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Anticipations Chapter 4 Part 1 · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Chapter four a of anticipations. This is a LibriVox recording.
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Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Anticipations
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Speaker 1: by h. G. Welve, Chapter four Certain social reactions. We
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Speaker 1: are now in a position to point out and consider
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Speaker 1: certain general ways in which the various factors and elements
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Speaker 1: in the deliquescent society of the present time will react
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Speaker 1: one upon another, and to speculate what definite statements, if any,
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Speaker 1: it may seem reasonable to make about the individual people
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Speaker 1: of the year two thousand or thereabouts from the reaction
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Speaker 1: of these classes we have attempted to define. To begin with,
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Speaker 1: it may prove convenient to speculate upon the trend of
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Speaker 1: development of that class about which we have the most
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Speaker 1: grounds for certainty in the coming time, the shareholding class,
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Speaker 1: the route of the abyss the speculator, may develop in
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Speaker 1: countless ways according to the varying development of exterior influences
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Speaker 1: upon them. But of the most typical portion of the
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Speaker 1: central body, the section containing the scientific, engineering, or medical
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Speaker 1: sort of people, we can postulate certain tendencies with some confidence,
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Speaker 1: certain ways of thought they must develop, certain habits of mind,
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Speaker 1: and I they will radiate out into the adjacent portions
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Speaker 1: of the social mass. We can even I think, deduce
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Speaker 1: some conception of the home in which a fairly typical
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Speaker 1: example of this body will be living within a reasonable
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Speaker 1: term of years. The mere fact that a man is
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Speaker 1: an engineer or a doctor, for example, should imply now,
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Speaker 1: and certainly will imply in the future, that he has
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Speaker 1: received an education of a certain definite type. He will
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Speaker 1: have a general acquaintance with the scientific interpreter of the universe,
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Speaker 1: and he will have acquired certain positive and practical habits
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Speaker 1: of mind. If the methods of thought of any individual
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Speaker 1: in this central body are not practical and positive, he
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Speaker 1: will tend to drift out of it to some more
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Speaker 1: congenial employment. He will almost necessarily have a strong imperative
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Speaker 1: to duty, quite apart from whatever theological opinions he may entertain,
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Speaker 1: because if he has not such an inherent imperative, life
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Speaker 1: will have very many more alluring prospects than this. His
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Speaker 1: religious conclusions, whatever they may be, will be based upon
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Speaker 1: some orderly theological system that must have honestly admitted and
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Speaker 1: reconciled his scientific beliefs. The emotional and mystical elements in
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Speaker 1: his religion will be subordinate or absent. Essentially, he will
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Speaker 1: be a moral man, certainly so far as to exercise
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Speaker 1: self restraint and live in an ordered way. Unless this
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Speaker 1: is so, he will be unable to give his principle
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Speaker 1: energies to thought and work. That is, he will not
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Speaker 1: be a good typical engineer. If sensuality appear at all,
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Speaker 1: largely in this central body, therefore a point we must
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Speaker 1: leave open here. It will appear without any trappings of
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Speaker 1: sentiment or mysticism. Frankly, on Pauline lines wine for the
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Speaker 1: stomach's sake, and it is better to marry than to burn,
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Speaker 1: a concession to the flesh necessary to secure efficiency. Assuming,
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Speaker 1: in our typical case that pure indulgence does not appear
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Speaker 1: or flares and passes, then either he will be single
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Speaker 1: or more or less married. The import of that more
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Speaker 1: or less will be discussed later. For the present, we
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Speaker 1: may very conveniently conceive him married under the traditional laws
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Speaker 1: of Christendom. Having a mind considerably engaged, he will not
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Speaker 1: have the leisure for a wife of the distracting, perplexing
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Speaker 1: personality kind, and in our typical case, which will be
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Speaker 1: a typically sound and successful one. We may picture him
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Speaker 1: wedded to a healthy, intelligent and loyal person who will
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Speaker 1: be her husband's companion in their common leisure, and as
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Speaker 1: mother of their three or four children and manager of
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Speaker 1: his household. As much of a technically capable individual as himself,
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Speaker 1: he will be a father of several children. I think
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Speaker 1: because his scientific mental basis will incline him to see
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Speaker 1: the whole of life as a struggle to survive. He
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Speaker 1: will recognize that a childless, sterile life, however pleasant, is
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Speaker 1: essentially failure and perversion, and he will conceive his honor
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Speaker 1: involved in the possession of offspring. Such a couple will
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Speaker 1: probably dress with a view to decent convenience. They will
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Speaker 1: not set the fashions, as I shall presently point out,
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Speaker 1: but they will incline to steady and sober them. They
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Speaker 1: will avoid exciting color contrasts and bizarre contours. They will
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Speaker 1: not be habitually promenades or greatly addicted to theatrical performances.
