ng with them, like the left-over remnants of
Sunday's dinner. And, unless we do something with them, they--like
Sunday's dinner--meet our gaze every time we go into the kitchen. At
last we hate the sight of them. But, just as the remnants clinging to an
old mutton-bone lose their terror when Monday arrives without the
butcher, so these interfering old fools sometimes fade away into harmless
acquaintances when you show them that you and your family skeleton are
part and parcel of the same thing, and if they wish to know the one
they'll have to accept the other. In any case, it's usually useless to
try and pretend that Uncle George died of heart failure when he really
died of drink, or that the young girl whom Aunt Maria "adopted" was a
waif-and-stray, when everybody knows she is her own daughter; or that
your first wife isn't still alive--probably kicking--or that your only
child suddenly went to Australia because he was seized by the
wander-lust, when everybody knows he had to go there or go to prison.
You may, of course, pretend these things, and if you don't mind the
perpetual worry of always pretending, well and good. But if you imagine
for one instant that your pretending deceives the gallery, you'll be
extremely silly. Why, every time they speak of you behind your back
they'll preface their remarks with information of this kind: "Yes,
yes . . . a _charming_ family. What a thousand pities it is that they
all _drink_!"

But the "skeletons" of our own character--_they_ are the ones which no
cupboard can hold, nor any key lock in. Some time, sooner or later, out
they will come to do a jazz in front of the whole world. The life we
lead in the secret chambers of our own hearts we shall one day enact on
the house-roof. Strive as we may to conform to the conventional ideal of
public opinion, we cannot conform _all_ the time, and our lapses are our
undoing--or maybe, our happy emancipation, who knows? We cannot hide the
pettiness of our nature, even though we profess the broadest principles.
Only one thing can save the ungenerous spirit, and that is to be up
against life single-handed and alone. To know suffering, spiritual as
well as physical; to know poverty, to know loneliness, sometimes to know
disgrace, broadens the heart and mind more than years spent in the study
of Greek philosophy. Life is the only real education, and the philosophy
which we evolve through living the only philosophy of any real importan