THE PLAIN MAN AND HIS WIFE By ARNOLD BENNETT AUTHOR OF "THE OLD ADAM," "THE OLD WIVES' TALE," "BURIED ALIVE," ETC. NEW YORK: GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. All Means and No End ......... 9 II. The Taste for Pleasure ....... 33 III. The Risks of Life ............ 60 IV. In Her Place ................. 87 THE PLAIN MAN AND HIS WIFE I - ALL MEANS AND NO END I The plain man on a plain day wakes up, slowly or quickly according to his temperament, and greets the day in a mental posture which might be thus expressed in words: "Oh, Lord! Another day! What a grind!" If you ask me whom I mean by the plain man, my reply is that I mean almost every man. I mean you. I certainly mean me. I mean the rich and the poor, the successful and the unsuccessful, the idle and the diligent, the luxurious and the austere. For, what with the limits of digestion, the practical impossibility of wearing two neckties at once, the insecurity of investments, the responsibilities of wealth and of success, the exhaustingness of the search for pleasure, and the cheapness of travel--the real differences between one sort of plain man and another are slight in these times. (And indeed they always were slight.) The plain man has a lot to do before he may have his breakfast--and he must do it. The tyrannic routine begins instantly he is out of bed. To lave limbs, to shave the jaw, to select clothes and assume them--these things are naught. He must exercise his muscles--all his muscles equally and scientifically--with the aid of a text-book and of diagrams on a large card; which card he often hides if he is expecting visitors in his chamber, for he will not always confess to these exercises; he would have you believe that he alone, in a world of simpletons, is above the faddism of the hour; he is as ashamed of these exercises as of a good resolution, and when his wife happens to burst in on them he will pretend to be doing some common act, such as walking across the room or examining a mole in the small of his back. And yet he will not abandon them. They have an empire over him. To drop them would be to be craven, inefficient. The text-book asserts that they will form one of the pleasantest parts of the day, and that he will learn to look forward to them. He soon learns to look forward to them, but not with glee. He is relieved and proud when they are over for the day.