The Plain Man and His Wife | Page 3

greets the day with:

"Oh, Lord! Another day! What a grind!"

II
The interesting point about the whole situation is that the plain man
seldom or never asks himself a really fundamental question about that
appointed path of his--that path from which he dare not and could not
wander.
Once, perhaps in a parable, the plain man travelling met another
traveller. And the plain man demanded of the traveller:
"Where are you going to?"
The traveller replied:
"Now I come to think of it, I don't know."
The plain man was ruffled by this insensate answer. He said:
"But you are travelling?"
The traveller replied:
"Yes."
The plain man, beginning to be annoyed, said:
"Have you never asked yourself where you are going to?"
"I have not."
"But do you mean to tell me," protested the plain man, now irritated,
"that you are putting yourself to all this trouble, peril, and expense of
trains and steamers, without having asked yourself where you are going
to?"
"It never occurred to me," the traveller admitted. "I just had to start and

I started."
Whereupon the plain man was, as too often with us plain men,
staggered and deeply affronted by the illogical absurdity of human
nature. "Was it conceivable," he thought, "that this traveller,
presumably in his senses--" etc. (You are familiar with the tone and the
style, being a plain man yourself.) And he gave way to moral
indignation.
Now I must here, in parenthesis, firmly state that I happen to be a
member of the Society for the Suppression of Moral Indignation. As
such, I object to the plain man's moral indignation against the traveller;
and I think that a liability to moral indignation is one of the plain man's
most serious defects. As such, my endeavour is to avoid being
staggered and deeply affronted, or even surprised, by human vagaries.
There are too many plain people who are always rediscovering human
nature--its turpitudes, fatuities, unreason. They live amid human nature
as in a chamber of horrors. And yet, after all these years, we surely
ought to have grown used to human nature! It may be extremely
vile--that is not the point. The point is that it constitutes our
environment, from which we cannot escape alive. The man who is
capable of being deeply affronted by his inevitable environment ought
to have the pluck of his convictions and shoot himself. The Society
would with pleasure pay his funeral expenses and contribute to the
support of his wife and children. Such a man is, without knowing it, a
dire enemy of true progress, which can only be planned and executed in
an atmosphere from which heated moral superiority is absent.
I offer these parenthetical remarks as a guarantee that I shall not
over-righteously sneer at the plain man for his share in the sequel to the
conversation with the traveller. For there was a sequel to the
conversation.
"As questions are being asked, where are you going to?" said the
traveller.
The plain man answered with assurance:

"Oh, I know exactly where I'm going to. I'm going to Timbuctoo."
"Indeed!" said the traveller. "And why are you going to Timbuctoo?"
Said the plain man: "I'm going because it's the proper place to go to.
Every self-respecting person goes to Timbuctoo."
"But why?"
Said the plain man:
"Well, it's supposed to be just about unique. You're contented there.
You get what you've always wanted. The climate's wonderful."
"Indeed!" said the traveller again. "Have you met anybody who's been
there?"
"Yes, I've met several. I've met a lot. And I've heard from people who
are there."
"And are their reports enthusiastic?"
"Well--" The plain man hesitated.
"Answer me. Are their reports enthusiastic?" the traveller insisted,
rather bullyingly.
"Not very," the plain man admitted. "Some say it's very disappointing.
And some say it's much like other towns. Every one says the climate
has grave drawbacks."
The traveller demanded:
"Then why are you going there?"
Said the plain man:
"It never occurred to me to ask why. As I say, Timbuctoo's supposed to
be--"

"Supposed by whom?"
"Well--generally supposed," said the plain man, limply.
"Not by the people who've been there?" the traveller persevered, with
obstinacy.
"Perhaps not," breathed the plain man. "But it's generally supposed--"
He faltered. There was a silence, which was broken by the traveller,
who inquired:
"Any interesting places en route?"
"I don't know. I never troubled about that," said the plain man.
"But do you mean to tell me," the traveller exclaimed, "that you are
putting yourself to all this trouble, peril, and expense of trains and
steamers and camel-back without having asked yourself why, and
without having satisfied yourself that the thing was worth while, and
without having even ascertained the most agreeable route?"
Said the plain man, weakly:
"I just had