English Language

Phase B
Text
MGT – 105
Semester 2

Compiled by NayanaTara Acharya

 MGT 105 ENGLISH LANGUAGE – Phase B
(An Anthology of Prose, Poetry and Fiction)

Unit – I 10 Sessions

Selected Passages Authors

1 The Throw – away Society Alvin Toffler

2 Better Late R.K. Narayan
3 The Story of an Hour Kate Chopin
4 Is Love an Art? Erich Fromm
5 The Boor Anton Chekhov
6 Beauty Industry Aldous Huxley

Unit – II 10 Sessions

Poems Poets

7 Barbie Doll Marge Piercy

8 I am an Ordinary Man Alan Jay Lerner
9 The Paradox of our Times Dalai Lama
10 From “To A Skylark” P.B. Shelly
11 The Slave’s Dream H.W. Longfellow
12 The Road Not Taken Robert Frost

13. Idioms
14. Synonyms, Antonyms and Hyponyms
15. Reading and Comprehension
16. Writing: Paragraph, Essay, Précis
17. Group Discussion and Debate

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 1. The Throwaway Society - By Alvin Toffler

“Barbie”, a twelve-inch plastic teen-ager, is the best-known and best-selling doll in

history. Since its introduction in 1959, the Barbie doll population of the world has grown
to 12,000,000 – more than the human population of Los Angeles or London or Paris.
Little girls adore Barbie because she is highly realistic and eminently dress-upable.
Mattel, Inc., makers of Barbie, also sells a complete wardrobe for her, including clothes
for ordinary wear, clothes for formal party wear, clothes for swimming and skiing.

Recently Mattel announced a new improved Barbie doll. The new version has a slimmer
figure, “real” eyelashes, and a twist- and-turn waist that makes her more humanoid
than ever. Moreover, Mattel announced that, for the first time, any young lady wishing
to purchase a new Barbie would receive a trade-in-allowance for her old one.

What Mattel did not announce was that by trading in her doll for a technologically
improved model, the little girl of today, citizen of tomorrow’s super-industrial world,
would learn a fundamental lesson about the new society: that man’s relationships with
things are increasingly temporary.

The ocean of man-made physical objects that surrounds us is set within a larger ocean
of natural objects. But increasingly, it is the technologically produced environment that
matters for the individual. The texture of plastic or concrete, the iridescent glisten of an
automobile under a streetlight, the staggering vision of a cityscape seen from the
window of a jet – these are the intimate realities of his existence. Man-made things
enter into and colour his consciousness. Their number is expanding with explosive force,
both absolutely and relative to the natural environment. This will be much truer in
super-industrial society than it is today.

Things are highly significant, not merely because of their functional utility, but also
because of their psychological impact. We develop relationships with things. Things
affect our sense of continuity or discontinuity. They play a role in the structure of
situations and the foreshortening of our relationships with things accelerates the pace
of life.

Moreover, our attitudes toward things reflect basic value judgments. Nothing could be
more dramatic than the difference between the new breed of little girls who cheerfully
turn in their Barbie dolls for the new improved model and those who, like their mothers
and grandmothers before them, clutch lingeringly and lovingly to the same doll until it
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 disintegrates from sheer age. In this difference lies the contrast between past and
future, between societies based on permanence, and the new, fast-forming society
based on transience.

That man-thing relationships are growing more and more temporary may be illustrated
by examining the culture surrounding the little girl who trades in her doll. This child
soon learns that Barbie dolls are by no means the only physical objects that pass into
and out of her young life at a rapid clip. Diapers, bibs, paper napkins, Kleenex, towels,
non-returnable soda bottles- all are used up quickly in her home and ruthlessly
eliminated. From birth on, she is inextricably embedded in a throw-away culture.

As she grows up, she develops a throw-away mentality to match the throw-away
products. This mentality produces, among other things, a set of radically altered values
with respect to property. But the spread of disposability through the society also implies
decreased duration of man-thing relationships. Instead of being linked with a single
object for a relatively long span of time, we are linked for brief periods with the
succession of objects that supplant it.

The economics of impermanence:

In the past, permanence was the ideal. Whether engaged in handcrafting a pair of boots
or in constructing a cathedral, all man's creative and productive energies went toward
maximizing the durability of the product. Man built to last. He had to. As long as the
society around him was relatively unchanging each object had clearly defined functions,
and economic logic dictated the policy of permanence. Even if they had to be repaired
now and then, the boots that cost fifty dollars and lasted ten years were less expensive
than those that cost ten dollars and lasted only a year.

As the general rate of change in society accelerates, however, the economics of

permanence are—and must be—replaced by the economics of transience. First,
advancing technology tends to lower the costs of manufacture much more rapidly than
the costs of repair work. The one is automated, the other remains largely a handcraft
operation. This means that it often becomes cheaper to replace than to repair. It is
economically sensible to build cheap, unrepairable, throwaway objects, even though
they may not last as long as repairable objects.

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 Second, advancing technology makes it possible to improve the object as time goes by.
The second generation computer is better than the first, and the third is better than the
second. Since we can anticipate further technological advance, more improvements
coming at ever shorter intervals, it often makes hard economic sense to build for the
short term rather than the long. David Lewis, an architect and city planner with Urban
Design Associates in Pittsburgh, tells of certain apartment houses in Miami that are torn
down after only ten years of existence. Improved air conditioning systems in newer
buildings hurt the rentability of these "old" buildings. All things considered, it becomes
cheaper to tear down the ten-year-old buildings than to modify them.

Third, as change accelerates and reaches into more and more remote corners of the
society, uncertainty about future needs increases. Recognizing the inevitability of
change, but unsure as to the demands it will impose on us, we hesitate to commit large
resources for rigidly fixed objects intended to serve unchanging purposes.

Avoiding commitment to fixed forms and functions, we build for short-term use or,
alternatively, attempt to make the product itself adaptable. We “play it cool”
technologically.

The rise of disposability- the spread of the throw-away culture – is a response to these
powerful pressures. As change accelerates and complexities multiply, we can expect to
see further extensions of the principle of disposability, further curtailment of man’s
relationships with things.

Glossary:
Trade - in - allowance : An American term which means a reduction in price of a
new item when an old item is given as part of the deal. Can
also be termed as an “exchange offer”.
Super-industrial Society : In sociology, the post-modern society is called an
informational society. Since the 1970s, there has been a
transition from the industrial society to an informational
society. Toffler calls this society the super-industrial society.
Pay-it-cool : Act cautiously.
Clip : Rate or pace (contextually)
Iridescent : Brilliant, lustrous, or colourful in effect or appearance.
Inextricably : Unavoidable; inescapable; so intricate or entangled as to make
escape impossible.
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 2. Better Late - By R.K.Narayan

A young student who habitually went late to his class, when asked to explain his conduct,
answered breezily, displaying the latest piece of learning, ‘Better late than never, sir,’-and
needless to say got what he deserved. The teacher, of course, stressed the point that he would
not hesitate to make it rather “Never” than “Late”. It would be an interesting pastime to analyze
and catalogue activities that may, with impunity, be performed late and those that must be
dropped altogether. There are certain things that cannot survive unpunctuality, there are certain
things that are in fact all the better for a little delay and the consequent ripening. Personally
speaking, I feel, under normal circumstances, most things can survive a little delay. One ought
not to develop into a watch-gazer all one’s waking hours. This is a purely personal philosophy.
I don’t expect anyone to agree with me, at any rate, not the man who has been kept waiting for
an engagement.

