about it, but that is not the
point. The real point is that if your taste comes out in a matter of
glass-cloths for the kitchen, it will also come out in antimacassars
for the drawing-room and higher things.

Again, ordinary men--men that might possibly call themselves my
equals--are not careful enough about respectability. Everywhere around
me I see betting on horse-races, check trousers on Sunday, the wash
hung out in the front garden, whiskey and soda, front steps not
properly whitened, and the door-handle not up to the mark. I could
point to houses where late hours on Sunday are so much the rule that
the lady of the house comes down in her dressing-gown to take in the
milk--which, I am sure, Eliza would sooner die than do. There are
families--in my own neighbourhood, I am sorry to say--where the
chimneys are not swept regularly, beer is fetched in broad daylight,
and attendance at a place of worship on Sunday is rather the exception
than the rule. Then, again, language is an important point; to my mind
nothing marks a respectable man more than the use of genteel language.
There may have been occasions when excessive provocation has led me to
the use of regrettable expressions, but they have been few. As a rule I
avoid not only what is profane, but also anything that is slangy. I
fail to understand this habit which the present generation has formed
of picking up some meaningless phrase and using it in season and out of
season. For some weeks I have been greatly annoyed by the way some of
the clerks use the phrase "What, ho, she bumps!" If you ask them who
bumps, or how, or why, they have no answer but fits of silly laughter.
Probably, before these words appear in print that phrase will have been
forgotten and another equally ridiculous will have taken its place. It
is not sensible; what is worse, it is not to my mind respectable. Do
not imagine that I object to humour in conversation. That is a very
different thing. I have made humourous remarks myself before now,
mostly of rather a cynical and sarcastic kind.

I am fond of my home, and any little addition to its furniture or
decorations gives me sincere pleasure. Both in the home and in our
manner of life there are many improvements which I am prevented by
financial considerations from carrying out. If I were a rich man I
would have the drawing-room walls a perfect mass of pictures. If I had
money I could spend it judiciously and without absurdity. I should have
t