wasteful indulgence dishonors the generous host.
The writer, when a boy, was invited with all the other members of his class to a picnic at the home of one of his companions, who was very poor, and whose widowed mother supported herself and her son from a small apple orchard. After spending the afternoon in boyish sports, the class was invited into the orchard to have some apples. With generous hospitality the host invited the boys to help themselves; but to his amazement, the boys, who were all from homes of refinement and supposed to be well brought up, began an orgy of unrestrained apple-eating, and after gorging themselves with all they could possibly eat, stript the trees in wanton waste, just taking a bite here and there and destroyed barrels of apples. The poor boy host could not conceal that this waste was an unlooked-for financial loss. It was an intemperate indulgence and abuse of hospitality that was contemptible.--JAMES T. WHITE, “Character Lessons.”