I know a gentleman who refuses to talk to anyone that arrives late for an appointment.
He has classified it under the head of wantonness, villainy, and like qualities. The gentleman
owns a very expensive and accurate watch, and I fear he often looks at it sternly in order to
know whether it is itself behaving properly. But, unfortunately, he is in the wrong country for
this attitude. In a country like ours, the preoccupation is with eternity, and little measures of
time are hardly ever noticed. A wrist-watch becomes a mere ornament and not a guiding factor.

I have no wish to mend this state of affairs. I think the ideal time-indicator is one on which
you cannot read the time in a hurry, such as a lady’s watch. Except for setting right a fracture or
catching a train or the post, I feel that one might conveniently live with a certain margin of well-
regulated unpunctuality, without much damage to oneself or to one’s surroundings. This is the
safest attitude to develop in our country: otherwise one will be inviting shocks of all kinds. The
gentleman I mentioned trusts all the promises made by trades-people and artisans, and is
chagrined whenever he finds things not arriving in time. When you expect too much from
others, even the most innocent carpenter can give you a shock. If you ask him when he will
deliver the article, he will reply without any hesitation, “Of course, tomorrow,” but he has said
the same thing to a lot of others. You should not take him literally. The way to meet the
situation is to give everyone an unasked for margin of fifteen days with possibility of extension,
and keep up regular visits to see how things are going. Sooner or later the man will have done
his job- for his delay is unplanned and his intensions are always to get through the job and earn
a living. Only he is not able to keep time; such an attitude is inborn and we can do nothing
about it. We must take it with resignation, as one must, all national and international traits.

Wisdom is a thing that dawns habitually late; and no one can force its pace. How often that
stinging reply, or the crushing rejoinder, or the brilliant repartee occurs fifteen minutes after the
occasion, when it is past all stage of real utility and the person to whom it is to be addressed is
no longer there. Even in practical affairs, I suffer from delayed wisdom. There is no man who
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has faced greater hardship than I through lack of on-the-spot judgment. Sometimes it seems to
me that a blind, unvarying denseness is preferable to the wisdom that torments us by its late
arrival. Every practical transaction for me is a painful ordeal. I can’t say “No” easily. I can’t say
“Yes” to anything without a legal expert looking through what I have done, and saying later to
me, “This is a pretty bad case. No harm in your saying anything you like orally, but whatever
made you write all that down and sign it?”

I suddenly find myself in a position in which I can go neither backward nor forward, nor
stand at ease. When I said “Yes” and appended my signature, it never occurred to me that I was
signing away my peace of mind, and my liberty of action. I signed it because I felt that the man
before me might otherwise feel hurt. It might spoil the genial air all around; the air was full of
smiling confidence and the utterances of mutual regard. If I showed finickiness in giving him
my autograph where indicated, I feared I might look mean and calculating. I admired him
when he declared: “Do you think that if this does not turn out to our mutual satisfaction I’ll be
going to a court to enforce it? Not at all. I’d be the first to tear it up. It’s after all, a gentleman’s
agreement”. I have not the wit to ask at that moment why all the elaborate conditions and terms
and stamped receipt and what not, between real gentlemen. The question occurs to me very
much later in the day, long after the event has passed. Fortunately for me, I’ve been on the brink
of various involvements, but have always been pulled back in time. Fortunately, in actual life,
no situation is irremediable although in theory it may be so. Otherwise I shudder to think
where I should have gone by now.

There are many checks and balances to fill the time till wisdom should dawn, before decision
is made. It is conveniently done, mostly in joint families, by referring to someone who is not
there, may be an elder brother, or an aunt or a ‘distant’ a cousin. The man who wants to mark
time explains: “I’ll speak to my brother. Not that he is going to say ‘No’. In fact he does not
interfere in our affairs at all, but still, as a matter of courtesy, I like to tell him and then proceed
in all our family matters. It’s a general courtesy in our family, you know.” And then it turns out
that this man is not easily met, and several days pass- time given for initial enthusiasms to cool,
and cold reason to take its place. Reference to an absentee relative is one of the traditional
methods of putting off a decision; it may pertain to the leasing of a house, loan, marriage,
contract, or anything. The implication is that one needs time for a correct judgment, and neither
a “yes” nor a “no” could be precipitately uttered. In business firm it is done by referring to a
partner: the absent one is ever the grumpy and cautious one, who has to be propitiated before
anything can be done; this is a well-known business principle, but conjunction of partners
proves, at crucial times, as hard as the conjunction of desirable planets.

In municipal, government or democratic organizations, time (for wisdom to dawn) is

gained through the forming of committees. By the time the personnel is settled, correspondence
got through, agenda drawn up, luncheons eaten, and the report is ready- passions have cooled
and the burning question has lost its heat. Luncheons are the most effective sub-device for

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achieving delay. I’m not a certain advisory body, where the tiffin forms the most impressive
item in the agenda.

Nearly two hours of the meeting-time is taken in attacking the fare on the table. When we
have managed to leave the cups and plates empty, and chewed the beeda, we are in such a
festive and forgiving mood that all burning questions begin to look silly, and some violent
remark that one intended to make it just said in a generous, “advisory” manner, which is
further emasculated in the reported version popularly known as “minutes”.

It’d be ungracious to call such a highly evolved condition by the name of delaying tactics. It
is only a recognition of the fact that wisdom comes late.

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 3.”The Story of an Hour" - Kate Chopin (1894)

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to
her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.

It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half
concealing. Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in
the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Bentley
Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken the time to assure himself of its
truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in
bearing the sad message.

She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its
significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of
grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her. There stood,
facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical
exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.

She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new
spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his
wares. The notes of a distant song which someone was singing reached her faintly, and countless
sparrows were twittering in the eaves.

There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one
above the other in the west facing her window. She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of
the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has
cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.

She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But
now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of
blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it ? She did not
know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her
through the sounds, the scents, and the color that filled the air.

Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was
approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will--as powerless as her two
white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her
slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and
the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat
fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.

She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted
perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew that she would weep again when
she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her,
fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that
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would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.

There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There
would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women
believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a
cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of
illumination. And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter!
What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion
which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!

"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.

Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the key hold, imploring for
admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door--you will make yourself ill. What are
you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door."

"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that
open window.

Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, summer days and all
sorts of days would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only
yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long. She arose at length and
opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she
carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and
together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.

Someone was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Bentley Mallard who entered, a
little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the
scene of the accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at
Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.

When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills.

********

Kate Chopin (1851 - 1904) was born in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. After education, she moved to
New Orleans, married, but returned to St. Louis with her children on the death of her husband.
She began to publish the short stories that were collected in Bayou Folk (1894) and A Night in
Acadia (1897). Her novel The Awakening (1899), now considered a classic, was denounced by
reviewers who found it too shockingly explicit to be written by a woman. The reaction so
stunned Chopin that she wrote little else during the rest of her life.

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 4. Is Love an Art?
[ The first chapter of Erich Fromm's little book "The Art Of Loving" ]

Is Love an art? Then it requires knowledge and effort. Or is love a pleasant sensation, which
to experiences is a matter of chance, something one "falls intro" if one is lucky? This little book
is based on the former premise, while undoubtedly the majority of people today believe in the
latter.

Not that people think that love is not important. They are starved for it; they watch endless
numbers of films about happy and unhappy love stories, they listen to hundreds of trashy songs
about love - yet hardly anyone thinks that there is anything that needs to be learned about
love.

