Or, the entertainment might be varied by engaging a good professional reciter to reproduce literary gems, comic or otherwise.

I am sure the result would bring more general satisfaction to the guests than the present method of leaving them to entertain themselves.

Chinese employ singing girls; Japanese, geishas to talk, sing or dance.

The ideal would here again seem to be an amalgamation of East and West.
It is difficult for a mixed crowd to be always agreeable, even in the congenial atmosphere of a good feast, unless the guests have been selected with a view to their opinions rather than to their social standing.

Place a number of people whose ideas are common, with a difference, around a well-spread table and there will be no lack of good, earnest, instructive conversation.