is smaller, and, strangely enough, it is sweeter
tempered: would it be fair to conclude, as might an Irishman, that it
would agree perfectly if it disappeared?

I do not think that the family will completely disappear any more than
scarlet fever or the tax collector. But certainly it will change in
character, and its evolution already points toward its new form. The
old-fashioned family sickened because it was a compulsory grouping. The
wife cleaved unto her husband because he paid the bills; the children
cleaved unto their parents because they must cleave unto something.
There was no chance of getting out, for there was nothing to get out to.
For the girl, especially, some fifty years ago, to escape from the
family into the world was much the same thing as burgling a
penitentiary; so she stayed, compulsorily grouped. Personally, I think
all kinds of compulsory groupings bad. If one is compelled to do a
thing, one hates it; possibly the dead warriors in the Elysian Fields
have by this time taken a violent dislike to compulsory chariot races,
and absolutely detest their endless rest on moss-grown banks and their
diet of honey. I do not want to stress the idea too far, but I doubt
whether the denizens of the Elysian Fields, after so many centuries, can
tolerate one another any more, for they are compelled to live all
together in this Paradise, and nothing conceivable will ever get them
out.

Some groupings are worse than others, and I incline to think that
difference of age has most to do with the chafe of family life. For man
is a sociable animal; he loves his fellows, and so one wonders why he
should so generally detest his relations. There are minor reasons.
Relationship amounts to a license to be rude, to the right to exact
respect from the young and service from the old; there is the fact that,
however high you may rise in the world, your aunt will never see it.
There is also the fact that if your aunt does see it, she brags of it
behind your back and insults you about it to your face. There is all
that, but still I believe that one could to a certain extent agree with
one's relations if one met only those who are of one's own age, for
compulsory groupings of people of the same age are not always
unpleasant; boys are happiest at school, and there is fine fellowship
and much merriment in armies. On the other hand, there often reigns a
peculiar dislike in offices. I do not want to conclude too rashly, but I
cannot h