“Oh, is he sick?”
“No, he’s not sick.”
“Oh....”
He saw Helen, sensitive, defenseless Helen cringing before that gigantic “oh.” He knew that soon Henry with his normal reactions would learn to see that “oh” coming, to hide from it, to avoid his playmates because of it. There was no sense to that “oh”; there had been no sense for generations and generations. It was an exclamation that dated from the cave-age, but it still had power to warp the children’s lives as much as—yes, almost as much as leaving them to a Mrs. Anderson. They would be ashamed of him. He would lose his influence over them. He would be of no use to them.
Over his head Tradition swung a bludgeon he knew he could not parry. He had always guessed at the presence of that Tradition ruling the world, guessed that it hated him, guessed at its real name. He saw it plain now, grinning sardonically high above all the little chattering pretenses of idealism. He knew now what it decreed: that men are in the world to get possessions, to create material things, to sell them, to buy them, to transport them, above all to stimulate to fever-heat the desire for them in all human beings. It decreed that men are of worth in so far as they achieve that sort of material success, and worthless if they do not.
That was the real meaning of the unctuous talk of “service” in the commercial text-books which Eva read so whole-heartedly. They were intended to fix the human attention altogether on the importance of material things; to make women feel that the difference between linen and cotton is of more importance to them than the fine, difficultly drawn, always-varying line between warm human love and lust; to make men feel that more possessions would enlarge their lives ... blasphemy! Blasphemy!
He read as little as possible of the trade-journals which Eva left lying around the house, but the other day in kindling a fire with one his eye had been caught by a passage the phrases of which had fixed themselves in that sensitive verbal memory of his and were not to be dislodged:—“Morally, esthetically, emotionally and commercially, America is helped, uplifted, advanced by the efforts of you and me to induce individual Americans first to want and then to acquire more of the finer things of life. Take fine jewelry. It makes the purchaser a better person by its appeal to the emotional and esthetic side of his or her nature.... Desire for the rich and tasteful adornments obtainable at the jewelry store expresses itself in stronger attempts to acquire the means to purchase. This means advancement for America! Should you not, bearing this wonderful thought in mind, be enthused to broaden your contact with the buying public by increasing your distributing....” They wrote that sort of thing by the yard, by the mile! And they were right. That was the real business of life, of course. He had always known it. That was why men who did other things, teachers, or poets, or musicians, or ministers, were so heartily despised by normal people. And as for any man who might try to be a parent....
Why, the fanatic feminists were right, after all. Under its greasy camouflage of chivalry, society is really based on a contempt for women’s work in the home. The only women who were paid, either in human respect or in money, were women who gave up their traditional job of creating harmony out of human relationships and did something really useful, bought or sold or created material objects. As for any man’s giving his personality to the woman’s work of trying to draw out of children the best there might be in them ... fiddling foolishness! Leave it to the squaws! He was sure that he was the only man who had ever conceived even the possibility of such a lapse from virile self-respect as to do what all women are supposed to do. He knew well enough that other men would feel for such a conception on his part a stupefaction only equaled by their red-blooded scorn.
At this he caught a passing glimpse far below the surface. He knew that it was not only scorn he would arouse, but suspicion and alarm. For an instant he understood why Tradition was so intolerant of the slightest infraction of the respect due to it, why it was ready to tear him and all his into a thousand pieces rather than permit even one variation from its standard. It was because the variation he had conceived ran counter to the prestige of sacred possessions. Not only was it beneath the dignity of any able-bodied brave to try to show young human beings how to create rich, deep, happy lives without great material possessions, but it was subversive of the whole-hearted worship due to possessions. It was heresy. It must be stopped at all costs. Lester heard the threatening snarl of that unsuspected, unquestioned Tradition, amazed that any one dared so much as to conceive of an attack on it. And he knew that he was not man enough to stand up and resist the bludgeon and the snarl.