This peculiar attitude is based on several premises which either singly or combined tend to
uphold it. Most people see the problem of love primarily as that of being loved, rather than
that of loving, of one's capacity to love. Hence the problem to them is how to be loved, how to
be lovable. In pursuit of this aim they follow several paths. One, which is especially used by
men, is to be successful, to be as powerful and rich as the social margin of one's position
permits. Another, used especially by women, is to make oneself attractive, by cultivating one's
body, dress, etc. Other ways of making oneself attractive, used both by men and women, are
to develop pleasant manners, interesting conversation, to be helpful, modest, and inoffensive.
Many of the ways to make oneself lovable are the same as those used to make oneself
successful, "to win friends and influence people." As a matter of fact, what most people in our
culture mean being lovable is essentially a mixture between being popular and having sex
appeal.

A second premise behind the attitude that there is nothing to be learned about love is the
assumption that the problem of love is the problem of an object, not the problem of a faculty.
People think that to love is simple, but that to find the right object to love - or to be loved by -is
difficult. This attitude has several reasons rooted in the development of modern society. One
reason is the great change which occurred in the twentieth century with respect to the choice
of a "love object." In the Victorian age, as in many traditional cultures, love was mostly not a
spontaneous personal experience which then might lead to marriage. On the contrary,
marriage was contracted by convention - either by the respective families, or by a marriage
broker, or without the help of such intermediaries; it was concluded on the basis of social
considerations, and love was supposed to develop once the marriage had been concluded. In
the last few generations the concept of romantic love was supposed to develop has become
almost universal in the Western world. In the United States, while considerations of a
conventional nature are not entirely absent, to a vast extent people are in search of "romantic
love," of the personal experience of love which then should lead to marriage. This new concept
of freedom in love must have greatly enhanced the importance of the object as against the
importance of the function.
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Closely related to this factor is another feature characteristic of contemporary culture. Our
whole culture is based on the appetite for buying, on the idea of mutually favourable
exchange. Modern man's happiness consists in the thrill of looking at the shop windows, and in
buying all that he can afford to buy, either for cash or on instalments. He (or she) looks at
people in a similar way. For the man an attractive girl - and for the woman an attractive man -
are the prizes they are after. "Attractive" usually means a nice package of qualities which are
popular and sought after on the personality market. What specifically makes a person
attractive depends on the fashion of the time, physically as well as mentally. During the
twenties, a drinking and smoking girl, tough and sexy, was attractive; today the fashion
demands more domesticity and coyness. At the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of this
century, a man had to be aggressive and ambitious - today he has to be social and tolerant - in
order to be an attractive "package." At any rate, the sense of falling in love develops usually
only with regard to such human commodities as are within reach of one's own possibilities for
exchange. I am out for a bargain; the object should be desirable from the standpoint of its
social value, and at the same time should want me, considering my overt and hidden assets and
potentialities. Two persons thus fall in love when they feel they have found the best object
available on the market, considering the limitations of their own exchange values. Often, as in
buying real estate, the hidden potentialities which can be developed play a considerable role in
this bargain. In a culture in which the marketing orientation prevails, and in which material
success is the outstanding value, there is little reason to be surprised that human love relations
follow the same pattern of exchange which governs the commodity and the labour market.

The third error leading to the assumption that there is nothing to be learned about love lies in
the confusion between the initial experience of "falling' in love, and the permanent state
of being in love, or as we might better say, of "standing" in love. If two people who have been
strangers, as all of us are, suddenly let the wall between them break down, and feel close, feel
one, this moment of oneness is one of the most exhilarating, most exciting experiences in life.
It is all the more wonderful and miraculous for persons who have been shut off, isolated,
without love. This miracle of sudden intimacy is often facilitated if it is combined with, or
initiated by, sexual attraction and consummation. However, this type of love is by its very
nature not lasting. The two persons become well acquainted, their intimacy loses more and
more its miraculous character, until their antagonism, their disappointments, and their mutual
boredom kill whatever is left of the initial excitement. Yet, in the beginning they do not know
all this: in fact, they take the intensity of the infatuation, this being "crazy" about each other,
for roof of the intensity of their love, while it may only prove the degree of their preceding
loneliness.

This attitude - that nothing is easier than to love - has continued to be the prevalent idea about
love in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. There is hardly any activity, any
enterprise, which is started with such tremendous hopes and expectations, and yet, which fails
so regularly, as love. If this were the case with any other activity, people would be eager to
know the reasons for the failure, and to learn how one could do better - or they would give up
the activity. Since the latter is impossible in the case of love, there seems to be only one
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adequate way to overcome the failure of love - to examine the reasons for this failure, and to
proceed to study the meaning of love.

The first step to take is to become aware that love is an art, just as living is an art; if we want to
learn how to love we must proceed in the same way we have to proceed if we want to learn
any other art, say music, painting, carpentry, or the art of medicine or engineering.

What are the necessary steps in learning any art ?

The process of learning an art can be divided conveniently into two parts: one, the mastery of
the theory the other, the mastery of the practice. If I want to learn the art of medicine, I must
first know the facts about the human body, and about various diseases. When I have all this
theoretical knowledge, I am by no means competent in the art of medicine. I shall become a
master in this art only after a great deal of practice, until eventually the results of my
theoretical knowledge and the results of my practice are blended into one - my intuition, the
essence of the mastery of any art. but, aside from learning the theory and practice, there is a
third factor necessary to becoming a master in any art - the mastery of the art must be a matter
of ultimate concern; there must be nothing else in the world more important that the art. This
holds true for music, for medicine, for carpentry - and for love. And, maybe, here lies the
answer to the question of why people in our culture try so rarely to learn this art, in spite of
their obvious failures: in spite of the deep-seated craving for love, almost everything else is
considered to be more important than love: success, prestige, money, power - almost all our
energy is used for the learning of how to achieve these aims, and almost none to learn of art
loving.

Could it be that only those things are considered worthy of being learned with which one can
earn money or prestige, and that love, which "only" profits the soul, but is profitless in the
modern sense, is a luxury we have no right to spend much energy on? However this may be,
the following discussion will treat the art of loving in the sense of the foregoing divisions: first I
shall discuss the theory of love - and this will comprise the greater part of the book; and
secondly I shall discuss the practice of love - little as can be said about practice in this, as in any
other field.

Continued in the book.....!!!!!!!!!!!

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 5. THE BOOR - by Anton Chekhov
[ Persons in the Play :

Helena Ivanovna Popov, a young widow, mistress of a country estate

Grigori Stepanovitch Smirnov, proprietor of a country estate
Luka , servant of Mrs. Popov
A Gardener. A Coachman. Several Workmen. ]

TIME: The present.

SCENE: A well-furnished reception-room in MRS. POPOV'S home. MRS. POPOV is discovered in

deep mourning, sitting upon a sofa, gazing steadfastly at a photograph. LUKA is also present.

LUKA: It isn't right, ma'am. You're wearing yourself out! The maid and the cook have gone
looking for berries; everything that breathes is enjoying life; even the cat knows how to be
happy--slips about the courtyard and catches birds--but you hide yourself here in the house as
though you were in a cloister. Yes, truly, by actual reckoning you haven't left this house for a
whole year.

MRS. POPOV: And I shall never leave it--why should I? My life is over. He lies in his grave, and I
have buried myself within these four walls. We are both dead.

LUKA: There you are again! It's too awful to listen to, so it is! Nikolai Mikhailovich is dead; it
was the will of the Lord, and the Lord has given him eternal peace. You have grieved over it and
that ought to be enough. Now it's time to stop. One can't weep and wear mourning forever! My
wife died a few years ago. I grieved for her. I wept a whole month--and then it was over. Must
one be forever singing lamentations? That would be more than your husband was worth! [He
sighs.] You have forgotten all your neighbors. You don't go out and you receive no one. We live-
-you'll pardon me--like the spiders, and the good light of day we never see. All the livery is
eaten by mice--as though there weren't any more nice people in the world! But the whole
neighborhood is full of gentlefolk. The regiment is stationed in Riblov--officers--simply
beautiful! One can't see enough of them! Every Friday a ball, and military music every day. Oh,
my dear, dear ma'am, young and pretty as you are, if you'd only let your spirits live--! Beauty
can't last forever. When ten short years are over, you'll be glad enough to go out a bit and meet
the officers--and then it'll be too late.

