The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Plain Man and His Wife, by Arnold Bennett

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Title: The Plain Man and His Wife

Author: Arnold Bennett

Release Date: September 13, 2004 [EBook #13449]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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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
visito