But if he is shoved downward by the effect of the mass production wealth above him, he also has had a serious blow from the mass production wages of the classes below him. All wages have felt the effects of the mass production scales, and the result is that while the wealthy can pay the $900 or $1,000 demanded by a maid, the intellectual worker’s wife does the cooking and laundry, as we saw above. Is it any wonder, as a man watches his wife, who perhaps has as good a mind as his own, spend her days over the range and the tub in order that he may use his own mind to the best advantage, that he wonders what is ahead for her and the children and meditates escape for all of them from the plight into which they have been plunged? In a less material civilization, such as that of France, where, moreover, intellectual work has social recognition and reward quite apart from its financial, the plight is in many respects less serious even in the face of what Americans would consider poverty. Such an escape, as we have just suggested, however, if made, has two aspects, the individual and the social. Frequently it is not difficult to make. It may be a complete flight from the intellectual to the business world, as has been and is being made by many. Or it may take the form of adapting one’s intellectual product to mass consumption. One may try for the movies, preach sensational sermons, become a popular lecturer, write text books, or, if one has been writing for the serious magazines, try to learn the[Pg 189] trick of writing for those with circulation in millions; and quadruple one’s income or even amass a fortune. All the methods of escape suggested, however, entail for the individual a warping of the characteristic bent of his mind and generally a serious degeneration in his intellectual quality and character.