MRS. POPOV: [Resolutely.] Please don't speak of these things again. You know very well that
since the death of Nikolai Mikhailovich my life is absolutely nothing to me. You think I live, but it
only seems so. Do you understand? Oh, that his departed soul may see how I love him! I know,
it's no secret to you; he was often unjust to me, cruel, and--he wasn't faithful, but I shall be
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faithful to the grave and prove to him how I can love. There, in the Beyond, he'll find me the
same as I was until his death.

LUKA: What is the use of all these words, when you'd so much rather go walking in the garden
or order Tobby or Welikan harnessed to the trap, and visit the neighbors?

MRS. POPOV: [Weeping.] Oh!

LUKA: Madam, dear madam, what is it? In Heaven's name!

MRS. POPOV: He loved Tobby so! He always drove him to the Kortschagins or the Vlassovs.
What a wonderful horseman he was! How fine he looked when he pulled at the reigns with all
his might! Tobby, Tobby--give him an extra measure of oats to-day!

LUKA: Yes, ma'am.

[A bell rings loudly.]

MRS. POPOV: [Shudders.] What's that? I am at home to no one.

LUKA: Yes, ma'am. [He goes out, centre.]

MRS. POPOV: [Gazing at the photograph.] You shall see, Nikolai, how I can love and forgive! My
love will die only with me--when my poor heart stops beating. [She smiles through her
tears.] And aren't you ashamed? I have been a good, true wife; I have imprisoned myself and I
shall remain true until death, and you--you--you're not ashamed of yourself, my dear monster!
You quarreled with me, left me alone for weeks--

[LUKA enters in great excitement.]

LUKA: Oh, ma'am, someone is asking for you, insists on seeing you--

MRS. POPOV: You told him that since my husband's death I receive no one?

LUKA: I said so, but he won't listen; he says it is a pressing matter.

MRS. POPOV: I receive no one!

LUKA: I told him that, but he's a wild man; he swore and pushed himself into the room; he's in
the dining-room now.

MRS. POPOV: [Excitedly.] Good. Show him in. The impudent--!

[LUKA goes out, centre.]

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Mrs. Popov : What a bore people are! What can they want with me? Why do they disturb my
peace? [She sighs.] Yes, it is clear I must enter a convent. [Meditatively.] Yes, a convent.

[SMIRNOV enters, followed by LUKA.]

SMIRNOV: [To LUKA.] Fool, you make too much noise! You're an ass! [Discovering MRS. POPOV-
-politely.] Madam, I have the honor to introduce myself: Lieutenant in the Artillery, retired,
country gentleman, Grigori Stapanovitch Smirnov! I'm compelled to bother you about an
exceedingly important matter.

MRS. POPOV: [Without offering her hand.] What is it you wish?

SMIRNOV: Your deceased husband, with whom I had the honor to be acquainted, left me two
notes amounting to about twelve hundred roubles. In as much as I have to pay the interest to-
morrow on a loan from the Agrarian Bank, I should like to request, madam, that you pay me the
money to-day.

Mrs. Popov: Twelve-hundred--and for what was my husband indebted to you?

SMIRNOV: He bought oats from me.

Mrs. Popov: [With a sigh, to LUKA.] Don't forget to give Tobby an extra measure of oats.

[LUKA goes out.]

Mrs. Popov : [To SMIRNOV.] If Nikolai Mikhailovich is indebted to you, I shall, of course, pay
you, but I am sorry, I haven't the money to-day. To-morrow my manager will return from the
city and I shall notify him to pay you what is due you, but until then I cannot satisfy your
request. Furthermore, today is just seven months since the death of my husband, and I am not
in the mood to discuss money matters.

SMIRNOV: And I am in the mood to fly up the chimney with my feet in the air if I can't lay hands
on that interest to-morrow. They'll seize my estate!

Mrs. Popov : Day after to-morrow you will receive the money.

SMIRNOV: I don't need the money day after to-morrow; I need it to-day.

Mrs. Popov : I'm sorry I can't pay you today.

SMIRNOV: And I can't wait until day after to-morrow.

Mrs. Popov : But what can I do if I haven't it?

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SMIRNOV: So you can't pay?

Mrs. Popov : I cannot.

SMIRNOV: Hm! Is that your last word?

Mrs. Popov : My last.

SMIRNOV: Absolutely?

Mrs. Popov : Absolutely.

SMIRNOV: Thank you. [He shrugs his shoulders.] And they expect me to stand for all that. The
toll-gatherer just now met me in the road and asked why I was always worrying. Why, in
Heaven's name, shouldn't I worry? I need money, I feel the knife at my throat. Yesterday
morning I left my house in the early dawn and called on all my debtors. If even one of them had
paid his debt! I worked the skin off my fingers! The devil knows in what sort of Jew-inn I slept;
in a room with a barrel of brandy! And now at last I come here, seventy versts from home, hope
for a little money, and all you give me is moods! Why shouldn't I worry?

Mrs. Popov : I thought I made it plain to you that my manager will return from town, and then
you will get your money.

SMIRNOV: I did not come to see the manager; I came to see you. What the devil--pardon the
language--do I care for your manager?

Mrs. Popov : Really, sir, I am not used to such language or such manners. I shan't listen to you
any further. [She goes out, left.]

SMIRNOV: What can one say to that? Moods! Seven months since her husband died! Do I have
to pay the interest or not? I repeat the question, have I to pay the interest or not? The husband
is dead and all that; the manager is--the devil with him!--travelling somewhere. Now, tell me,
what am I to do? Shall I run away from my creditors in a balloon? Or knock my head against a
stone wall? If I call on Grusdev he chooses to be "not at home," Iroschevitch has simply hidden
himself, I have quarreled with Kurzin and came near throwing him out of the window, Masutov
is ill and this woman has--moods! Not one of them will pay up! And all because I've spoiled
them, because I'm an old whiner, dish-rag! I'm too tender-hearted with them. But wait! I allow
nobody to play tricks with me, the devil with 'em all! I'll stay here and not budge until she pays!
Brr! How angry I am, how terribly angry I am! Every tendon is trembling with anger, and I can
hardly breathe! I'm even growing ill! [He calls out.] Servant!

[LUKA enters.]

LUKA: What is it you wish?

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SMIRNOV: Bring me Kvass or water! [LUKA goes out.] Well, what can we do? She hasn't it on
hand? What sort of logic is that? A fellow stands with the knife at his throat, he needs money,
he is on the point of hanging himself, and she won't pay because she isn't in the mood to
discuss money matters. Women's logic! That's why I never liked to talk to women, and why I
dislike doing it now. I would rather sit on a powder barrel than talk with a woman. Brr!--I'm
getting cold as ice; this affair has made me so angry. I need only to see such a romantic creature
from a distance to get so angry that I have cramps in my calves! It's enough to make one yell for
help!

[Enter LUKA.]

LUKA: [Hands him water.] Madam is ill and is not receiving.