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Speaker 1: They will probably find their secondary interests. The cardinal one
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Speaker 1: will of course be the work in hand in a
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Speaker 1: not too imaginative prose literature, in travel and journeys, and
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Speaker 1: in the less sensuous aspects of music. They will probably
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Speaker 1: take a considerable interest in public affairs. Their minage, which
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Speaker 1: will consist of father, mother and children, will I think,
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Speaker 1: in all probability be servantless. They will probably not keep
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Speaker 1: a servant for two very excellent reasons, because in the
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Speaker 1: first place, they will not want one, and in the
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Speaker 1: second they will not get one if they do. A
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Speaker 1: servant is necessary in the small modern house partly to
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Speaker 1: supplement the deficiencies of the wife, but mainly to supplement
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Speaker 1: the deficiencies of the house. She comes to cook and
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Speaker 1: perform various skilled duties that the wife lacks either knowledge
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Speaker 1: or training, or both to perform regularly and expeditiously. Usually,
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Speaker 1: it must be confessed that the servant in the small
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Speaker 1: household fails to perform these skilled duties com completely. But
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Speaker 1: the great proportion of the servant's duties consists merely in
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Speaker 1: drudgery that the stupidities of our present day method of
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Speaker 1: house construction entail, and which the more sanely constructed house
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Speaker 1: of the future will avoid. Consider, for instance, the wanton
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Speaker 1: disregard of avoidable toil displayed in building houses with a
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Speaker 1: service basement without lifts. Then most dusting and sweeping would
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Speaker 1: be quite avoidable if houses were wiselier done. It is
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Speaker 1: the lack of proper warming appliances which necessitates a vast
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Speaker 1: amount of coal carrying and dirt distribution, and it is
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Speaker 1: this dirt mainly that has so painfully to be removed again.
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Speaker 1: The house of the future will probably be warmed in
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Speaker 1: its walls from some power generating station, as indeed already
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Speaker 1: very many houses are lit at the present day. The
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Speaker 1: lack of sane methods of ventilation also enhances the general
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Speaker 1: dirtiness and dustiness of the present day home. And gas
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Speaker 1: lighting and the use of tarnishable mans wherever possible, involve
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Speaker 1: further labour. But air will enter the house of the
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Speaker 1: future through proper tubes in the walls, which will warm
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Speaker 1: it and capture its dust, and it will be spun
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Speaker 1: out again by a simple mechanism and by simple devices.
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Speaker 1: Such sweeping, as still remains necessary, can be enormously lightened.
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Speaker 1: The fact that in existing homes the skirting meets the
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Speaker 1: floor at right angles makes sweeping about twice as troublesome
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Speaker 1: as it will be when people have the sense and
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Speaker 1: ability to round off the angle between wall and floor.
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Speaker 1: So one great lump of the servant's toil will practically disappear.
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Speaker 1: Two others are already disappearing. In many houses there are
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Speaker 1: still the offensive duties of filling lamps and blacking boots
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Speaker 1: to be done. Our coming house, however, will have no
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Speaker 1: lamps to need filling, and as for the boots, really
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Speaker 1: intelligent people will feel the essential ugliness of wearing the
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Speaker 1: evidence of constant manual toil upon their persons. They will
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Speaker 1: wear sorts of shoes and boots that can be cleaned
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Speaker 1: by wiping in a minute or so. Take now the
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Speaker 1: bedroom work. The lack of ingenuity and sanitary fittings at
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Speaker 1: present forbids the obvious convenience of hot and cold water
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Speaker 1: supply to the bedroom, and there is a mighty fetching
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Speaker 1: and carrying of water and slops to be got through daily.
