Have a turnip than his father."

A possible sentiment in an older generation, but sentiments, like
generations, grow out of date; they are swept out by new ideas and new
rejections--rejection of religion, rejection of morals. We tend toward
an agnostic world, with a high philosophical morality; we have attained
as yet neither agnosticism nor high morality, but the child is shaking
off the ready-made precepts of the faiths and the Smilesian theories. It
is unwillingly bound by the ordinances of a forgotten alien race; as a
puling child, carried in a basket by an eagle, like the tiny builders of
Ecbatana, it calls for bricks and mortar with which to build the airy
castle of the future.

3

As a house divided against itself, the family falls. It protests, it
hugs that from which it suffered; it protests in speech, in the
newspapers, that still it is united. The clan is dead, and blood is not
as thick as marmalade. There are countries where the link is strong, as
in France, for instance. I quote from a recent and realistic novel the
words of a mother speaking of her young married daughter:

"Every Tuesday we dine at my mother's, and every Thursday at my
mother-in-law's. Of course, now, at least once a week we go to Madame
de Castelac; later on I shall expect Pauline and her husband every
Wednesday."

"That is a pity," said Sorel. "That leaves three days."

"Oh, there are other calls. Every week my mother comes to us the same
evening as does my father-in-law, but that is quite informal."

Family dinners are rare in England. They flourish only at weddings and
at funerals, especially at funerals, for mankind collected enjoys woe.
But other occasions--birthdays, Christmas--are shunned; Christmas
especially, in spite of Dickens and Mr. Chesterton, is not what it was,
for its quondam victims, having fewer children, and being less bound to
their aunts' apron strings, go away to the seaside, or stay at home and
hide. That is a general change, and many modern factors, such as travel,
intercourse with strangers, emigration, have shown the family that there
are other places than home, until some of them have begun to think that
"East or West, home's worst." There is a frigidity among the relations
in the home, a disinclination to call one's mother-in-law "Mother."
Indeed, relations-in-law are no longer relatives; the two families do
not immediately after the wedding call one another Kitty or Tom. The
acquired family is m