Consuelo Vanderbilt's wisdom

In Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt, Amanda Mackenzie Stuart quotes an article Consuelo (who was, for a while, the Duchess of Marlborough) wrote for the New York Journal regarding entertaining. Apparently the clipping Stuart found was undated. The following paragraph is taken from the book, and combines quotes from the article with Stuart's summary.

"'To be a good hostess, one's dominant preoccupation should ... be the pleasure of one's guests, not the vanity of one's person. The woman who entertains because of her Lowestoft service, her lace tablecloth, her old English silver, her hothouse flowers, her epicurean meal and the vision of herself in her newest gown and jewels is not likely to produce happy reactions,' she wrote. The quality of the food was more important than the table décor, for 'hunger cannot be assuaged by a display of china.' A party of six or eight was the ideal number because conversation could be kept general. Music should not be an adjunct to conversation - this was an insult to the musicians as well as the conversational powers of the guests. Asked by the magazine to provide a perfect luncheon menu for a warm June day she suggested 'Cold madrilène soup, coubilac de saumon made with salmon, rice, eggs and pastry - a chaudfroid of chicken with a salad, and an orange dessert'. One could reduce the likelihood of problems by never accepting invitations one did not wish to return, and 'eliminating bores and bounders'.

I particularly enjoyed a few points made here:

1) the guests are always the primary focus of an event

2) 6 or 8 is absolutely the best number, I couldn't agree more. I love being able to have one conversation at the table, that way nobody gets left out. I think it's the absolute pits when you go to a large dinner party and everywhere you turn there is somehow already a conversation in progress, and you seem to be the only odd one out. Again. And by "you" I guess I mean me.

3) I have a very hard time hearing more than one thing at a time, so I always think of music as being highly distracting during a conversation. I love the idea that one can have great powers of conversation, and that they should be allowed to shine.

4) As for that menu, I don't even know what most of it is. I'll have to look it all up later. I like to think that she listed all that off the top of her head, barely pausing to collect her thoughts before she began.

5) Dude, whatever happened to the idea that invitations and visits were always returned? No wonder we're all so disjointed and dis-unified, we spend so little time in each others' homes and you never know if, after having somebody over multiple times, they will return the courtesy or choose to forget you ever existed.

6) And yes, those who have no sense of humor and those with no manners should certainly not be inflicted on congenial company.