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Speaker 1: All that will cease. Every bedroom will have its own
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Speaker 1: bath dressing room, which any well bred person will be
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Speaker 1: intelligent and considerate enough to use and leave without the
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Speaker 1: slightest disarrangement. This, so far as upstairs goes, rarely only
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Speaker 1: leaves bed making to be done, and a bed does
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Speaker 1: not take five minutes to make. Downstairs, a vast amount
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Speaker 1: of needless labor at present arises out of tablewar. Washing
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Speaker 1: up consists of a tedious cleansing and wiping of each
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Speaker 1: table utensil in turn. Whereas it should be possible to
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Speaker 1: immerse all dirty tablewar in a suitable solvent for a
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Speaker 1: few minutes and then run that off for the articles
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Speaker 1: to dry. The application of solvents to window cleaning also
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Speaker 1: would be possible thing, but for the primitive construction of
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Speaker 1: our windows, which prevents anything but a painful rub, rub,
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Speaker 1: rub with the leather. A friend of mine in domestic
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Speaker 1: servers tells me that this rubbing is to get the
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Speaker 1: window dry, and this seems to be the general impression,
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Speaker 1: but I think it incorrect. The water is not an
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Speaker 1: adequate solvent and enough cannot be used under existing conditions. Consequently,
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Speaker 1: if the window is cleaned and left wet, it dries
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Speaker 1: and drops, and these drops contain dirt and solution, which
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Speaker 1: remain as spots. But water containing a suitable solvent could
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Speaker 1: quite simply be made to run down a window for
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Speaker 1: a few minutes from pinholes in a pipe above into
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Speaker 1: a groove below, and this could be followed by pure
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Speaker 1: rain water for an equal time and in this way
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Speaker 1: the whole window cleaning in the house could, I imagine,
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Speaker 1: be reduced to the business of turning on a tap.
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Speaker 1: There remains the cooking to day. Cooking, with its incidentals,
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Speaker 1: is a very serious business, the coaling, the ashes, the
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Speaker 1: horrible moments of heat, the hot black things to handle,
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Speaker 1: the silly vague recipes, the want of neat apparatus, and
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Speaker 1: the want of intelligence to demand or use neat apparatus.
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Speaker 1: One always imagines a cook working with a crimsoned face
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Speaker 1: and bare blackened arms, but with a neat little range,
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Speaker 1: heated by electricity, and provided with thermometers, with absolutely controllable
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Speaker 1: temperatures and proper heat screens, cooking might very easily be
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Speaker 1: made a pleasant amusement for intelligent invalid ladies, which reminds one,
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Speaker 1: by the bye has an added detail to our previous
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Speaker 1: sketch of the scenery of the days to come, that
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Speaker 1: there will be no chimneys at all to the house
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Speaker 1: of the future of this type, except the flu for
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Speaker 1: the kitchen smells. Footnote that interesting book by mister George Sutherland,
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Speaker 1: Twentieth Century Inventions, is very suggestive on these, as on
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Speaker 1: many other matters. End footnote. This will not only abolish
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Speaker 1: the chimney stack, but make the roof a clean and
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Speaker 1: pleasant addition to the garden spaces of the home. I
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Speaker 1: do not know how long all these things will take
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Speaker 1: to arrive. The erection of a series of experimental labour
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Speaker 1: saving houses by some philanthropic person for exhibition and discussion
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Speaker 1: would certainly bring about a very extraordinary advance in domestic comfort,
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Speaker 1: even in the immediate future. But the fashions in philanthropy
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Speaker 1: do not trend in such practical directions. If they did,
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Speaker 1: the philanthropic person would probably be too amenable to flattery
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Speaker 1: to escape the pushful patent t and too sensitive to
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Speaker 1: avail himself of criticism, which rarely succeeds in being both
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Speaker 1: penetrating and polite. And it will probably be many years
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Speaker 1: before the cautious enterprise of advertising firms approximates to the
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Speaker 1: economies that are theoretically possible today. But certainly the engineering
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Speaker 1: and medical sorts of person will be best able to
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Speaker 1: appreciate the possibilities of cutting down the irksome life labours
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Speaker 1: of the contemporary home, and most likely to first demand
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Speaker 1: and secure them. The wife of this ideal home may
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Speaker 1: probably have a certain distaste for vicarious labour, that, so
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Speaker 1: far as the immediate minimum of duties goes, will probably
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Speaker 1: carry her through them. There will be few servants obtainable
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Speaker 1: for the small homes of the future, and that may
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Speaker 1: strengthen her sentiments. Hardly any woman seems to object to
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Speaker 1: a system of things which provides that another woman should
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Speaker 1: be made rough handed and kept rough minded for her sake.
