explain them.

In May, 1915, an Oxford professor was in New York. A few years before
this I had read a book of his which had delighted me. I met him at lunch,
I had not known him before. Even as we shook hands, I blurted out to him
my admiration for his book.

"Oh."

That was the whole of his reply. It made me laugh at myself, for I should
have known better. I had often been in England and could have told
anybody that you mustn't too abruptly or obviously refer to what the
other fellow does, still less to what you do yourself. "It isn't done."
It's a sort of indecent exposure. It's one of the invasions of the right
to privacy.

In America, not everywhere but in many places, a man upon entering a club
and seeing a friend across the room, will not hesitate to call out to
him, "Hullo, Jack!" or "Hullo, George!" or whatever. In England "it
isn't done." The greeting would be conveyed by a short nod or a glance.
To call out a man's name across a room full of people, some of whom may
be total strangers, invades his privacy and theirs. Have you noticed how,
in our Pullman parlor cars, a party sitting together, generally young
women, will shriek their conversation in a voice that bores like a gimlet
through the whole place? That is an invasion of privacy. In England "it
isn't done." We shouldn't stand it in a theatre, but in parlor cars we do
stand it. It is a good instance to show that the Englishman's right to
privacy is larger than ours, and thus that his liberty is larger than
ours.