In the grammar in which I learned the elements of the Spanish tongue, one of the exercises, I remember, began as follows: " I like to dine always at home; an invitation inconveniences me. Nevertheless, it is necessary to take account of the requirements of society. I have never desired to appear rude, nor have I been wanting in the consideration that is due to friends."

An American lady, who has devoted much time to the study of the social habits of Europe, and who has imparted to her country-men the results of her observations in lectures which have given her rank as an authority on matters of comparative civilization, once confided to me her disappointment at the reception that she had met with at the hands of the Spaniards during a holiday tour in the Castilles and Andalusia. "I started," she said, "with many letters of introduction to the best people in Madrid and Seville. I presented my letters. The people returned my call; that is to say, the men did. They also placed their carriages and servants at my disposal, and obtained for me permissions to view libraries and to touch relics of the greatest sanctity. But none of them invited me to dinner, or even to take so much as a cup of tea."

From this fact the amiable sociologist concluded that the Spaniards are inhospitable and disagreeable people, without reflecting that there was no reason why the Spaniards should change their habits for her sake, and that though her desire to pry into their home-life might be legitimate from an absolute point of view, it was the height of indiscreetness from the semi-Oriental point of view of Moorish Spain, which still retains all its force in contemporary Spain. The Spaniards, it is true, are chary of invitations. Their home is very sacred. They do not ask the new acquaintance to dine with them five minutes after being introduced. Like the man in the Spanish grammar, they consider an invitation as an inconvenience, not so much because they are of inhospitable nature or because they have no spare cash to speak of, but because, like the patriarchs of old, they look upon hospitality as a very grave matter, and a duty in the discharge of which no sacrifices are to be spared. Consequently, if they cannot entertain in a satisfactory manner, they prefer to shirk the task rather than perform it in a halting and make-shift way.

This sentiment is thoroughly laudable, and in conformity with the best traditions of those ancient civilizations of the East from which we derive our own. Never invite a man to dine lightly, as you would ask him to take a cigarette. As P. Z. Didsbury remarked, in terms of unforgetable laconism, "A man can dine but once a day." How great, then, is the responsibility of him who ventures to take upon himself the providing and serving of this dinner!

Furthermore, whenever, for reasons which we need not examine, you are invited to dine, and you accept the invitation, do not be in too great a hurry to return the compliment. In nine cases out of ten the blackest ingratitude of which you could be capable would be to invite your amphitryon and inflict upon him a return dinner.

Doubtless, in an ideal state of things, it would often be delightful to accept an invitation to dinner. As it is, an invitation from people with whose hearts and minds I am not familiar fills me with terror. If I accept, I say to myself, What will befall me ? In their wish to do me honor and give me pleasure, have my would-be hosts realized the gravity of the deed they are about to perpetrate? Have they devoted thought to the subject of dining? Having invited me to dine, do they know how to dine themselves? Will the temperature of their dining-room be neither too high nor too low? Will the lights be so arranged that my eyes will not be dazzled, and that restful bits of shadow will remain soothingly distributed about the room? Will the chairs be the outcome of reason, or merely of the furniture-maker's caprice? Will there be a draught under the table or over it? Will the table-service be agreeable to the eye? Will the food be real food? These and a score other interrogations rise to my lips, and finally I put to myself the clinching question, "Shall I be sick before or after the ordeal?" And, as a rule, I prefer to be sick before the dinner, and send an excuse, thus making sure of avoiding sickness after it. My feigned indisposition often deprives me of charming company, but it does not prevent me repairing to a restaurant where I am sure of combining a menu to suit my palate and where I have the right to criticise and refuse whatever is unworthy.

This confession may seem to imply an unsociable nature. On the contrary, it is the lamentation of a victim of sociability. My experience, which, without having extended over many lustres, has perhaps compensated for its brevity by extreme application and untiring assiduity, has demonstrated, generally speaking, that the people who have invited me to dine with them would have done better to have had themselves invited to dine with me.

By dint of pondering over gastronomic disasters for which kindly disposed friends and acquaintances were responsible, I have conceived certain projects of reform, all more or less chimerical. I have wondered, for instance, why, in countries where rational governments exist, and where a minister is appointed to attend to the interests of the fine arts, with, under him, directors, deputy-directors, inspectors, and a dozen grades of minor functionaries, no emperor, king, or republic has yet thought of creating a Minister of Gastronomy. Hitherto the sad fact remains that the Art of Delicate Feasting does not receive state encouragement in any country on the face of the whole earth.

Not only do governments ignore or neglect the gastronomic art, but even private initiative and private endowment are wanting. Benevolent citizens leave money for the foundation of institutions of all kinds; important sums are bequeathed for the endowment of research; but no one has ever yet thought of instituting a permanent Gastronomic Academy or of endowing a chair of gastronomic criticism in our existing educational establishments. Criticism, this is what we need. It was criticism and the incessant exigencies of competent critics which made the great cooks and the great restaurants of the past. Criticism alone can save private and public cookery from irremediable decadence and restore the art of delicate feasting to the eminent place it deserves in the preoccupations of civilized humanity. With this conviction at heart, I conceived an idea which seemed to me quite practical, namely, the formation of an International League for the protection of diners-out and for the general advancement of the art of delicate feasting. Considering the misadventures that befall one in private houses, and the slovenly and inartistic ways that are rapidly becoming traditional even in some of the oldest and best restaurants of the world, it is desirable that measures should be taken to make criticism effectual and productive of reform. It might be going too far, perhaps, to suggest that a man has a right to ask for references when he is invited to dine in a strange house. On the other hand, it would be a great boon if one could obtain some information not only about private houses, but also about public restaurants, in the various cities of the world where civilized men do most congregate. Hence the idea of a league of diners-out and of an information and inquiry office, where notes about hosts and hostesses might be centralized and communicated to the members of the league in the interests of the culinary art as well as of public health in general. Here, for instance, are some samples of the entries which an information-office of this kind might catalogue: