I spend a quarter of my life in the country, and love it, but if I had to choose between living all my life in the country or in a large city, I should choose the city immediately. And I believe this is true of most people.
A crowd of unemployed some years ago stood in line at the Detroit city hall. A man came up and offered every one in turn good wages, good food, a good place to sleep, and plenty of fresh air, if he would take for the summer a job on a farm. Every one of the men laughed at him. Some of us more fortunate folks are irritated by this, for in America everybody thinks that everybody else ought to be a farmer. But the truth is that man does not live by bread alone. People do not live in order to live—merely for healthy surroundings and good food. They want excitement, they want something interesting. Who can blame them? Don’t you feel that way yourself?
We should all contribute to the Fresh Air Funds, because little children of the slums ought to have a chance to see unimpaired nature. But very few of the children would be willing to stay there, and in some cases after a few days they are homesick for their native filth. The city is one continuous theatre, admission free; the street is the best playground in this world. There is a fire, a street fight, the appearance of policemen, an arrest, an automobile accident—all the day and all the night, “something doing.”
Thus it is not at all strange that the majority prefer the crowded conditions of the slums to the fresh air of the country; for other things being equal, isn’t that about the way we all feel?
XI
AGE BEFORE BEAUTY
This frequently-heard statement is a left-handed compliment; like many conventional tributes, it carries a smirk rather than a smile. Underneath the formal and hollow homage paid to the ancient the preference is of course elsewhere. It is somewhat like the so-called complimentary vote given to the “favourite son” at a political convention, which no one takes seriously, not even the son. Nothing would perhaps more shockingly disconcert the ballot-casters than to have their candidate receive other than local support.
In the expression Age Before Beauty, it is implied that the two are incompatible; you cannot have both. Yet upon a little reflexion it will appear that the vast majority of objects that receive human attention become more and more beautiful with the accumulation of years. I can think of only two classes of things that are more beautiful in their early than in their later existence.
I refer first to all varieties of animal life, including man; second to all objects whose main purpose is practical usefulness.
It ought to be obvious that kittens, puppies, baby lions, boys and girls are fairer to look upon than aged cats, rheumatic hounds, toothless lions, decrepit men, and time-worn harridans—such as guide you to your seat in the Paris theatres. It is true that the ecclesiastical poet, Dr. Donne, made a couplet comforting to some whose youth is only a memory.
Nor Spring nor Summer’s beauty hath such grace