Departing Guests

I’m more of a host than a guest. I like people to stay with me but do not much care about staying with them, and usually say I am too busy. The only people who ask to stay with us are people we like. I do not believe in business hospitality, which has the seed of corruption in it.

All Fridays I work in a pleasant glow just because I know some nice people are coming down by the last train. I am genuinely glad to see them. But I suspect that I am still more delighted when they go, and the house is ours again. It is not that I have been mistaken in these guests, though this has happened of course at times. After the weekend, I may like them more than ever, having discovered new virtues and unsuspected charms.

Nevertheless，I am delighted to see them go. They leave more room in which to live properly. Meals are quicker and easier. There is no more hanging about, no more sightseeing, no more bright talk. And my mind, like my body, puts on its old clothes again.

I enjoy hard work and foolish play, and both are difficult when you are cluttered up with guests. I like to think about life in this world, and it is not easy to do this when animate and talkative pieces of it are all over the place. With guests about, I am conscious of myself as a solid, but as soon as they have gone, I expand into a gas again. And a gas can have more delight than a solid. So Good-bye!