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Speaker 1: But with the enormous diffusion of leveling information that is
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Speaker 1: going on, a perfectly valid objection will probably come from
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Speaker 1: the other side. In this transaction. The servants of the past,
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Speaker 1: and the only good servants of today, are the children
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Speaker 1: of servants, or the children of the old labour base
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Speaker 1: of the social pyramid. Until recently, a necessary and self
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Speaker 1: respecting element in the state machinery has smashed that base
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Speaker 1: and scattered its fragments. The tradition of self respecting inferiority
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Speaker 1: is being utterly destroyed in the world. The contingents of
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Speaker 1: the abyss even will not supply daughters for this purpose.
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Speaker 1: In the community of the United States, no native born
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Speaker 1: race of white servants has appeared, and the emancipated young
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Speaker 1: negress degenerates towards the impossible, which is one of the
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Speaker 1: many stimulants to small ingenuities that may help very powerfully
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Speaker 1: to give that nation the industrial leadership of the world.
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Speaker 1: The servant of the future, if indeed she should still
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Speaker 1: linger in the small household, will be a person alive
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Speaker 1: to a social injustice and the unsuccessful rival of the wife.
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Speaker 1: Such servants as Welsh will retain, will be about as
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Speaker 1: really loyal and servile as hotel waiters. And on the
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Speaker 1: same terms, for the middling sort of people in the
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Speaker 1: future maintaining a separate minage, there is nothing for it
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Speaker 1: but the practically automatic house or flat, supplemented perhaps by
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Speaker 1: the restaurant or the hotel. Almost certainly for reasons detailed
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Speaker 1: in the second chapter of these anticipations, this household, if
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Speaker 1: it is an ideal type, will be situated away from
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Speaker 1: the central town nucleus and in pleasant surroundings. And I
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Speaker 1: imagine that the sort of woman who would be mother
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Speaker 1: and mistress of such a home would not be perfectly
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Speaker 1: content unless there were a garden about the house. On
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Speaker 1: account of the servant difficulty. Again, this garden would probably
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Speaker 1: be less laboriously neat than many of our gardens to day.
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Speaker 1: No bedding out, for example, and a certain parsimony of
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Speaker 1: mown lawn to such a type of home. It seems
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Speaker 1: the active, scientifically trained people will tend But usually I
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Speaker 1: think the prophet is inclined to overestimate the number of
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Speaker 1: people who will reach this condition of affairs in a
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Speaker 1: generation or so, and to underestimate the conflicting tendencies that
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Speaker 1: will make its attainment difficult to all and impossible to many,
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Speaker 1: and that will for me many years tint and blotch
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Speaker 1: the achievement of those who succeed with patches of unsympathetic color.
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Speaker 1: To understand just how modifications may come in, it is
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Speaker 1: necessary to consider the probable line of development of another
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Speaker 1: of the four main elements of the social body of
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Speaker 1: the coming time. As a consequence and visible expression of
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Speaker 1: the great new growth of share and stock property, there
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Speaker 1: will be scattered through the whole social body, concentrated here
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Speaker 1: perhaps and diffused there, but everywhere perceived the members of
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Speaker 1: that new class of the irresponsible wealthy, a class, as
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Speaker 1: I have already pointed out in the preceding chapter, miscellaneous
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Speaker 1: and free, to a degree quite unprecedented in the world's history,
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Speaker 1: quite inevitably great sections of this miscellany will develop characteristics
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Speaker 1: almost diametrically opposed to those of the typical working expert class,
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Speaker 1: and their gravitational attraction may influence the lives of this
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Speaker 1: more efficient, finally more powerful, but at present much less
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Speaker 1: wealthy class to a very considerable degree of intimacy. The
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Speaker 1: rich shareholder and the skilled expert must necessarily be sharply
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Speaker 1: contrasted types, and of the two, it must be borne
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Speaker 1: in mind that it is the rich shareholder who spends
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Speaker 1: the money. While occupation and skill incline one towards severity
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Speaker 1: and economy, leisure and unlimited means involve relaxation and demand
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Speaker 1: the adventitious interests of decoration. The shareholder will be the
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Speaker 1: decorative influence in the state. So far as there will
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Speaker 1: be a typical shareholder's house, we may hazard that it
