XII Home, the Last Resort
"There is no place like home," said Keidansky, "and there's nothing like running away from it."
"What is the matter with the home?" I asked.
"Nothing," he answered, "except that very often everything is. You are surprised?" he continued. "That's promising. Somehow when I see you shocked it makes me feel as if I am saying something, and I am encouraged to go on. What do I mean? Just this:
"There is no place that is so small, petty and narrow as the home is; there is no place so close, cramped and crowded; so limited, restricted and tape-measured. There's no place where there is such agreement, unity and uniformity; where there is so much subordination, subjection and coöppression—if you will pardon the coining of a word—as in the home; no place where there is such conformity of opinion, speech and action; where there is so much dependence, inter-dependence and inter-domination; where so much good advice is given you, so many high examples set up and so many paragons of perfection presented to you; no place where there's so much upholding of old standards and so little scope for building new ones; where respectability is regarded with such reverence and the neighbors' say held so sacred; no place so lacking initiative, so barren of originality, so devoid of daring—no place where you are so tenderly cared for, so kindly comforted, so closely watched, and so grossly misunderstood as the home. It is the most dangerous place in the world.
"No, do not interrupt me—I know just what you are going to say. Let me state it for you—while I am at it. What I said is blasphemy, of course, and what you want to say is that the home is the garden where all our virtues flower and bloom; that it is the foundation of our morals, the birthplace of our highest ideals, the great character-builder, the school of patriotism, the source of true religion, the protector of our national life, the benign soul-uplifter, the place where goodness and purity flourish, and the place where the best principles are manufactured. I know just what you are going to say because I, too, have heard some sermons and have read some after-dinner speeches in my life. And I do not say that these utterances are altogether misleading. There is some good, I doubt not, in a sermon and some shadow of truth even in an after-dinner speech. But because the home has ever been the subject of indiscriminate encomiums and puffy panegyrics, no one has ever dared to say anything against it. It has not been treated as a human institution, and so many crimes have been committed in its good name. It is because these beautiful things about it are, or are supposed to be, that so many of us have been sentenced to stay home without a proper trial.
"Granting even that the halo is not hollow and that home is the ideal place it is pictured to be, the admission is perhaps the strongest argument against it and for running away from it; for, in that case, the home is almost too good a place to stay in, too tame and agreeable, a nest of the neutral, a triumph of the negative, maybe, and hardly a place where you can grow, learn, enlarge and expand distinctly and in your own way. I fear me that in any case home is about the last resort where one can express his individuality and become fully equipped to grapple with the world and those who own it. Do not misunderstand me. No one intends to wage wanton war against that which is held in reverence.
"The radical is only ahead of time because all the others are behind it. No one wishes to abolish merely for the sake of abolition. There is no satisfaction in mere annihilation. No one wishes it. Wisdom and folly have the same intention. To say that the most destructive radical and the most orthodox conservative are in perfect agreement as far as their aim is concerned will be dangerously near uttering a commonplace. Both seek well-being and happiness. There was a time when there was a little difference between the two; when one of the two parties wanted to postpone that welfare unto another life; but now, in this hasty age, both demand all that it is possible to procure here and now. There may be difference of opinion, but there is no difference of intention. The object of all is to preserve the virility of our being, the veracity of soul, the strength to do and to be. There may be a question as to my being a conservative, but there is no doubt that I am a conservator. I would conserve everything that is conducive to growth and happiness. What I believe, what I say, has this object in view. And having this in view, I realize that in the course of human events it ever and anon becomes necessary to demolish the divinities that be.