“No! Never! You will pardon, I hope, my telling you that yours is a very superficial psychology and does not go down to the heart of the problem. To the modern civilized human being his home seems to be an extremely disagreeable place. All his life he is fleeing from his home, from his environment, and--yes!--even from himself. An inner restlessness, a discontent that cannot be quenched, a nervous stress permeates the people of our time. What they possess seems to them stale, worthless. What they pursued madly disappoints them when they have attained it. They crave for change because they do not know how to make the best use of the present and of their possessions. How else can we understand the phenomenon that the whole world is happy to get away from the home and those who are incapable of running away long to do so? For, I am sure if you will give it careful thought you will confess that you call ‘experience’ only what happens to you away from home. The days at home don’t count. Am I right?” “Only partly so, my dear doctor. It does not tally with the facts--because nothing can be experienced at home. And I would be only too happy to receive my friends here daily, if it were possible. Don’t you know that servants would rebel at it? That they want to have their day off? That I must not expect them to do such work as waiting on my guests every Sunday? Why even on week days the invitation of guests causes a little rebellion in the ordinary household!” “And why must there be invitations? Must your visitors always be guests? Just look at Paris! There you may drop in on any of your acquaintances after 9 p.m. You may or you may not get a cup of tea. You chat a few hours and then depart. With us that’s impossible, because our so-called ‘Teas’ have assumed proportions which were formerly unknown. You invite one to come and have tea with you but instead of that you serve a luncheon and make a veritable banquet of it, going to a lot of trouble and expense, a course which must have bad consequences.” “Do you know, doctor, I think you are a magician! It’s only conventional politeness that makes us receive our guests cordially. But you must serve your friends something when you invite them for a little chat, mustn’t you?”