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Speaker 1: will have rich colors, elaborate hangings, stained glass, adornments, and
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Speaker 1: added interests in great abundance. This leisure class will certainly
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Speaker 1: employ the greater proportion of the artists, decorators, fabric makers,
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Speaker 1: and the like of the coming time. It will dominate
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Speaker 1: the world of art, and we may say with some
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Speaker 1: confidence that it will influence it in certain directions. For example,
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Speaker 1: standing apart from the movement of the world, as they
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Speaker 1: will do to a very large extent, the archaic, opulently
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Speaker 1: done will appeal irresistibly to very many of these irresponsible
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Speaker 1: rich as the very quintessence of art. They will come
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Speaker 1: to art with uncritical, cultured minds, full of past achievements,
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Speaker 1: ignorant of present necessities. Art will be something added to life,
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Speaker 1: something stuck on and richly reminiscent, not a manner pervading
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Speaker 1: all real things. We may be pretty sure that very
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Speaker 1: few will grasp the fact that an iron bridge or
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Speaker 1: a railway engine may be artistically done. These will not
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Speaker 1: be art objects, but hostile novelties. And on the other hand,
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Speaker 1: we can pretty confidently foretell a spacious future and much
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Speaker 1: amplification for that turgid, costly, and deliberately anti contemporary group
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Speaker 1: of styles of which William morris Ander's associates have been
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Speaker 1: the fortunate pioneers. And the same principles will apply to costume.
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Speaker 1: A non functional class of people cannot have a functional costume.
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Speaker 1: The whole scheme of costume, as it will be worn
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Speaker 1: by the wealthy classes in the coming years, will necessarily
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Speaker 1: be of that character which is called fancy dress. Few
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Speaker 1: people will trouble to discover the most convenient forms and materials,
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Speaker 1: and endeavor to simplify them and reduce them to beautiful forms,
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Speaker 1: while endless enterprising tradesmen will be alert for a perpetual
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Speaker 1: succession of striking novelties. The women will ransack the ages
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Speaker 1: for becoming and alluring anachronisms. The men will appear in
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Speaker 1: the elaborate uniforms of games, in modifications of court dress,
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Speaker 1: in picturesque revivals of national costumes, and epidemic fashions of
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Speaker 1: the most astonishing sort. Now, these people, so far as
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Speaker 1: they are spent money, and so far as he is
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Speaker 1: a spender of money, will stand to this ideal engineering
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Speaker 1: sort of person who is the vitally important citizen of
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Speaker 1: a progressive scientific state in a competitive relation. In most cases,
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Speaker 1: whenever there is something that both want one against the other,
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Speaker 1: the shareholder will get it. In most cases, where it
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Speaker 1: is a matter of calling the tune, the shareholder will
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Speaker 1: call the tune. For example, the young architect, conscious of
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Speaker 1: exceptional ability, will have more or less clearly before him
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Speaker 1: the alternatives of devoting himself to the novel intricate and
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Speaker 1: difficult business of designing cheap, simple and mechanically convenient homes
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Speaker 1: for people who will certainly not be highly renunerative and
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Speaker 1: will probably be rather acutely critical, or of perfecting himself
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Speaker 1: in some period of romantic architecture, or striking out some
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Speaker 1: startling and attractive novelty of manner or material which will
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Speaker 1: be certain sooner or later to meet its congenial shareholder.
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Speaker 1: Even if he hover for a time between these alternatives,
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Speaker 1: he will need to be a person not only of
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Speaker 1: exceptional gifts, but what is by no means a common
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Speaker 1: accompaniment of exceptional gifts exceptional strength of character to take
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Speaker 1: the former line consequently, for many years, yet most of
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Speaker 1: the experimental buildings and novel designs that initiate discussion and
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Speaker 1: develop the general taste will be done primarily to please
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Speaker 1: the more originative shareholders, and not to satisfy the demands
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Speaker 1: of our engineer or doctor, and the strictly commercial builders
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Speaker 1: who will cater for all but the wealthiest engineers, scientific
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Speaker 1: investigators and businessmen, being unable to afford specific designs, will
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Speaker 1: amidst the disregarded curses of these more intelligent customers, still
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Speaker 1: simply reproduce in a cheaper and mutilated form such examples
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Speaker 1: as happen to be set practically. That is to say,
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Speaker 1: the shareholder will buy up almost all the available architectural talent.
