not be disagreeable
in the bosom of it?" has been modified by the simple circumstance
that the family bosom is no longer a fixed and permanent asylum. The
disintegration of the home may be a lamentable feature of modern
life; but since it has dawned upon our minds that adult members of
a family need not necessarily live together if they prefer to live
apart, the strain of domesticity has been reduced to the limits of
endurance. We have gained in serenity what we have lost in
self-discipline by this easy achievement of an independence which,
fifty years ago, would have been deemed pure licence. I can remember
that, when I was a little girl, two of our neighbours, a widowed
mother and a widowed daughter, scandalized all their friends by
living in two large comfortable houses, a stone's throw apart,
instead of under one roof as became their relationship; and the fact
that they loved each other dearly and peacefully in no way lessened
their transgression. Had they shared their home, and bickered day
and night, that would have been considered unfortunate but
"natural."

If the discipline of family life makes for law and order, for the
subordination of parts to the whole, and for the prompt recognition
of authority; if, in other words, it makes, as in the days of Rome,
for citizenship, the rescue of the individual makes for social
intercourse, for that temperate and reasoned attitude which begets
courtesy. The modern mother may lack influence and authority; but
she speaks more urbanely to her children than her mother spoke to
her. The modern child is seldom respectful, but he is often polite,
with a politeness which owes nothing to intimidation. The harsh and
wearisome habit of contradiction, which used to be esteemed a family
privilege, has been softened to a judicious dissent. In my youth I
knew several old gentlemen who might, on their death-beds, have laid
their hands upon their hearts, and have sworn that never in their
whole lives had they permitted any statement, however insignificant,
to pass uncontradicted in their presence. They were authoritative
old gentlemen, kind husbands after their fashion, and careful
fathers; but conversation at their dinner-tables was not for human
delight.

The manners of American officials have been discussed with more or
less acrimony, and always from the standpoint of personal experience.
The Custom-House is the centre of attack, and critics for the most
part agree that the men whos