SMIRNOV: March! [LUKA goes out.] Ill and isn't receiving! All right, it isn't necessary. I won't
receive, either! I'll sit here and stay until you bring that money. If you're ill a week, I'll sit here a
week. If you're ill a year, I'll sit here a year. As Heaven is my witness, I'll get the money. You
don't disturb me with your mourning--or with your dimples. We know these dimples! [He calls
out the window.] Simon, unharness! We aren't going to leave right away. I am going to stay
here. Tell them in the stable to give the horses some oats. The left horse has twisted the bridle
again. [Imitating him.] Stop! I'll show you how. Stop! [Leaves window.] It's awful. Unbearable
heat, no money, didn't sleep last night and now--mourning-dresses with moods. My head
aches; perhaps I ought to have a drink. Ye-s, I must have a drink. [Calling.]Servant!

LUKA: What do you wish?

SMIRNOV: Something to drink! [LUKA goes out. SMIRNOV sits down and looks at his
clothes.] Ugh, a fine figure! No use denying that. Dust, dirty boots, unwashed, uncombed, and
straw on my vest--the lady probably took me for a highwayman. [He yawns.] It was a little
impolite to come into a reception-room with such clothes. Oh, well, no harm done. I'm not here
as a guest. I'm a creditor. And there is no special costume for creditors.

LUKA: [Entering with glass.] You take great liberty, sir.

SMIRNOV: [Angrily.] What?

LUKA: I--I--I just----

SMIRNOV: Whom are you talking to? Keep quiet.

LUKA: [Angrily.] Nice mess! This fellow won't leave! [He goes out.]

SMIRNOV: Lord, how angry I am! Angry enough to throw mud at the whole world! I even feel
ill! Servant!

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[MRS. POPOV comes in with downcast eyes.]

MRS. POPOV: Sir, in my solitude I have become unaccustomed to the human voice and I cannot
stand the sound of loud talking. I beg you, please to cease disturbing my rest.

SMIRNOV: Pay me my money and I'll leave.

MRS. POPOV: I told you once, plainly, in your native tongue, that I haven't the money at hand;
wait until day after to-morrow.

SMIRNOV: And I also had the honor of informing you in your native tongue that I need the
money, not day after to-morrow, but to-day. If you don't pay me to-day I shall have to hang
myself to-morrow.

MRS. POPOV: But what can I do if I haven't the money?

SMIRNOV: So you are not going to pay immediately? You're not?

MRS. POPOV: I cannot.

SMIRNOV: Then I'll sit here until I get the money. [He sits down.] You will pay day after to-
morrow? Excellent! Here I stay until day after to-morrow. [Jumps up.] I ask you, do I have to pay
that interest to-morrow or not? Or do you think I'm joking?

MRS. POPOV: Sir, I beg of you, don't scream! This is not a stable.

SMIRNOV: I'm not talking about stables, I'm asking you whether I have to pay that interest to-
morrow or not?

MRS. POPOV: You have no idea how to treat a lady.

SMIRNOV: Oh, yes, I have.

MRS. POPOV: No, you have not. You are an ill-bred, vulgar person! Respectable people don't
speak so to ladies.

SMIRNOV: How remarkable! How do you want one to speak to you? In French, perhaps!
Madame, je vous prie! Pardon me for having disturbed you. What beautiful weather we are
having to-day! And how this mourning becomes you!

[He makes a low bow with mock ceremony.]

MRS. POPOV: Not at all funny! I think it vulgar!

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SMIRNOV: [Imitating her.] Not at all funny--vulgar! I don't understand how to behave in the
company of ladies. Madam, in the course of my life I have seen more women than you have
sparrows. Three times have I fought duels for women, twelve I jilted and nine jilted me. There
was a time when I played the fool, used honeyed language, bowed and scraped. I loved,
suffered, sighed to the moon, and melted in love's torments. I loved passionately, I loved to
madness, loved in every key, chattered like a magpie on emancipation, sacrificed half my
fortune in the tender passion, until now the devil knows I've had enough of it. Your obedient
servant will let you lead him around by the nose no more. Enough! Black eyes, passionate eyes,
coral lips, dimples in cheeks, moonlight whispers, soft, modest sights--for all that, madam, I
wouldn't pay a kopeck! I am not speaking of present company, but of women in general; from
the tiniest to the greatest, they are conceited, hypocritical, chattering, odious, deceitful from
top to toe; vain, petty, cruel with a maddening logic and [he strikes his forehead] in this respect,
please excuse my frankness, but one sparrow is worth ten of the aforementioned petticoat-
philosophers.

When one sees one of the romantic creatures before him he imagines he is looking at some
holy being, so wonderful that its one breath could dissolve him in a sea of a thousand charms
and delights; but if one looks into the soul--it's nothing but a common crocodile. [He seizes the
arm-chair and breaks it in two.] But the worst of all is that this crocodile imagines it is a
masterpiece of creation, and that it has a monopoly on all the tender passions. May the devil
hang me upside down if there is anything to love about a woman! When she is in love, all she
knows is how to complain and shed tears. If the man suffers and makes sacrifices she swings
her train about and tries to lead him by the nose. You have the misfortune to be a woman, and
naturally you know woman's nature; tell me on your honor, have you ever in your life seen a
woman who was really true and faithful? Never! Only the old and the deformed are true and
faithful. It's easier to find a cat with horns or a white woodcock, than a faithful woman.

MRS. POPOV: But allow me to ask, who is true and faithful in love? The man, perhaps?

SMIRNOV: Yes, indeed! The man!

MRS. POPOV: The man! [She laughs sarcastically.] The man true and faithful in love! Well, that
is something new! [Bitterly.] How can you make such a statement? Men true and faithful! So
long as we have gone thus far, I may as well say that of all the men I have known, my husband
was the best; I loved him passionately with all my soul, as only a young, sensible woman may
love; I gave him my youth, my happiness, my fortune, my life. I worshipped him like a heathen.
And what happened? This best of men betrayed me in every possible way. After his death I
found his desk filled with love-letters. While he was alive he left me alone for months--it is
horrible even to think about it--he made love to other women in my very presence, he wasted
my money and made fun of my feelings--and in spite of everything I trusted him and was true
to him. And more than that: he is dead and I am still true to him. I have buried myself within
these four walls and I shall wear this mourning to my grave.

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SMIRNOV: [Laughing disrespectfully.] Mourning! What on earth do you take me for? As if I
didn't know why you wore this black domino and why you buried yourself within these four
walls. Such a secret! So romantic! Some knight will pass the castle, gaze up at the windows, and
think to himself: "Here dwells the mysterious Tamara who, for love of her husband, has buried
herself within four walls." Oh, I understand the art!

MRS. POPOV: [Springing up.] What? What do you mean by saying such things to me?

SMIRNOV: You have buried yourself alive, but meanwhile you have not forgotten to powder
your nose!

MRS. POPOV: How dare you speak so?

SMIRNOV: Don't scream at me, please; I'm not the manager. Allow me to call things by their
right names. I am not a woman, and I am accustomed to speak out what I think. So please don't
scream.

MRS. POPOV: I'm not screaming. It is you who are screaming. Please leave me, I beg you.

SMIRNOV: Pay me my money, and I'll leave.

MRS. POPOV: I won't give you the money.

SMIRNOV: You won't? You won't give me my money?

MRS. POPOV: I don't care what you do. You won't get a kopeck! Leave me!

SMIRNOV: As I haven't had the pleasure of being either your husband or your fiancé, please
don't make a scene. [He sits down.] I can't stand it.

MRS. POPOV: [Breathing hard.] You are going to sit down?

SMIRNOV: I already have.

MRS. POPOV: Kindly leave the house!

SMIRNOV: Give me the money.

MRS. POPOV: I don't care to speak with impudent men. Leave! [Pause.] You aren't going?