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Speaker 1: This modifies our conception of the outer appearance of that
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Speaker 1: little house we imagined. Unless it happens to be the
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Speaker 1: house of an exceptionally prosperous member of the utilitarian professions,
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Speaker 1: it will lack something of the neat directness implicit in
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Speaker 1: our description, something of that inevitable beauty that arises out
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Speaker 1: of the perfect attainment of ends for very many years.
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Speaker 1: At any rate, it will almost certainly be tinted. It
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Speaker 1: may even be saturated with the second hand archaic. The
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Speaker 1: owner may object, but a busy man cannot stop his
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Speaker 1: life work to teach architects what they ought to know.
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Speaker 1: It may be heated electrically, but it will have sham chimneys,
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Speaker 1: in whose darkness, unless they are built solid, dust and
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Speaker 1: filth will gather, and luckless birds and insects pass horrible
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Speaker 1: last hours of ineffectual struggle. It may have automatic window
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Speaker 1: cleaning arrangement, but they will be hidden by picturesque mullions.
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Speaker 1: The sham chimneys will perhaps be made to smoke genially
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Speaker 1: in winter by some ingenious contrivance. There may be sham
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Speaker 1: open fireplaces within with ingle nooks about the sham glowing logs.
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Speaker 1: The needlessly steep roofs will have a sham sag, and
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Speaker 1: sham timbered gables and probably forced lichens will give it
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Speaker 1: a sham appearance of age. Just that feeble minded contemporary
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Speaker 1: shirking of the truth of things that has given the
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Speaker 1: world such stockbroker in armour affairs as the tower bridge
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Speaker 1: and historical romance, will I fear worry the lucid mind
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Speaker 1: in a great multitude of the homes that the coming
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Speaker 1: half at least of the century will produce. In quite
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Speaker 1: a similar way, the shareholding body will buy up all
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Speaker 1: the clever and more enterprising makers and designers of clothing
22:56
Speaker 1: and adornment. He will set the fashion of almost all
22:59
Speaker 1: ornaments in book binding, and printing, and painting, for example, furnishing,
23:05
Speaker 1: and indeed of almost all things that are not primarily
23:08
Speaker 1: produced for the million. As the phrase goes, and where
23:12
Speaker 1: that sort of thing comes in, then so far as
23:15
Speaker 1: the trained and intelligent type of man goes for many years,
23:19
Speaker 1: yet it will be simply a case of the nether
23:22
Speaker 1: instead of the upper millstone. Just how far the influence
23:26
Speaker 1: and contagion of the shareholding mass will reach into this
23:29
Speaker 1: imaginary household of non shareholding efficients, and just how far
23:34
Speaker 1: the influence of science and mechanism will penetrate the minds
23:37
Speaker 1: and methods of the rich, becomes really one of the
23:40
Speaker 1: most important questions with which these speculations will deal. For
23:45
Speaker 1: this argument that he will perhaps be able to buy
23:49
Speaker 1: up the architect and the tailor, and the decorator and
23:51
Speaker 1: so forth, is merely preliminary to the graver issue. It
23:56
Speaker 1: is just possible that the shareholder may, to a very
23:59
Speaker 1: large extent, in a certain figurative sense, at least, by
24:03
Speaker 1: up much of the womankind that would otherwise be available
24:06
Speaker 1: to constitute those severe capable and probably by no means
24:10
Speaker 1: unhappy little establishments to which our typical engineers will tend
24:15
Speaker 1: and so prevent many women from becoming mothers of a
24:18
Speaker 1: regenerating world. The huge secretion of irresponsible wealth by the
24:23
Speaker 1: social organism is certain to affect the tone of thought
24:27
Speaker 1: of the entire feminine sex profoundly. The exact nature of
24:31
Speaker 1: this influence, we may now consider the gist of this
24:36
Speaker 1: inquiry lies in the fact that while a man's starting
24:39
Speaker 1: position in this world of today is entirely determined by
24:41
Speaker 1: the conditions of his birth and early training, and his
24:45
Speaker 1: final position the slow, elaborate outcome of his own sustained
24:48
Speaker 1: efforts to live, a woman from the age of sixteen onwards,
24:52
Speaker 1: as the world goes now, is essentially adventurous, the creature
24:56
Speaker 1: of circumstances largely beyond her control and foresight. A virile man,
25:02
Speaker 1: though he too is subject to accidents, may upon most points,
25:05
Speaker 1: still hope to plan and determine his life. The life
25:09
Speaker 1: of a woman is all accident. Normally, she lives in
25:12
Speaker 1: relation to some specific man, and until that man has
25:16
Speaker 1: indicated her preparation for life must be of the most
25:18
Speaker 1: tentative sort. She lives going nowhere, like a cabman on
25:23
Speaker 1: the crawl, and at any time she may find it
25:26
Speaker 1: open to her to assist some pleasure loving millionaire to
25:29
Speaker 1: spend his millions, or to play her part in one
25:32
Speaker 1: of the many real, original and only derivatives of the
25:35
Speaker 1: former aristocratic society that have developed themselves among independent people.
