When a man enters his house he wishes to be able when he pleases to shut himself up from the rest of the world, to be alone with his family or with his thoughts, to rest himself after the day's anxieties without further turmoil or annoyance. But how is he to do this when he finds only a partition thin as the cover of a novel between himself and others who are not of his family, and who live practically on the same floor and almost in the same room? If he wishes to enjoy an hour in his private study, it is not pleasant to be obliged all the time to listen to noises in the next room, even if made by his own servants or his own children. For members of a family themselves require at times to seclude themselves from other members of the family; — there are business matters to be talked of; there are projects which children or servants should not hear; there are numberless things which the
