To a club or restaurant he may
sometimes invite you, but not there, not there, my child, do you get
the full savour of his quality. In life or literature there has been
no better host than Old Wardle. Appalling though he would have been as
a guest in club or restaurant, it is hardly less painful to think of
him as a host there. At Dingley Dell, with an ample gesture, he made
you free of all that was his. He could not have given you a club or a
restaurant. Nor, when you come to think of it, did he give you Dingley
Dell. The place remained his. None knew better than Old Wardle that
this was so. Hospitality, as we have agreed, is not one of the most
deep-rooted instincts in man, whereas the sense of possession
certainly is. Not even Old Wardle was a communist. `This,' you may be
sure he said to himself, `is my roof, these are my horses, that's a
picture of my dear old grandfather.' And `This,' he would say to us,
`is my roof: sleep soundly under it. These are my horses: ride them.
That's a portrait of my dear old grandfather: have a good look at it.'
But he did not ask us to walk off with any of these things. Not even
what he actually did give us would he regard as having passed out of
his possession. `That,' he would muse if we were torpid after dinner,
`is my roast beef,' and `That,' if we staggered on the way to bed, `is
my cold milk punch.
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