"Since as a child I was with you chiefly during meals, your teaching was to a large extent the teaching of proper behavior at table.... The main thing was that the bread should be cut straight. But it didn't matter that you did it with a knife dripping with gravy.... Care had to be taken that no scraps fell on the floor. In the end it was under your chair that there were the most scraps. At table one wasn't allowed to do anything but eat, but you cleaned and cut your fingernails, sharpened pencils, cleaned your ears with a toothpick. Please, Father, understand me correctly: in themselves these would have been utterly insignificant details, they only became depressing for me because you, so tremendously the authoritative man, did not keep the commandments you imposed on me."
Wikimedia Commons
