ply suspicious of the virtues
of domestic cookery. Nor, I suppose, would it influence him to tell
him that by living in Central London, he could command without
inconvenience the full attractions of the town, such as concerts,
lectures, theatres, or those special assemblies which are
representative of London life; for he desires nothing of the kind.
Considerations of economy might affect him, but with all his skill at
figures he seldom has the sense to see that the moiety of income paid
yearly to the railway, by himself and his family, goes a long way
toward the doubling of his rent. In short, suburbanism is his fetish;
it is the keynote of his poor respectability, and he is not to be
diverted from it by any reasons which a sane man would regard as
considerable, if not imperative.

The most usual excuse of suburbanism is that it is a good thing for the
wife and family of a business man, though it is a bad thing for him.
It is singular that no one seems to recognise the gross selfishness of
this plea. It is like the plea of the vivisectionist, that vivisection
is a bad thing for a rabbit, but a very good thing for humanity, since
humanity profits by the torture of the rabbit. But for my part I doubt
whether there is any real profit to anybody in suburbanism. There is a
town life, and there is a country life, each of which has peculiar
compensations of its own; but suburbanism is a miserable compromise,
which like most compromises combines not the qualities but the defects
of two antagonisms. Its worst effect is that it sets up in one family
two standards of life, which have nothing in common. After a while it
must happen that there is a serious estrangement of taste, and it is
not surprising if this often leads to a much more serious estrangement
of affection. The air of Surbiton may be a little fresher than the air
of Bloomsbury, but what does this count for if the atmosphere of the
hearth be poisoned? Moreover, among the Anglo-Saxon peoples women are
not encouraged to take any vital interest in the pursuits of their
husbands as they are among the Latin races. I should not be surprised
to find that half the women in the London suburbs do not know the
precise nature of their husbands' occupations. A French woman of the
bourgeois class often has a real aptitude for business. She can manage
a shop, keep accounts, take an interest in markets, and in all
questions of commercial enterprise she is the confidante, a