Behavior Of Such Cunning Cruelty That Only

Giving Is Not At All Interesting; But Receiving Is, There Is No Doubt About It, Delightful.

Once You Get To Know Your Neighbors, You Are No Longer Free, You Are All Tangled Up, You Have To Stop And Speak When You Are Out And You Never Feel Safe When You Are In.

As To The Family, I Have Never Understood How That Fits In With The Other Ideals --or, Indeed, Why It Should Be An Ideal At All. A Group Of Closely Related Persons Living Under One Roof; It Is A Convenience, Often A Necessity, Sometimes A Pleasure, Sometimes The Reverse; But Who First Exalted It As Admirable, An Almost Religious Ideal?

Nothing, Perhaps, Is Strange, Once You Have Accepted Life Itself, The Great Strange Business Which Includes All Lesser Strangeness.

Every Year, In The Deep Midwinter, There Descends Upon This World A Terrible Fortnight. ... Every Shop Is A Choked Mass Of Humanity ... Nerves Are Jangled And Frayed, Purses Emptied To No Purposes, All Amusements And All Occupations Suspended In Favor Of Frightful Businesses With Brown Paper, String, Letters, Cards, Stamps, And Crammed Post Offices. This Period Is Doubtless A Foretaste Of Whatever Purgatory Lies In Store For Human Creatures.