If there is one thing worse than the modern weakening of major morals, it is the modern strengthening of minor morals. Thus it is considered more withering to accuse a man of bad taste than of bad ethics.
Cleanliness is not next to godliness nowadays, for cleanliness is made essential and godliness is regarded as an offence. A playwright can attack the institution of marriage so long as he does not misrepresent the manners of society, and I have met
Ibsenite pessimists who thought it wrong to take beer but right to take prussic acid.
The usual suspect, lamenting his inability to draw on the ceiling while in bed and, almost as an aside, described the future. Or the present. Or the past. The names change, but the attacks are similar.
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