habituated ourselves to them. As a youth I abominated the
taste of tobacco. It was only by an industrious apprenticeship to the herb
that I overcame my natural dislike and got to be its obedient servant. And
even my taste here is unstable. I needed a certain tobacco to be happy and
thought there was no other tobacco like it. But I discovered that was all
nonsense. When the war tax sent the price up, I determined that my
expenditure should not go up with it, and I tried a cheaper sort. I found
it distasteful at first, but now I prefer it to my old brand, just as the
lady's husband finds that he prefers the new margarine to the old butter.

And it is not only gastronomic taste which seems so much the subject of
habit. That hat that was so absolute a thing last year is as dowdy and
impossible to-day as if it had been the fashion of the Babylonians. It has
always been so. "We had scarce worn cloth one year at the Court," says
Montaigne, "what time we mourned for our King Henrie the Second, but
certainly in every man's opinion all manner of silks were already become so
vile and abject that was any man seen to wear them he was presently judged
to be some countrie fellow or mechanical man." And you remember that in
Utopia gold was held of so small account by comparison with iron that it
was used for the baser purposes of the household.

We are adaptable creatures, and easily make our tastes conform to our
environment and our customs. There are certain savage tribes who wear rings
through their noses. When Mrs. Brown, of Tooting, sees pictures of them she
remarks to Mr. Brown on the strange habits of these barbarous people. And
Mr. Brown, if he has a touch of humour in him, points to the rings hanging
from Mrs. Brown's ears, and says: "But, my dear, why is it barbarous to
wear a ring in the nostril and civilised to wear rings in the ears?" The
dilemma is not unlike that of the savage tribe whom the Greeks induced to
give up cannibalism. But when the cannibals, who had piously eaten their
parents, were asked instead to adopt the Greek custom of burning the bodies
they were horrified at the suggestion. They would cease to eat them; but
burn them? No. I can imagine Mrs. Brown's savages agreeing to take the
rings out of their noses, but refusing blankly to put them in their ears.

I have no doubt that the long-haired Cavaliers used to regard the short
hair of the Puritans as the "limit" in bad taste, but the man who today
dares to