SMIRNOV: No.

MRS. POPOV: No?

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SMIRNOV: No.

MRS. POPOV: Very well. [She rings the bell. Enter LUKA.]

MRS. POPOV: Luka, show the gentleman out.

LUKA: [Going to SMIRNOV.] Sir, why don't you leave when you are ordered? What do you
want?

SMIRNOV: [Jumping up.] Whom do you think you are talking to? I'll grind you to powder.

LUKA: [Puts his hand to his heart.] Good Lord! [He drops into a chair.] Oh, I'm ill; I can't breathe!

MRS. POPOV: Where is Dascha? [Calling.] Dascha! Pelageja! Dascha! [She rings.]

LUKA: They're all gone! I'm ill! Water!

MRS. POPOV: [To SMIRNOV.] Leave! Get out!

SMIRNOV: Kindly be a little more polite!

MRS. POPOV: [Striking her fists and stamping her feet.] You are vulgar! You're a boor! A
monster!

SMIRNOV: What did you say?

MRS. POPOV: I said you were a boor, a monster!

SMIRNOV: [Steps toward her quickly.] Permit me to ask what right you have to insult me?

MRS. POPOV: What of it? Do you think I am afraid of you?

SMIRNOV: And you think that because you are a romantic creature you can insult me without
being punished? I challenge you!

LUKA: Merciful Heaven! Water!

SMIRNOV: We'll have a duel!

MRS. POPOV: Do you think because you have big fists and a steer's neck I am afraid of you?

SMIRNOV: I allow no one to insult me, and I make no exception because you are a woman, one
of the "weaker sex!"

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MRS. POPOV: [Trying to cry him down.] Boor, boor, boor!

SMIRNOV: It is high time to do away with the old superstition that it is only the man who is
forced to give satisfaction. If there is equity at all let there be equity in all things. There's a limit!

MRS. POPOV: You wish to fight a duel? Very well.

SMIRNOV: Immediately.

MRS. POPOV: Immediately. My husband had pistols. I'll bring them. [She hurries away, then
turns.] Oh, what a pleasure it will be to put a bullet in your impudent head. The devil take you!

[She goes out.]

SMIRNOV: I'll shoot her down! I'm no fledgling, no sentimental young puppy. For me there is no
weaker sex!

LUKA: Oh, sir. [Falls to his knees.] Have mercy on me, an old man, and go away. You have
frightened me to death already, and now you want to fight a duel.

SMIRNOV: [Paying no attention.] A duel. That's equity, emancipation. That way the sexes are
made equal. I'll shoot her down as a matter of principle. What can a person say to such a
woman? [Imitating her.] "The devil take you. I'll put a bullet in your impudent head." What can
one say to that? She was angry, her eyes blazed, she accepted the challenge. On my honor, it's
the first time in my life that I ever saw such a woman.

LUKA: Oh, sir. Go away. Go away!

SMIRNOV: That is a woman. I can understand her. A real woman. No shillyshallying, but fire,
powder, and noise! It would be a pity to shoot a woman like that.

LUKA: [Weeping.] Oh, sir, go away. [Enter MRS. POPOV.]

MRS. POPOV: Here are the pistols. But before we have our duel, please show me how to shoot.
I have never had a pistol in my hand before!

LUKA: God be merciful and have pity upon us! I'll go and get the gardener and the coachman.
Why has this horror come to us? [He goes out.]

SMIRNOV: [Looking at the pistols.] You see, there are different kinds. There are special dueling
pistols, with cap and ball. But these are revolvers, Smith & Wesson, with ejectors; fine pistols! A
pair like that cost at least ninety roubles. This is the way to hold a revolver. [Aside.]Those eyes,
those eyes! A real woman!

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MRS. POPOV: Like this?

SMIRNOV: Yes, that way. Then you pull the hammer back--so--then you aim--put your head
back a little. Just stretch your arm out, please. So--then press your finger on the thing like that,
and that is all. The chief thing is this: don't get excited, don't hurry your aim, and take care that
your hand doesn't tremble.

MRS. POPOV: It isn't well to shoot inside; let's go into the garden.

SMIRNOV: Yes. I'll tell you now, I am going to shoot into the air.

MRS. POPOV: That is too much! Why?

SMIRNOV: Because---because. That's my business.

MRS. POPOV: You are afraid. Yes. A-h-h-h. No, no, my dear sir, no flinching! Please follow me. I
won't rest until I've made a hole in that head I hate so much. Are you afraid?

SMIRNOV: Yes, I'm afraid.

Mrs. Popov: You are lying. Why won't you fight?

SMIRNOV: Because – because – I -- like you.

Mrs. Popov: [With an angry laugh.] You like me! He dares to say he likes me! [She points to the
door.] Go.

SMIRNOV: [Laying the revolver silently on the table, takes his hat and starts. At the door he
stops a moment, gazing at her silently, then he approaches her, hesitating.]Listen! Are you still
angry? I was mad as the devil, but please understand me--how can I express myself? The thing
is like this--such things are-- [He raises his voice.] Now, is it my fault that you owe me
money? [Grasps the back of the chair, which breaks.] The devil know what breakable furniture
you have! I like you! Do you understand? I--I'm almost in love!

Mrs. Popov: Leave! I hate you.

SMIRNOV: Lord! What a woman! I never in my life met one like her. I'm lost, ruined! I've been
caught like a mouse in a trap.

Mrs. Popov: Go, or I'll shoot.

SMIRNOV: Shoot! You have no idea what happiness it would be to die in sight of those
beautiful eyes, to die from the revolver in this little velvet hand! I'm mad! Consider it and
decide immediately, for if I go now, we shall never see each other again. Decide--speak--I am a
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noble, a respectable man, have an income of ten thousand, can shoot a coin thrown into the
air. I own some fine horses. Will you be my wife?

Mrs. Popov: [Swings the revolver angrily.] I'll shoot!

SMIRNOV: My mind is not clear--I can't understand. Servant--water! I have fallen in love like
any young man. [He takes her hand and she cries with pain.] I love you! [He kneels.]I love you as
I have never loved before. Twelve women I jilted, nine jilted me, but not one of them all have I
loved as I love you. I am conquered, lost; I lie at your feet like a fool and beg for your hand.
Shame and disgrace! For five years I haven't been in love; I thanked the Lord for it, and now I
am caught, like a carriage tongue in another carriage. I beg for your hand! Yes or no? Will you?-
-Good! [He gets up and goes quickly to the door.]

Mrs. Popov : Wait a minute!

SMIRNOV: [Stopping.] Well?

Mrs. Popov : Nothing. You may go. But--wait a moment. No, go on, go on. I hate you. Or--no;
don't go. Oh, if you knew how angry I was, how angry! [She throws the revolver on to the
chair.] My finger is swollen from this thing. [She angrily tears her handkerchief.]What are you
standing there for? Get out!

SMIRNOV: Farewell!

Mrs. POPOV: Yes, go. [Cries out.] Why are you going? Wait--no, go!! Oh, how angry I am! Don't
come too near, don't come too near--er--come--no nearer.

SMIRNOV: [Approaching her.] How angry I am with myself! Fall in love like a schoolboy, throw
myself on my knees. I've got a chill! [Strongly.] I love you. This is fine--all I needed was to fall in
love. To-morrow I have to pay my interest, the hay harvest has begun, and then you
appear! [He takes her in his arms.] I can never forgive myself.

Mrs. POPOV: Go away! Take your hands off me! I hate you….you…--this is--

[A long kiss. Enter LUKA with an axe, the gardener with a rake, the coachman with a pitchfork,
and workmen with poles.]

