'The only men who, as I opine, ought to be allowed the use of Clubs, are married men without a profession. The continual presence of these in a house cannot be thought, even by the most loving of wives, desirable. Say the girls are beginning to practise their music, which in an honourable English family, ought to occupy every young gentlewoman three hours; it would be rather hard to call upon poor papa to sit in the drawing-room all that time, and listen to the interminable discords and shrieks which are elicited from the miserable piano during the above necessary operation. A man with a good ear, especially, would go mad, if compelled daily to submit to this horror'

[chap.xxxvii, 'Club Snobs']

William M. THACKERAY [1848] The Book of Snobs