Hark! he is shouting something. He
is asking us both down to Dingley Dell. And you have shouted back that
you will be delighted. Ah, did I not suspect from the first that you
too were perhaps a guest?
But--I constrain you in the act of rushing off to pack your things--
one moment: this essay has yet to be finished. We have yet to glance
at those two extremes between which the mean is good guestship. Far to
the right of the good guest, we descry the parasite; far to the left,
the churl again. Not the same churl, perhaps. We do not know that
Corin's master was ever sampled as a guest. I am inclined to call
yonder speck Dante--Dante Alighieri, of whom we do know that he
received during his exile much hospitality from many hosts and repaid
them by writing how bitter was the bread in their houses, and how
steep the stairs were. To think of dour Dante as a guest is less
dispiriting only than to think what he would have been as a host had
it ever occurred to him to entertain any one or anything except a deep
regard for Beatrice; and one turns with positive relief to have a
glimpse of the parasite--Mr. Smurge, I presume, `whose gratitude was
as boundless as his appetite, and his presence as unsought as it
appeared to be inevitable.' But now, how gracious and admirable is the
central figure--radiating gratitude, but not too much of it; never
intrusive, ever within call; full of dignity, yet all amenable; quiet,
yet lively; never echoing, ever amplifying; never contradicting, but
often lighting the way to truth; an ornament, an inspiration,
anywhere.
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