LUKA: [Staring at the pair.] Merciful heavens! [A long pause.]

Mrs. POPOV: [Dropping her eyes.] Tell them in the stable that Tobby isn't to have any oats.

CURTAIN

____________________
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 6. The Beauty Industry - By Aldous Huxley

The one American industry unaffected by the general depression of trade is beauty industry.
American women continue to spend on their faces and bodies as much as they spent before the
coming of the slump—about million pounds a week. These facts and figures are “official”, and
can be accepted as being substantially true. Reading them, I was only surprised by the
comparative smallness of the sums expended. From the prodigious number of advertisements
of aids to beauty contained in the American magazines, I had imagined that personal
appearance business must stand high up among the champions of American industry—the
equal, or only just less than the equal, of bootlegging and racketeering, movies and
automobiles. Still, one hundred and fifty-six million pounds a year is a tidy sum. Rather more
than twice the revenue of India, if I remember rightly.

I do not know what the European figures are. Much smaller undoubtedly. Europe is poor, and a
face can cost as much in upkeep as a Rolls-Royce. The most that the majority of European
women can do just to wash and hope for the best. Perhaps the soap will produce its loudly
advertised effects; perhaps it will transform them into the likeness of those ravishing creatures
who smile so rosily and creamily, so peachily and pearily, from every hoarding. Perhaps, on the
other hand, it may not. In any case, the more costly experiments in beautification are still as
much beyond most European means as are high-powered motor-cars and electric refrigerators.
No quite so much more as in America, that is all. But, everywhere, the increase has been
undoubtedly enormous.

The fact is significant. To what is it due? In part, I suppose, to a general increase in prosperity.
The rich have always cultivated their personal appearance. The diffusion of wealth—such as it
is (being what it is no better)—now permits those of the poor who are less badly off than their
fathers do the same.

But this is, clearly, not the whole story. The modern cult of beauty is not exclusively a function
(in the mathematical sense) of wealth. If it were, then the personal appearance industries would
have been as hardly hit by the trade depression as any other business. But, as we have seen,
they have not suffered. Women are retrenching on other things than their faces. The cult of
beauty must therefore be symptomatic of changes that have taken place outside the economic
sphere. Of what changes? Of the changes, I suggest, in the status of women; of the changes in
our attitude towards “the merely physical”.

Women, it is obvious, are freer than in the past. Freer not only to perform the generally
unenviable social functions hitherto reserved to the male , but also freer to exercise the more
pleasing, feminine privilege of being attractive. They have the right, if not to be less virtuous
than their grandmothers, at any rate to look less virtuous. The British Matron, not long since a
creature austere and even terrifying aspect, now does her best to achieve and perennially
preserve the appearance of what her predecessor would have described as a Lost woman.

She often succeeds. But we are not shocked—at any rate, not morally shocked. Aesthetically
shocked—yes; we may sometimes be that. But morally, no. We concede that Matron is morally
justified in being preoccupied with her personal appearance. This concession depends on
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another of moral general nature—a concession to the Body, with a large B, to the Manichaean
principle of evil. For we have now come to admit that the body has its rights. And not only
rights—duties, actually duties. It has, for example, a duty to do the best it can for itself in the
way of strength and beauty. Christian-acetic ideas no longer trouble us. We demand justice for
the body as well for the soul. Hence, among other things, the fortunes made by face-cream
manufacturers and beauty-specialists, by the vendors of rubber reducing belts and massage
machines, by the patentees of hair-lotions and the authors of books on the culture of the
abdomen.

What are the practical results of this modern cult of beauty? The exercises and massage, the
health motors and the skin foods –to what have they led? Are women more beautiful than they
were? Do they get something for the enormous expenditure of energy, time and money
demanded of them by the beauty-cult? There are questions which it is difficult to answer. For
the facts seem to contradict themselves. The campaign for more physical beauty seems to be
both a tremendous success and a lamentable failure. It depends on how you look at the results.

It is a success in so far as more women retain their youthful appearance to a greater age than in
the past. “Old ladies” are already becoming rare. In a few years, we may well believe, they will
be extinct. White hair and wrinkles, a bent back and hollow cheeks will come to be regarded as
medieval old-fashioned. The crone of the future will be golden, curly and cheery-lipped,
neatankled and slender. The Portrait of the Artist’s Mother will come to almost
indistinguishable, at future pictures shows, from the Portrait of the Artist’s Daughter. This
desirable consummation will be due in part to skin foods and injections of paraffin-wax, facial
surgery, mud baths, and paints, in part to improved health, due in its turn to a more rational
mode of life. Ugliness is one of the symptoms of disease, beauty of health. In so far as the
campaign for more beauty is also a campaign for more health, it is admirable and, up to a point,
genuinely successful. Beauty that is merely the artificial shadow of these symptoms of health is
intrinsically of poorer quality than the genuine article. Still, it is a sufficiently good imitation to
be sometimes mistakable for the real things. The apparatus for mimicking the symptoms of
health is now within the reach of every moderately prosperous person; the knowledge of the
way in which real health can be achieved is growing, and will in time, no doubt, be universally
acted upon. When that happy moment comes, will every woman beautiful—as beautiful, at any
rate, as the natural shape of her futures, with or without surgical and chemical aid, permits?

The answer is emphatically: No. For real beauty is as much affair of the inner as of the outer
self. The beauty of a porcelain jar is a matter of shape, of color of surface texturing. The jar may
be empty or tenanted by spiders, full of honey or stinking slime—it makes no different to its
beauty or ugliness. But a woman is alive, and her beauty is therefore not skin keep. The surface
of the human vessel is affected by the nature of its spiritual contents. I have seen women who,
by the standards of a connoisseur of porcelain, were ravishingly lovely. Their sharp, their color,
their surface texture were perfect. And yet they were not beautiful. For the lovely vase was
either empty or filled with some corruption. Spiritual emptiness or ugliness shows through.
And conversely, there is an interior light that can transfigure forms that the pure aesthetician
would regard as imperfect or downright ugly.

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There are numerous forms of psychological ugliness. There is an ugliness of stupidity, for
example, of unawareness (distressingly common among pretty women). An ugliness also of
greed, of lasciviousness, of avarice. All the deadly sin, indeed, have their own peculiar negation
of beauty. On the pretty faces of those especially who are trying to have a continuous “good
time,” one sees very often a kind of bored sullenness that ruins all their charm. I remember in
particular two young American girls I once met in North Africa. From the porcelain specialist’s
point of view, they were beautiful. But the sullen boredom of which I have spoken was so
deeply stamped into their fresh faces, their gait and gestures expressed so weary a listlessness.
That it was unbearable to look at them. These exquisite creatures were positively repulsive.

Still commoner and no less repellent is the hardness which so many pretty faces. Often, it is true
this air of hardness is due not to psychologist causes, but to the contemporary habit of over-
painting. In Pairs, where this over-painting is most pronounced, many women have ceased to
look human at all. Whitewashed and ruddled, they seem to be wearing masks. One must look
closely to discover the soft and living face beneath. But often the face is not soft; often it turns
out to be imperfectly alive. The hardness and deadness are from within. They are the outward
and visible signs of some emotional or instinctive disharmony, accepted as a chronic condition
of being. We do not need a Freudian to tell us that this disharmony is often of a sexual nature.

