elp being struck by the fact that in a school or in an army the
differences of age are very small, while in an office or a family they
are considerable. Add on to the difference of age compulsory
intercourse, and you have the seeds of hatred.

This applies particularly where the units of a family are adult. The
child loves the grown-ups because he admires them; a little later he
finds them out; still a little later, he lets them see that he has found
them out, and then family life begins. In many cases it is a quite
terrible life, and the more united the family is the more it resembles
the union between the shirt of Nessus and Hercules's back. But it must
be endured because we have no alternative. I think of cases: of such a
one as that of a father and mother, respectively sixty-five and sixty,
who have two sons, one of whom ran away to Australia with a barmaid,
while the other lived on his sisters' patrimony and regrettably stayed
at home; they have four daughters, two of whom have revolted to the
extent of earning their living, but spend the whole of their holidays
with the old people; the other two are unmarried because the father,
imbued with the view that _his_ daughters were too good for any man,
refused to have any man in the house. There is another couple in my
mind, who have five children, four of whom live at home. I think I will
describe this family by quoting one of the father's pronouncements:
"There's only one opinion in this house, and that's mine!" I think of
other cases, of three sisters who have each an income of two hundred
dollars a year on which they would, of course, find it very difficult to
live separately. The total income of six hundred dollars a year enables
them to live--but together. The eldest loves cats; the next hates cats,
but loves dogs; this zooelogical quarrel is the chief occupation of the
household; the third sister's duty is to keep the cats and dogs apart.
Here we have the compulsory grouping; I believe that this lies at the
root of disunion in that united family.

The age problem is twofold. It must not be thought that I hold a brief
against old age, though, being myself young, I tend to dislike old age
as I shall probably dislike youth by and by. On the whole, the attitude
of old age is tyrannical. I have heard dicta as interesting as the one
which I quote a few lines above. I have heard say a mother to a young
man, "You _ought_ to feel affection for me"; another, "It should be