Page:Under Dispute (1924).pdf/49

 have steeped society in an ebb-tide of rejected counsels. It would seem that none of us are conducting ourselves as properly as we should, and that few of us are satisfactory to our neighbours. In the rapid shifting of responsibility, we find ourselves accused when we thought we were accusers. We say that a girl's dress fails to cover a proper percentage of her body, and are told that it is the consequence of our inability to preserve peace. We pay a predatory grocer the price he asks for his goods, and are told that it is our fault he asks it. If we plead that hunger-striking—the only alternative—is incompatible with common sense and hard work, we are offered a varied assortment of substitutes for food. There is nothing in which personal tastes are more pronounced or less persuasive than in the devices of economy. Sooner or later they resolve themselves into the query of the famous and frugal Frenchman: