“Boys are beaten for reading poetry, grocers are called ‘robbers’ for sending in their bills, dogs are fed chicken while the servants are forced to eat laundry starch to stave off hunger, terrified children are put on horses at a remarkably young age, a nanny is dismissed for drunkenness but still given a good reference because to do otherwise ‘would have been unkind and unnecessary’. The proper way to conduct oneself in all matters is to employ selective silence: Papa.”
