"Once a book collection was the natural accumulation, more or less perfect according to purse and opportunity, of one following a certain line of thought, and bore the stamp of individuality; but as these bibliophiles of the old regime pass away, the ranks are recruited by men to whom money is of no account, whose competition forces irrational prices and creates false values. Methinks I see the finish of the small collectors like ourselves. Meanwhile, just so much intellectual pleasure is wrested from the modern scholar of small means who dares not make beginning. I do not like it, Dick, indeed I do not. "But we were discussing domesticity, I think, when this wretch rang the bell. The restlessness I speak of as born of undisciplined bigness, of moneyed magnitude, is visible everywhere, and more so in the hours of relaxation than those of business. "We have acquired the knowledge of many arts in these late years, and we needed it; but we have lost one that is irreparable--sociality. There is no longer time to know oneself, how then shall we know our neighbours? "The verb _to entertain_ has largely driven the verb _to enjoy_ from the social page. It is not too extreme, I think, to say the home and playhouse have changed places. Many conservative people that I know turn to the theatre as the only safe means of relaxation and enjoyment within their reach, the stress and penalty of criticism in entertaining modern company being unbearable to them. "To the bachelor who, like myself, has a modest hearthstone, yet no hand but his own to stir the fire, the dinner tables of his married friends and his clubs have been supposed to replace, in a measure at least, the need of family ties. Once they did this as far as such things may, but the easy sociality of the family board has almost ceased, and the average club has so expanded that it savours more of hotel freedom than home cosiness. "I am not a misanthrope or a woman hater, as you know, yet from what I gather I fear that, in the upper middle class at least, it is the women who are responsible for this increased formality that most men naturally would avoid. Led by personal ambition, or that of young daughters, they seek to maintain a standard just enough beyond their easy grasp to feel ill at ease, if not humiliated, to be caught off guard. I remember once when I was a mere boy hearing my father say in a sorrowing tone to my eldest sister, who was giving fugitive reasons for not being able to array herself quickly for some festivity for which the invitation had been delayed, yet to which she longed to go: 'Wherever woman enters socially, then complications begin that are wholly of her own making. I warrant before Eve had finished her fig-leaf petticoat she was bothering Adam to know if he thought there could be another woman anywhere who had a garment of rarer leaves than her own.'