What are we doing with life?
That question overtakes a reluctant and fugitive humanity. The Traffords
were but two of a great scattered host of people, who, obeying all the
urgencies of need and desire, struggling, loving, begetting, enjoying,
do nevertheless find themselves at last unsatisfied. They have lived the
round of experience, achieved all that living creatures have sought
since the beginning of the world--security and gratification and
offspring--and they find themselves still strong, unsatiated, with power
in their hands and years before them, empty of purpose. What are they to
do?
The world presents such a spectacle of evasion as it has never seen
before. Never was there such a boiling over and waste of vital energy.
The Sphinx of our opportunity calls for the uttermost powers of heart
and brain to read its riddle--the new, astonishing riddle of excessive
power. A few give themselves to those honourable adventures that extend
the range of man, they explore untravelled countries, climb remote
mountains, conduct researches, risk life and limb in the fantastic
experiments of flight, and a monstrous outpouring of labour and material
goes on in the strenuous preparation for needless and improbable wars.
The rest divert themselves with the dwarfish satisfactions of recognized
vice, the meagre routine of pleasure, or still more timidly with sport
and games--those new unscheduled perversions of the soul.
We are afraid of our new selves. The dawn of human opportunity appals
us. Few of us dare look upon this strange light of freedom and limitless
resources that breaks upon our world.
"Think," said Trafford, "while we sit here in this dark hut--think of
the surplus life that wastes itself in the world for sheer lack of
direction. Away there in England--I suppose that is westward"--he
pointed--"there are thousands of men going out to-day to shoot. Think of
the beautifully made guns, the perfected ammunition, the excellent
clothes, the army of beaters, the carefully preserved woodland, the
admirable science of it--all for that idiot massacre of half-tame birds!
Just because man once had need to be a hunter! Think of the others
again--golfing. Think of the big, elaborate houses from which they come,
the furnishings, the service. And the women--dressing! Perpetually
dressing. _You_, Marjorie--you've done nothing but dress since we
married. No, let me abuse you, dear! It's insane, you know! You dress
your minds a little to talk amusingly, you spread your minds out to
backgrounds, to households, picturesque and delightful gardens,
nurseries. Those nurseries! Think of our tremendously cherished and
educated children! And when they grow up, what have we got for them? A
feast of futility...."