In my family, and in the society which I frequented in Dublin, the master desire was for enjoyment. Yet do not mistake me; it was not pleasure, which is animalism efflorescent. By enjoyment I mean the gratification of the affections and the sympathies and of the spirit of hopefulness. We lived in the sunlight and did our very best to keep there. It was demoralizing but all the same delightful, and from a moral point of view it had its good side. We solved all our doubts in matters of conduct by thinking well of our fellow creatures, which is exactly the opposite of what the puritans do, and we prided ourselves upon it; we considered it a gentlemanly trait. Our censorious neighbours, who thought badly of each other, we dismissed from our minds as vulgar people. Or rather we considered that the puritan conception of human nature was admirably adapted to the kind of people who believed in it, but was never intended for us or for our friends. It was a shock to pass from a society, where people enjoy themselves and laugh gaily, not being at all concerned about moral issues, to a society where no one thought of enjoyment, and if they laughed did so with a grim humour that was not always good-natured, where the air itself was heavy with moral disapprobation of the world generally and of themselves in particular. Yet in my bones I felt it to be something salutary. At home and among my friends everyone did as they liked, provided that they were tactful and sympathetic with each other. We were a city without rules, and might verge at times into being a city of misrule. Here on the contrary was rule and strictest order. A man, suddenly come amongst my wife's relations, would think that they were a people of strong primitive instinct, and great natural kindliness, all smothered in business. I very quickly came to a different conclusion for I had known intimately my old friend George. The master principle in that family was what I may describe as self-loyalty, each member of that family a concrete embodiment of Shakespearean teaching: 'To thine own self be true; And it must follow as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.'