So long as such disharmonies continue to exist, so long as there is good reason for sullen
boredom, so long as human beings allow themselves to be possessed and hagridden by
monomaniacal vices, the cult of beauty is destined to be ineffectual. Successful in prolonging
the appearance of youth, or realizing or simulation the symptoms of health, the campaign
inspired by this cult remains fundamentally failure. Its operations do not touch the deepest
source of beauty—the experiencing soul. It is not by improving skin goods and point rollers, by
cheapening health motors and electrical hair-removers, that the human race will be made
beautiful; it is not even by improving health. All men and women will be beautiful only when
the social arrangements give to every one of them an opportunity to live completely and
harmoniously, when there is no environmental incentive and no hereditary tendency towards
monomaniacal vice. In other words, all men and women will never be beautiful. But there
might easily be fewer ugly human beings in the world than there are at present. We must be
content with moderate hope.

*********

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 7. Barbie Doll – By Marge Piercy :

This girl child was born as usual
and presented dolls that did pee-pee
and miniature GE stoves and irons
and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.
Then in the magic of puberty,
a classmate said:
You have a great big nose and fat legs.
She was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
exercise, diet, smile and wheedle.
Her good nature wore out
like a fan belt.
So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up.

She was healthy, tested intelligent,
possessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual
dexterity.
She went to and fro apologizing.
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.
In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Doesn’t she look pretty? Everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending.

Marge Piercy was born on March 31, 1936 in Detroit. She is a poet, novelist, essayist, and
playwright. She tends to write frequently about women’s issues, particularly in ways that
women have been made inferior both about their minds and their bodies.

In Marge Piercy's "Barbie Doll", we find a young girl growing up through the adolescence stage
and look through only her appearance. The girl struggles a lot during her teenage years and she
shows us the effects that can happen when the world only looks on the outside of a human
being. The World today has a way of placing unrealistic expectations on women. By using
television, the internet, magazines, billboards and even toys we see a mold of what women are
supposed to look like. The world in our eyes make us women think we should look like a Barbie
Doll.

************

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 8. I am an Ordinary Man – By Alan Jay Lerner:

Well after all, Pickering, I’m an ordinary That neither likes at all. You want to talk
man, of Keats and Milton,

Who desires nothing more than an She only wants to talk of love,
ordinary chance,
You go to see a play or ballet, and spend
To live exactly as he likes, and do it searching
precisely what he wants…
For her glove, Let a woman in your life
An average man am I, of no eccentric
And you invite eternal strife,
whim,
Let them buy their wedding bands for
Who likes to live his life free of strife
those anxious little hands…
Doing whatever he thinks is best, for
I’d be equally as willing for a dentist to
him,
be drilling
Well… just an ordinary man…
Than to ever let a woman in my life, I’m
But let a woman in your life and your a very gentle man,
serenity is through,
Even tempered and good natured
She’ll redecorate your home, from the
Who you never hear complain,
cellar to the dome,
Who has the milk of human kindness
And then go on to the enthralling fun of
overhauling you… By the quart in every vein,

Let a woman in your life, and you’re up A patient man am I, down to my

against a wall, fingertips,

Make a plan and you will find, The sort who never could, ever would,

That she has something else in mind, Let an insulting remark escape his lips

And so rather than do either you do Very gentle man…

something else
But, let a woman in your life,

And patience hasn’t got a chance,

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 She will beg you for advice; your reply who likes to meditate, contemplate,
will be concise,
Far from humanities mad inhuman
And she will listen very nicely, and then noise,
go out
Quiet living man….
And do exactly what she wants !!!
But, let a woman in my life, and your
You are a man of grace and polish, sabbatical is through,

Who never spoke above a hush, In a line that never ends comes an army
of her friends,
All at once you are using language that
would make Come to jabber and to chatter

A sailor blush, Let a woman in your life,
And you’re plunging in a knife,
Let the others of my sex, tie the knot
around their necks,
I prefer a new edition of the Spanish
Inquisition
And to tell her what the matter is with
YOU !
She’ll have a booming boisterous
family,
Who will descend on you en mass,
She’ll have a large Wagnerian mother,

Than to ever let a woman in my life, I’m With a voice that shatters glass,
quiet living man,
Let a woman in your life,
Who prefers to spend the evening in the
Let a woman in your life,
silence of his room,
Let a woman in your life I shall never let
Who likes an atmosphere as restful
a woman in my life,
As an undiscovered tomb,

A pensive man am I, of philosophical

joys,

******

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 9. The Paradox of Our Times – By Dalai Lama
The paradox of our time in history is that we have

taller buildings but shorter tempers, Wider Roads, but narrower viewpoints.

We spend more, but have less, We buy more, but enjoy less.

We have bigger houses and smaller families,

more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense,

More knowledge, but less judgment, more medicine, but less wellness.

We get too angry; laugh too little, stay up too late, get up too tired,

read too little and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values.

We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We've learned how to make a living, but not a life.

We've added years to life not life to years.

We've been all the way to the moon and back,

but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor.

We conquered outer space but not inner space.

We've done larger things, but not better things.

We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul.

We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice.

We have higher incomes, lower morals,

We have become long on quantity but short on quality.

We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less.

We've learned to rush, but not to wait.

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 We build more computers to hold more information,

To produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.
These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion,

Big men and small character, Steep profits and shallow relationships.

These are the days of two incomes but more divorce,

Fancier houses, but broken homes.

These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, Throwaway morality, one night stands,

Overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill.

It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom.
A time when technology can bring this letter to you,

and a time when you can choose either to reflect on this insight, or to just hit delete...

Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe,

because that person soon will grow up and leave your side.

Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you,

because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent.
An embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.
Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment
for someday that person will not be there again.

********

Compiled by NayanaTara Acharya

 10. From “ To A Skylark ” – P.B. Shelley:

What objects are the fountains

Of thy happy strain?
What fields, or waves, or mountains?
What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? What ignorance of pain?

With thy clear keen joyance

Languor cannot be:
Shadow of annoyance
Never came near thee:
Thou lovest, but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

Waking or asleep,
Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep
Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

We look before and after,

And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Yet, if we could scorn

Hate and pride and fear,
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

Better than all measures

Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know;
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow,
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

*******
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 11. The Slave’s Dream – H.W. Longfellow:

Beside the ungathered rice he lay,

His sickle in his hand;
His breast was bare, his matted hair
Was buried in the sand.
Again, in the mist and shadow of sleep,
He saw his Native Land.

Wide through the landscape of his dreams

The lordly Niger flowed;
Beneath the palm-trees on the plain
Once more a king he strode;
And heard the tinkling caravans
Descend the mountain-road.

He saw once more his dark-eyed queen

Among her children stand;
They clasped his neck, they kissed his cheeks,
They held him by the hand!--
A tear burst from the sleeper's lids
And fell into the sand.

And then at furious speed he rode

Along the Niger's bank;
His bridle-reins were golden chains,
And, with a martial clank,
At each leap he could feel his scabbard of steel
Smiting his stallion's flank.

Before him, like a blood-red flag,

The bright flamingoes flew;
From morn till night he followed their flight,
O'er plains where the tamarind grew,
Till he saw the roofs of Caffre huts,
And the ocean rose to view.

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 At night he heard the lion roar,
And the hyena scream,
And the river-horse, as he crushed the reeds
Beside some hidden stream;
And it passed, like a glorious roll of drums,
Through the triumph of his dream.

The forests, with their myriad tongues,

Shouted of liberty;
And the Blast of the Desert cried aloud,
With a voice so wild and free,
That he started in his sleep and smiled
At their tempestuous glee.

He did not feel the driver's whip,

Nor the burning heat of day;
For Death had illumined the Land of Sleep,
And his lifeless body lay
A worn-out fetter, that the soul
Had broken and thrown away!

********

Compiled by NayanaTara Acharya

 12. The Road Not Taken – Robert Frost:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

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Compiled by NayanaTara Acharya