The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it. I really enjoy going out at night, and taking a stroll around the park because it is usually so peaceful. One can usually catch the adorable raccoons playing in the park. One night, the sprinklers were on and a family of five raccoons were circulating around a tree and playing in the water, it was so cute. I call them urban pandas. Many people are afraid of raccoons, but they seem to actually be shy animals, and they usually only come out at night. I have never had a problem with them, but I think they do not like to get too close to people, as they may feel threatened, and perhaps that is why they come out at night. Many people often make judgements about people and things they have no knowledge of because of personal feelings or stereotypes. The word savagery, now that we know more about savages, is losing its old meaning. For the most part, savages are gentlemen. They have a moral code, no supernatural sanction of morality; the fear of hurting the feelings of one’s fellow men is the real moral sanction, though it is associated with, as minor motives, the fear of retaliation and, still the fear or public reprobation. The sympathetic sanction, as it involved a constant consideration for all the members of one’s sympathy-group. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 5

I did not think it was necessary to make a hell of this World to enjoy a paradise in the next. It is taboos that preserve our more refined sensibilities from the people who wipe their mouths with the tablecloth and blow their noses with the serviette, and it is prohibitions that preserve us from being murdered outright. If we were objects of complete indifference to our fellows, or of no more concern than stones or trees, we should soon be driven up to or over the verge of suicide. Life is livable because we know that wherever we go, most of the people we meet will be restrained in their actions towards us by an almost instinctive network of taboos. We know that they will allow us the same or nearly the same degree of freedom and privilege that they claim for themselves; if we take our place in a queue at a railway station or a theatre, they will not thrust themselves on us. The pronounced growth of a new taboo in a whole nation is seen in the change of attitude towards drunkenness which has taken place during the lifetime of those past middle age, and clearly demonstrated alike by the statistics of the consumption of alcohol and police-court convictions for drunkenness. In this curious little World of ours, we enjoy our lives on infernally hard terms. We live in the condition that we die. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 5

Be sober, be vigilant; because your deviant adversary, as a roaring lion, walk about seeking whom he or she may devour. Among the upper classes, drunkenness had disappeared as a prominent social phenomenon at the beginning of the nineteenth century. It was in the previous century that a great statesman like Brad Pitt could openly relieve himself of the results of excessive drink by going being the Speaker’s chair in Parliament to vomit, and that men of good society after dinner, when the ladies had retired, could drink port till they fell beneath the table, and they did not have to worry about anyone trying to talk under their skirt. However, such scenes among the populace in the streets of that century, were much slower to pass away. I would endorse the observations recently made in a leading article by the London Times, which stated that the manners, especially amount the young, did indeed incline to be rough and ready as the too much and the too little discipline of the democratic reign took to shaking down together. However, the patient and self-effacing elder seems now to be reaping his reward in the new gentleness, new consideration, new attention to social forms and refinements of behavior which he cannot help observing among his young acquaintance. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 5

As for their morals, it is certain that any man who was even suspected of committing the offences of which the Restoration gallants and the Regency bucks made a boast would be cut by every one. Within living memory, however, there has been a great change in this respect among the lower social classes, and those of us who knew London fifty years ago can bear witness to the frequency of the signs of drunkenness then compared with their rarity now. The change is reflected in police-court convictions for drunkenness; comparing the last twenty-three years, there was a drop 73 percent in the convictions. To some extent, the change is due to diminished facilities for obtaining drink, and its higher price. The young man of today has a new social ideal; he does not want to spend his evenings in a public house, like the men of an elder generation now dying out’ he puts on a nice suit of clothes, as an ex-chief constable of police remarks, and nicely cleaned boots, with the other accessories of a tidy turnout, and takes a young friend to the cinema, dance, or wherever fancy many lead them; his mate is smartly dressed, and he has to live up to the standard. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 5

The shillings that used to go in drink are saved up for clothes and to spend on amusements; and the young man is so far from his predecessor of another generation that he has acquired the necessary amount of self-respect to feel it is a disgrace to be seen drunk. In other words, a new taboo has come into existence. Such restrictions are typical in our own society and are cherished even by the person who professes the strongest contempt for taboos, if he is a fairly normal member of our society. We may even say that he is—whether or not he knows it—actually engaged in increasing and strengthening them. The whole tendency of our society today is to increase and strengthen the taboos which preserve the freedom and enlarge the activities of the individual in moving about in a civilized environment. Several of those taboos which I have just mentioned as today almost instinctive had little or no force half a century ago; I can myself recall the time when some of them had not come into being, or were not recognized, and I can therefore realize the benefits they confer. Dig but deep enough, and under all Earth runs water, under all life runs grief. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 5