Other related topics at: Virtue and Vice 286. Home; Hospitality I talked of living in the country. Johnson: "Don't set up for what is called hospitality; it is a waste of time, and a waste of money; you are eaten up, and not the more respected for your liberality. If your house be like an inn, nobody cares for you. A man who stays one week with another, makes him a slave for a week." Boswell: "But there are people, Sir, who make their houses a home to their guests, and are themselves quite easy." Johnson: "Then, Sir, home must be the same to the guests, and they need not come." Boswell: Life Link 287. Hospitality; Wealth "No, Sir, you will have much more influence by giving or lending money where it is wanted, than by hospitality." Boswell: Life Link 1,804. Hospitality; Perspective; Poverty JOHNSON. 'Were I a country gentleman, I should not be very hospitable, I should not have crowds in my house.'BOSWELL. 'Sir Alexander Dick tells me, that he remembers having a thousand people in a year to dine at his house: that is, reckoning each person as one, each time that he dined there.' JOHNSON. 'That, Sir, is about three a day.' BOSWELL. 'How your statement lessens the idea.' JOHNSON. 'That, Sir, is the good of counting. It brings every thing to a certainty, which before floated in the mind indefinitely.'BOSWELL. 'But Omne ignotum pro magnifico est: one is sorry to have this diminished.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you should not allow yourself to be delighted with errour.' BOSWELL. 'Three a day seem but few.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, he who entertains three a day, does very liberally. And if there is a large family, the poor entertain those three, for they eat what the poor would get: there must be superfluous meat; it must be given to the poor, or thrown out.' James Boswell: Life of Johnson Link