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.
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