Let us forget that it is a home. Let us conceive it as a small
collection of people living in the same house. They are together by
accident rather than by design, and they remain together rather
by inertia than by the fitness of things. Supposing that the adult
occupants of the average house had to begin domestic life again (I do
not speak of husbands and wives), and were effective^ free to choose
their companions, it is highly improbable that they would choose the
particular crew of; which they form part; it is practically certain
that they would not choose it in its entirety. However, there they are,
together, every day, every night, on a space of ground not perhaps more
than twenty feet by twenty feet--often less. To find room to separate a
little they live in layers, and it is the servant who is nearest heaven.
That is how you must look at them.
Now it is, broadly speaking, a universal characteristic of this strange
community that the members of it can depend upon each other in a crisis.
They are what is called “loyal” to an extraordinary degree. Let one of
them fall ill, and he can absolutely rely on tireless nursing.
Again, let one of them get into trouble, and his companions will stand
by him, and if they cannot, or will not, help him materially, they will,
at any rate, make sympathetic excuses for not doing so. Or let one
of them sutler a loss, and he will instantly be surrounded by all the
consolations that kindness can invent. Or let one of them be ill-spoken
of, and every individual of the community will defend him, usually with
heat, always with conviction.
*****
But I have drawn only the foul-weather picture. We come to the
fine-weather picture. Imagine a stranger from the moon, to whom I had
quite truthfully described the great qualities of this strange community
presided over by Mr. Smith--imagine him invisibly introduced into the
said community!
You can fancy the lunatic’s astonishment! Instead of heaven he would
decidedly consider that he had strayed into an armed camp, or into a
cage of porcupines. He would conclude, being a lunatic, that the members
of the community either hated each other, or at best suffered the sight
of each other only as a supreme act of toleration. He would hear surly
voices, curt demands, impolite answers; and if he did not hear amazing
silences it would be because you cannot physically hear a silence.
He would no doubt think that the truth was not in me. He would
remonstrate: “But you told me--”
Then I should justify myself: “In a crisis,’ I said, my dear gentleman
from the moon. I said nothing about ordinary daily life. Now you see
this well-favoured girl who has been nagging at her brother all through
tea because of some omission or commission--I can assure you that if,
for instance, her brother had typhoid fever that girl would nurse him
with the devotion of a saint. Similarly, if she lost her sweetheart
by death or breach of promise, he would envelope her in brotherly
affection.”
“How often does he have typhoid fever?” the lunatic might ask. “Once a
month?”
“Well,” I should answer, “he hasn’t had it yet. But if he had it--you
see!”
“And does she frequently get thrown over?”
“Oh, no! Her young man worships her. She is to be married next spring.
But if--”
“And so, while waiting for crises and disasters, they go on--like this?”
“Yes,” I should defend my fellow-terrestrials. “But you must not jump to
the conclusion that they are always like this. They can be just as nice
as anybody. They are perfectly charming, really.”
“Well, then,” he might inquire, “how do they justify this behaviour to
one another?”
“By the hazard of birth,” I should reply, “or by the equally great
hazard of marriage. With us, when you happen to have the same father and
mother, or even the same uncle, or when you happen to be married, it is
generally considered that you may abandon the forms of politeness and
the expressions of sympathy, and that you have an unlimited right of
criticism.”
“I should have thought precisely the contrary,” he would probably say,
being a lunatic.
The lunatic having been allowed to depart, I should like to ask the
Smiths--middle-aged Mr. Smith and Mrs. Smith--a question somewhat in
these terms: “What is the uppermost, the most frequent feeling in your
minds about this community which you call ‘home’? You needn’t tell me
that you love it, that it is the dearest place on earth, that no other
place could ever have quite the same, etc., etc. I know all about that.
I admit it. Is not your uppermost, commonest feeling a feeling that it
is rather a tedious, tiresome place, and that the human components of
it are excellent persons, but. . . and that really you have had a great
deal to put up with?”
In reply, do not be sentimental, be honest.. . .
Such being your impression of home (not your deepest, but your most
obvious impression), can it fairly be stated that the home of the Smiths
is a success?
*****
There are two traits which have prevented the home of the Smiths from
being a complete success, from being that success which both Mr. and
Mrs. Smith fully intended to achieve when they started, and which young
John and young Mary fully intend to achieve when they at length start
without having decided precisely _how_ they will do better than their
elders. The first is British independence of action, which causes the
owner of a British temperament to seek to combine the advantages of
anarchical solitude with the advantages of a community: impossible
feat! In the home of the Smiths each room is a separate Norman fortress,
sheltering an individuality that will be untrammelled or perish.
And the second is the unchangeable conviction at the bottom of every
Briton’s heart that formal politeness in intimacy is insincere. This is
especially true of the Midlands and the North. When I left the Midlands
and went South, I truly thought, for several days, that Southerners
were a hypocritical lot, just because they said, “If you wouldn’t mind
moving,” instead of “Now, then, out of it!” Gruffness and the malicious
satisfaction of candid gratuitous criticism are the root of the evil in
the home of the Smiths. And the consequences of them are very much more
serious than the Smiths in their gruffness imagine.