The thing seems
both beautiful and possible, because one knows of households where
it is so, and where it grows up naturally and easily enough. I know
households of both kinds--where on the one hand the standard is
ambitious and mean, where the inmates calculate everything with a
view to success, or rather to producing an impression of success;
and there all talk and intercourse is an unreal thing, not the
outflow of natural interests and pleasant tastes, but a sham
culture and a refinement that is only pursued because it is the
right sort of surface to present to the world. One submits to it
with boredom, one leaves it with relief. They have got the right
people together, they have shown that they can command their
attendance; it is all ceremony and waste.
And then I know households where one sees in the books, the
pictures, the glances, the gestures, the movements of the inmates,
a sort of grace and delicacy which comes of really caring about
things that are beautiful and fine. Sincere things are simply said,
humour bubbles up and breaks in laughter; one feels that light is
thrown on a hundred topics and facts and personalities.
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