The great people of old time followed (quite unconsciously) the philosopher who bade man "hide his life." Of course, the stage of politics was always a pillory, and he who ventured to stand on it made up his mind to encounter a vast variety of popular missiles. "In my situation as Chancellor of the University of Oxford," said the Duke of Wellington, "I have been much exposed to authors;" and men whom choice or circumstances forced into politics were exposed to worse annoyances than "authors." But the line was rigidly drawn between public and private life. What went on in the home was sacredly secreted from the public gaze. People lived among their relations and friends and political associates, and kept the gaping world at a distance. Now we worship Publicity as the chief enjoyment of human life. We send lists of our shooting-parties to "Society Journals." We welcome the Interviewer. We contribute personal paragraphs to _Classy Cuttings_. We admit the photographer to our bedrooms, and give our portraits to illustrated papers. We take our exercise when we have the best chance of being seen and noticed, and we never eat our dinner with such keen appetites as amid the half-world of a Piccadilly restaurant. In brief, "Expose thy life" is the motto of the new philosophy, and I maintain that in this respect, at any rate, the old was better. With an increasing love of publicity has come an increasing contempt for reticence. In old days there were certain subjects which no one mentioned; among them were Health and Money. I presume that people had pretty much the same complaints as now, but no one talked about them. We used to be told of a lady who died in agony because she insisted on telling the doctor that the pain was in her chest whereas it really was in the unmentionable organ of digestion. That martyr to propriety has no imitators in the present day. Every one has a disease and a doctor; and young people of both sexes are ready on the slightest acquaintance to describe symptoms and compare experiences. "Ice!" exclaimed a pretty girl at dessert, "good gracious, no! so bad for indy"--and her companion, who had not travelled with the times, learned with amazement that "indy" was the pet name for indigestion. "How bitterly cold!" said a plump matron at an open-air luncheon; "just the thing to give one appendicitis." "Oh!" said her neighbour, surveying the company, "we are quite safe there. I shouldn't think we had an appendix between us."