Who could deny that privacy is a jewel? It has always been the mark of privilege, the distinguishing feature of a truly urbane culture. Out of the cave, the tribal teepee, the pueblo, the community fortress, man emerged to build himself a house of his own with a shelter in it for himself and his diversions. Every age has seen it so. The poor might have to huddle together in cities for need's sake, and the frontiersman cling to his neighbors for the sake of protection. But in each civilization, as it advanced, those who could afford it chose the luxury of a withdrawing-place.

Of the small gifts of heaven, / It seems to me a more than equal share / At birth was given / To girls with curly hair.

Gossip isn't scandal and it's not merely malicious. It's chatter about the human race by lovers of the same.

Aunts are discreet, a little shy / By instinct. They forbear to pry.

A bit of trash now and then is good for the severest reader. It provides the necessary roughage in the literary diet.

It is the leisured, I have noticed, who rebel the most at an interruption of routine.

Sin has always been an ugly word, but it has been made so in a new sense over the last half-century. It has been made not only ugly but pass?. People are no longer sinful, they are only immature or underprivileged or frightened or, more particularly, sick.