25:42
Speaker 1: Even if she is a serious and labour loving type,
25:45
Speaker 1: some shareholder may tempt her with the prospect of developing
25:48
Speaker 1: her exceptional personality in ease and freedom, and in doing
25:52
Speaker 1: good with his money. With the continued growth of the
25:56
Speaker 1: shareholding class, the brighter looking matrimonial choir answers not to
26:01
Speaker 1: speak of the glittering opportunities that are not matrimonial, will increase.
26:06
Speaker 1: Reading is now the privilege of all classes. There are
26:10
Speaker 1: few secrets of etiquette that a clever lower class girl
26:13
Speaker 1: will fail to learn. There are few such girls even
26:16
Speaker 1: now who are not aware of their wide opportunities, or
26:19
Speaker 1: at least their wide possibilities of luxury and freedom. There
26:23
Speaker 1: are still fewer who, knowing as much, do not let
26:26
Speaker 1: it affect their standards and conception of life. The whole
26:30
Speaker 1: mass of modern fiction written by women for women, indeed
26:34
Speaker 1: down to the cheapest novelettes, is saturated with the romance
26:38
Speaker 1: of mesalliance. And even when the specific man has appeared,
26:43
Speaker 1: the adventuress is still not shut out of a woman's career.
26:47
Speaker 1: A man's affections may wander capriciously and leave him but
26:51
Speaker 1: a little poorer or a little better placed for the
26:54
Speaker 1: women they wander from. However, the issue is an infinitely
26:58
Speaker 1: graver one and the various wandering of a woman's fancy
27:01
Speaker 1: may mean the beginning of a new world for her.
27:05
Speaker 1: At any moment, the chances of death may make the
27:07
Speaker 1: wife a widow, may sweep out of existence all that
27:11
Speaker 1: she had made fundamental in her life, may enrich her
27:14
Speaker 1: with insurance profits, or hurl her into poverty and restore
27:18
Speaker 1: all the drifting expectancy of her adolescence. Now, it is
27:24
Speaker 1: difficult to say why we should expect the growing girl,
27:27
Speaker 1: in whom an unlimited ambition and egotism is as natural
27:31
Speaker 1: and proper a thing as beauty and high spirits, to
27:34
Speaker 1: deny herself some delliance with the more opulent dreams that
27:38
Speaker 1: form the golden lining to these precarious prospects. How can
27:42
Speaker 1: we expect her to prepare herself solely, putting all wandering
27:46
Speaker 1: thoughts aside for the servantless cookery, domestic kindergarten work, the
27:51
Speaker 1: care of hardy perennials, and low pitched conversation of the
27:55
Speaker 1: engineer's home. Supposing, after all, there is no predestinate engineer.
