Note 120 — Chapter IX · The Old Maid and Her Relation to Society

See Byron’s letter to John Murray, Feb. 7, 1821: “The truth is that in these days the grand ‘primum mobile’ of England is cant; cant political, cant poetical, cant religious, cant moral; but always cant, multiplied through all the varieties of life. This is the fashion, and while it lasts will be too powerful for those who can only exist by taking the tone of the time. I say cant because it is a thing of words, without the smallest influence upon human actions; the English being no wiser, no better, and much poorer and more divided amongst themselves, as well as far less moral, than they were before the prevalence of this verbal decorum.” This was written a hundred years ago, and is still true to-day.