Main Street & Babbitt. Sinclair Lewis
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'standardization.' Don't you suppose any other nation is 'standardized?' Is anything more standardized than England, with every house that can afford it having the same muffins at the same tea-hour, and every retired general going to exactly the same evensong at the same gray stone church with a square tower, and every golfing prig in Harris tweeds saying 'Right you are!' to every other prosperous ass? Yet I love England. And for standardization — just look at the sidewalk cafes in France and the love-making in Italy!
“Standardization is excellent, per se. When I buy an Ingersoll watch or a Ford, I get a better tool for less money, and I know precisely what I'm getting, and that leaves me more time and energy to be individual in. And — I remember once in London I saw a picture of an American suburb, in a toothpaste ad on the back of the Saturday Evening Post — an elm-lined snowy street of these new houses, Georgian some of 'em, or with low raking roofs and — The kind of street you'd find here in Zenith, say in Floral Heights. Open. Trees. Grass. And I was homesick! There's no other country in the world that has such pleasant houses. And I don't care if they ARE standardized. It's a corking standard!
“No, what I fight in Zenith is standardization of thought, and, of course, the traditions of competition. The real villains of the piece are the clean, kind, industrious Family Men who use every known brand of trickery and cruelty to insure the prosperity of their cubs. The worst thing about these fellows is that they're so good and, in their work at least, so intelligent. You can't hate them properly, and yet their standardized minds are the enemy.
“Then this boosting — Sneakingly I have a notion that Zenith is a better place to live in than Manchester or Glasgow or Lyons or Berlin or Turin — ”
“It is not, and I have lift in most of them,” murmured Dr. Yavitch.
“Well, matter of taste. Personally, I prefer a city with a future so unknown that it excites my imagination. But what I particularly want — ”
“You,” said Dr. Yavitch, “are a middle-road liberal, and you haven't the slightest idea what you want. I, being a revolutionist, know exactly what I want — and what I want now is a drink.”
VI
At that moment in Zenith, Jake Offutt, the politician, and Henry T. Thompson were in conference. Offutt suggested, “The thing to do is to get your fool son-in-law, Babbitt, to put it over. He's one of these patriotic guys. When he grabs a piece of property for the gang, he makes it look like we were dyin' of love for the dear peepul, and I do love to buy respectability — reasonable. Wonder how long we can keep it up, Hank? We're safe as long as the good little boys like George Babbitt and all the nice respectable labor-leaders think you and me are rugged patriots. There's swell pickings for an honest politician here, Hank: a whole city working to provide cigars and fried chicken and dry martinis for us, and rallying to our banner with indignation, oh, fierce indignation, whenever some squealer like this fellow Seneca Doane comes along! Honest, Hank, a smart codger like me ought to be ashamed of himself if he didn't milk cattle like them, when they come around mooing for it! But the Traction gang can't get away with grand larceny like it used to. I wonder when — Hank, I wish we could fix some way to run this fellow Seneca Doane out of town. It's him or us!”
At that moment in Zenith, three hundred and forty or fifty thousand Ordinary People were asleep, a vast unpenetrated shadow. In the slum beyond the railroad tracks, a young man who for six months had sought work turned on the gas and killed himself and his wife.
At that moment Lloyd Mallam, the poet, owner of the Hafiz Book Shop, was finishing a rondeau to show how diverting was life amid the feuds of medieval Florence, but how dull it was in so obvious a place as Zenith.
And at that moment George F. Babbitt turned ponderously in bed — the last turn, signifying that he'd had enough of this worried business of falling asleep and was about it in earnest.
Instantly he was in the magic dream. He was somewhere among unknown people who laughed at him. He slipped away, ran down the paths of a midnight garden, and at the gate the fairy child was waiting. Her dear and tranquil hand caressed his cheek. He was gallant and wise and well-beloved; warm ivory were her arms; and beyond perilous moors the brave sea glittered.
CHAPTER VIII
I
THE great events of Babbitt's spring were the secret buying of real-estate options in Linton for certain street-traction officials, before the public announcement that the Linton Avenue Car Line would be extended, and a dinner which was, as he rejoiced to his wife, not only “a regular society spread but a real sure-enough highbrow affair, with some of the keenest intellects and the brightest bunch of little women in town.” It was so absorbing an occasion that he almost forgot his desire to run off to Maine with Paul Riesling.
Though he had been born in the village of Catawba, Babbitt had risen to that metropolitan social plane on which hosts have as many as four people at dinner without planning it for more than an evening or two. But a dinner of twelve, with flowers from the florist's and all the cut-glass out, staggered even the Babbitts.
For two weeks they studied, debated, and arbitrated the list of guests.
Babbitt marveled, “Of course we're up-to-date ourselves, but still, think of us entertaining a famous poet like Chum Frink, a fellow that on nothing but a poem or so every day and just writing a few advertisements pulls down fifteen thousand berries a year!”
“Yes, and Howard Littlefield. Do you know, the other evening Eunice told me her papa speaks three languages!” said Mrs. Babbitt.
“Huh! That's nothing! So do I — American, baseball, and poker!”
“I don't think it's nice to be funny about a matter like that. Think how wonderful it must be to speak three languages, and so useful and — And with people like that, I don't see why we invite the Orville Joneses.”
“Well now, Orville is a mighty up-and-coming fellow!”
“Yes, I know, but — A laundry!”
“I'll admit a laundry hasn't got the class of poetry or real estate, but just the same, Orvy is mighty deep. Ever start him spieling about gardening? Say, that fellow can tell you the name of every kind of tree, and some of their Greek and Latin names too! Besides, we owe the Joneses a dinner. Besides, gosh, we got to have some boob for audience, when a bunch of hot-air artists like Frink and Littlefield get going.”
“Well, dear — I meant to speak of this — I do think that as host you ought to sit back and listen, and let your guests have a chance to talk once in a while!”
“Oh, you do, do you! Sure! I talk all the time! And I'm just a business man — oh sure! — I'm no Ph.D. like Littlefield, and no poet, and I haven't anything to spring! Well, let me tell you, just the other day your darn Chum Frink comes up to me at the club begging to know what I thought about the Springfield school-bond issue. And who told him? I did! You bet your life I told him! Little me! I certainly did! He came up and asked me, and I told him all about it! You bet! And he was darn glad to listen to me and — Duty as a host! I guess I know my duty as a host and let me tell you — ”
In fact, the Orville Joneses were invited.
II
On the morning of the dinner, Mrs. Babbitt was restive.
“Now, George, I want you to be sure and be home early tonight. Remember, you have to dress.”
“Uh-huh. I see by the Advocate that the Presbyterian General Assembly has voted to quit the Interchurch World Movement. That — ”
“George! Did you hear what I said? You must be home in time to dress to-night.”
“Dress? Hell! I'm dressed now! Think I'm going down to the office in my B.V.D.'s?”
“I will not have you talking indecently before the children! And you do have to put on your dinner-jacket!”