ecause he had just committed
suicide; and it would be extreme, perhaps, to suggest that he commits
suicide because he has just dined at a restaurant. But the two cases,
when put side by side, are enough to indicate the falsity and
poltroonery of this eternal modern argument from what is in fashion. The
question for brave men is not whether a certain thing is increasing; the
question is whether we are increasing it. I dine very often in
restaurants because the nature of my trade makes it convenient: but if I
thought that by dining in restaurants I was working for the creation of
communal meals, I would never enter a restaurant again; I would carry
bread and cheese in my pocket or eat chocolate out of automatic
machines. For the personal element in some things is sacred. I heard Mr.
Will Crooks put it perfectly the other day: "The most sacred thing is to
be able to shut your own door."

My correspondent says, "Would not our women be spared the drudgery of
cooking and all its attendant worries, leaving them free for higher
culture?" The first thing that occurs to me to say about this is very
simple, and is, I imagine, a part of all our experience. If my
correspondent can find any way of preventing women from worrying, he
will indeed be a remarkable man. I think the matter is a much deeper
one. First of all, my correspondent overlooks a distinction which is
elementary in our human nature. Theoretically, I suppose, every one would
like to be freed from worries. But nobody in the world would always
like to be freed from worrying occupations. I should very much like (as
far as my feelings at the moment go) to be free from the consuming
nuisance of writing this article. But it does not follow that I should
like to be free from the consuming nuisance of being a journalist.
Because we are worried about a thing, it does not follow that we are not
interested in it. The truth is the other way. If we are not interested,
why on earth should we be worried? Women are worried about housekeeping,
but those that are most interested are the most worried. Women are still
more worried about their husbands and their children. And I suppose if
we strangled the children and poleaxed the husbands it would leave women
free for higher culture. That is, it would leave them free to begin to
worry about that. For women would worry about higher culture as much as
they worry about everything else.

I believe this way of talking about women and their hi