A Cage of Finches

LARGE families are — as my experience goes — of two sorts. We have the families whose members all admire each other. And we have the families whose members all detest² each other. For myself, I prefer the second sort. Their quarrels are their own affair; and they have a merit which the first sort are never known to possess — the merit of being sometimes able to see the good qualities of persons who do not possess the advantage of being related to them by blood. The families whose members all admire each other, are families saturated³ with insufferable conceit⁴. You happen to speak of Shakespeare, among these people, as a type of supreme⁵ intellectual capacity. A female member of the family will not fail to convey to you that you would have illustrated⁶ your meaning far more completely if you had referred her to “dear Papa.” You are out walking with a male member of the household; and you say of a woman who passes, “What a charming creature!” Your companion smiles at your simplicity⁷, and wonders whether you have ever seen his sister when she is dressed for a ball. These are the families who cannot be separated without corresponding with each other every day. They read you extracts from their letters, and say, “Where is the writer by profession who can equal this?” They talk of their private affairs, in your presence — and appear to think that you ought to be interested too. They enjoy their own jokes across you at table — and wonder how it is that you are not amused. In domestic circles of this sort the sisters sit habitually⁸ on the brothers’ knees; and the husbands inquire into the wives’ ailments⁹, in public, as unconcernedly as if they were closeted in their own room. When we arrive at a more advanced stage of civilization, the State will supply cages for these intolerable people; and notices will be posted at the corners of streets, “Beware of Number Twelve: a family in a state of

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