“When English society was respectable, even to stodginess at times,” was his point of view, “to be born ‘the Head of the House’ was a weighty and awe-inspiring thing. In fearful private denunciatory interviews with one’s parents and governors it was brought up against one as a final argument against immoral conduct such as debt and not going to church. As the Head of the House one was called upon to be an Example. In the country one appeared in one’s pew and announced oneself a ‘miserable sinner’ in loud tones, one had to invite the rector to dinner with regularity and ‘the ladies’ of one’s family gave tea and flannel petticoats and baby clothes to cottagers. Men and women were known as ‘ladies’ and ‘gentlemen’ in those halcyon days. One Represented things—Parties in Parliament—Benevolent Societies, and British Hospitality in the form of astounding long dinners at which one drank healths and made speeches. In roseate youth one danced the schottische and the polka and the round waltz which Lord Byron denounced as indecent. To recall the vigour of his poem gives rise to a smile—when one chances to sup at a cabaret.” He was considered very amusing when he analyzed his own mental attitude towards his world in general. “I was born somewhat too late and somewhat too early,” he explained in his light, rather cold and detached way. “I was born and educated at the closing of one era and have to adjust myself to living in another. I was as it were cradled among treasured relics of the ethics of the Georges and Queen Charlotte, and Queen Victoria in her bloom. _I_ was in my bloom in the days when ‘ladies’ were reproved for wearing dresses cut too low at Drawing Rooms. Such training gives curious interest to fashions in which bodices are unconsidered trifles and Greek nymphs who dance with bare feet and beautiful bare legs may be one’s own relations. I trust I do not seem even in the shadowiest way to comment unfavourably. I merely look on at the rapidities of change with unalloyed interest. As the Head of the House of Coombe I am not sure _what_ I am an Example of—or to. Which is why I at times regard myself in that capacity with a slightly ribald lightness.”