The Merry-go-round

Full text.
Somerset Maugham was one of the world's most prolific and popular authors. He wrote with great facility and at one time had four plays running simultaneously in four different London theaters.
He was trained as a doctor, and he must have been good: his observations are truthful and free of sentiment. His books are a tonic.
The "merry-go-round" was his term for London at the turn of the century. His narrator, Miss Ley, is a shrewd and amusing elderly spinster, something like Maugham in drag. A born commentator, she acts like a Greek chorus. The world may be mad, she seems to say, but it is amusing.
Quote: "Are you sure you don't admire a little too much your heroic attitude?" she asked, and in her voice was a stinging coldness at which Basil winced. "Nowadays self-sacrifice is a luxury which few have the strength to deny themselves; people took to it when they left off sugar because it was fattening, and they sacrifice themselves wantonly, from sheer love of it, however worthless the object. In fact, the object scarcely concerns them; they don't care how much they harm it so long as they can gratify their passion."