But in the modern world we are primarily confronted with the
extraordinary spectacle of people turning to new ideals because they
have not tried the old. Men have not got tired of Christianity;
they have never found enough Christianity to get tired of.
Men have never wearied of political justice; they have wearied
of waiting for it.

Now, for the purpose of this book, I propose to take only one
of these old ideals; but one that is perhaps the oldest.
I take the principle of domesticity: the ideal house;
the happy family, the holy family of history. For the moment
it is only necessary to remark that it is like the church
and like the republic, now chiefly assailed by those who have
never known it, or by those who have failed to fulfil it.
Numberless modern women have rebelled against domesticity in theory
because they have never known it in practice. Hosts of the poor
are driven to the workhouse without ever having known the house.
Generally speaking, the cultured class is shrieking to be let
out of the decent home, just as the working class is shouting
to be let into it.

Now if we take this house or home as a test, we may very
generally lay the simple spiritual foundations or the idea.
God is that which can make something out of nothing. Man (it may
truly be said) is that which can make something out of anything.
In other words, while the joy of God be unlimited creation,
the special joy of man is limited creation, the combination
of creation with limits. Man's pleasure, therefore, is to
possess conditions, but also to be partly possessed by them;
to be half-controlled by the flute he plays or by the field he digs.