28:01
Speaker 1: The stories the growing girl now prefers, and I imagine
28:05
Speaker 1: will in the future, still prefer deal mainly with the
28:08
Speaker 1: rich and free. The theater she will prefer to visit
28:11
Speaker 1: will present the lives and loves of opulent people with
28:15
Speaker 1: great precision and detailed correctness. Her favorite periodicals will reflect
28:20
Speaker 1: that life. Her schoolmistress, whatever her principles, must have an
28:24
Speaker 1: eye to her chances. And even after fate or a
28:28
Speaker 1: gust of passion has whirled her into the arms of
28:31
Speaker 1: our busy and capable fundamental man, all these things will
28:35
Speaker 1: still be in her imagination and memory. Unless he is
28:39
Speaker 1: a person of extraordinary mental prepotency. She will almost insensibly
28:43
Speaker 1: determine the character of the home in a direction quite
28:46
Speaker 1: other than that of our first sketch. She will set
28:50
Speaker 1: herself to realize, as far as her husband's means and
28:53
Speaker 1: credit permit, the ideas of the particular section of the
28:57
Speaker 1: wealthy that have captured her. If she is a fool,
29:01
Speaker 1: her ideas of life will presently come into complete conflict
29:04
Speaker 1: with her husbands, in a manner that, as the fumes
29:07
Speaker 1: of the love potion leave, his brain may bring the
29:10
Speaker 1: real nature of the case home to him. If he
29:13
Speaker 1: is of that resolute strain to whom the world must
29:15
Speaker 1: finally come, he may rebel and weigh through tears and
29:19
Speaker 1: crises to his appointed work. Again, the cleverer she is,
29:24
Speaker 1: and the finer and more loyal her character up to
29:26
Speaker 1: a certain point, the less likely this is to happen,
29:30
Speaker 1: the more subtle and effective will be her hold upon
29:32
Speaker 1: her husband, and the more probable his perversion from the
29:36
Speaker 1: austere pursuit of some interesting employment towards the adventures of
29:40
Speaker 1: modern money getting in pursuit of her ideals of a
29:43
Speaker 1: befitting life. And meanwhile, since one must live, the nursery
29:48
Speaker 1: that was implicit in the background of the first picture
29:51
Speaker 1: will probably prove unnecessary. She will be perforce a person
29:56
Speaker 1: not only of pleasant pursuits, but of leisure. If she
30:00
Speaker 1: he endears herself to her husband, he will feel not
30:02
Speaker 1: only the attraction but the duty of her vacant hours.
30:06
Speaker 1: He will not only deflect his working hours from the
30:09
Speaker 1: effective to the profitable, but that occasional burning of the
30:12
Speaker 1: midnight oil that no brain worker may forego if he
30:16
Speaker 1: is to retain his efficiency, will, in the interests of
30:19
Speaker 1: some attractive theatrical performance or some agreeable social occasion, all
30:24
Speaker 1: too frequently have to be put off or abandoned. This
30:29
Speaker 1: line of speculation therefore gives us a second picture of
30:32
Speaker 1: the household to put beside our first a household, or
30:36
Speaker 1: rather a couple, rather more likely to be typical of
30:39
Speaker 1: the mass of middling sort of people in those urban
30:42
Speaker 1: regions of the future than our first projection. It will
30:46
Speaker 1: probably not live in a separate home at all, but
30:48
Speaker 1: in a flat in town or at one of the
30:51
Speaker 1: subordinate centers of the urban region. We have foreseen. The
30:55
Speaker 1: apartments will be more or less agreeably adorned in some
30:59
Speaker 1: decorative fashion akin to, but less costly than, some of
31:03
Speaker 1: the many fashions that will obtain among the wealthy. They
31:07
Speaker 1: will be littered with a miscellaneous literature, novels of an
31:11
Speaker 1: entertaining and stimulating sort predominating, and with bric a brac.
31:16
Speaker 1: In a childless household there must certainly be quaint dolls,
31:19
Speaker 1: pet images, and so forth, and perhaps a canary would
31:23
Speaker 1: find a place. I suspect there would be an addition
31:26
Speaker 1: or so of omar about in this more typical household
31:30
Speaker 1: of moderns, but I doubt about the Bible. The man's
31:34
Speaker 1: working books would probably be shabby and relegated to a
31:38
Speaker 1: small study, and even these overlaid by abundant copies of
31:42
Speaker 1: the financial something or other. It would still be a
31:46
Speaker 1: servantless household, and probably not only without a nursery, but
31:50
Speaker 1: without a kitchen, and in its grade and degree it
31:53
Speaker 1: would probably have social relations directly or intermediately through rich friends,
31:59
Speaker 1: with some section, some one of the numerous cults of
32:02
Speaker 1: the quite independent wealthy. End of Chapter four, A recording
32:09
Speaker 1: by John Trevidick