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Living Along
“The Gentler View,” Harper’s Weekly (October 22, 1910) : 25
U Michigan copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link
archive.org : link
 

      After a separation of some weeks, two women met, and the younger exclaimed, excitedly, “Now tell me what you’ve been doing!” The other answered in a tone equally high and never doubting but that she was giving an adequate reply, “Living along!” It was not that she had been undergoing anything that made living in itself remarkable; it was just that she considered living an exceptionally absorbing occupation and one entirely worth telling about. The younger woman, brought up a little shortly, wondered if it is not living, after all, that takes up most of our time and prevents our “doing” to the praiseworthy extent we all intend.
      The past generations who have meant most honestly to accomplish big tasks and take great strides ahead probably post-poned their undertaking because they, too, were so busy “living along.” We each feel a little ashamed at our enthralment, for there is seldom anything impressive to other people in our daily jog-trot; and we are more or less sheepish to have to admit that we are interested in it, and so breathless about it that the projects of our youth are never strong enough to draw us from the succession of homely detail and intimate feeling. We know it’s all humdrum; we know, when we have a spare moment in which to think about it, that it is all beside the mark, that there are great things to be done and read and changed. There are terrible seconds when we are confronted with our own futility, but at the end of the day we do feel that something has happened to us. No one can deny that we accomplished something, for did we not with real intensity take in our own futility? Looking back on a day, it seems crowded. We hurried enthusiastically from mood to mood and minute to minute No one can deny that we accomplished something, for did we not with real intensity take in our own futility? Looking back on a day, it seems crowded. We hurried enthusiastically from mood to mood and minute to minute, and it is just the high pitch of our enthusiasm that makes us a shade constrained when asked what we have been doing. We cannot be sure we were justified in so enjoying it all. Only secretly, in our intimate thoughts, do we regard a day as full, because first we felt the morning air, then we got warm — that takes some time — after which we glowed with a comfortable bustling zeal because laundry lists were made out and mending — another tiresome job — was finished before nine. That started us off with a full day on our hands, and some time was spent thinking how agreeable and invigorating it was to have a full day before one. Then just as a decision to write letters to catch the foreign mail had been reached, it was discovered that the telephone was out of order, which required a conversation with Central, in which all that was most executive in one’s nature came out, a member of the family remarking on its termination that there was no need for talking like the Empress of India. This unkind thrust sent one to Mrs. Browning’s remarks on families for comfort, during which it was discovered in a byway of one’s brain that Emerson said, “Who could be brilliant before an uncle?” and by this time such a hectic condition of the emotions had been brought about that a quick walk was taken, during which we had one really beautiful thought, and that brought with it twelve o’clock, with only an hour before luncheon, and a morning back of one so crowded as to seem kaleidoscopic. In the afternoon one may feel some more, or dream, or plan, or read, or be fond of some one, or enjoy something, or get a little better adjusted in a human relation. A truth may be realized, an illusion pricked, a convention kicked over, an ideal strengthened. The list of things that may happen is so long as to make a detailing of them unnecessary. They show themselves at first glance as multitudinous. And if they do not show themselves as of much import, are they not the very things you are doing yourself, and are you not begging leave to press the point, doing them to the exclusion of everything else and finding them all so vital that you would not omit a one, now that it has become a part of you?
      We like finding buttons, and convincing a strong nature that it does not know how to hang curtains, and tidying bureau drawers...
  The discontentment at living along is part of the living along, and so are the aspirations and the exaltations and dulness and chagrin at the pettiness of it all.And, moreover — a confession, once it has taken the bit in its teeth, bolts straight for shamelessness — there are even lesser things that we enjoy, and, though regretful on the surface, we are staunch at the roots. We like finding buttons, and convincing a strong nature that it does not know how to hang curtains, and tidying bureau drawers, and running upstairs to tell a second cousin that we have decided not to believe in socialism, that we know why we shouldn’t, but can’t put it in words, and we’ll have the person who convinced us convince her if she would like it. We like so many things so much, and if they are not worthy of us what, after all, are we but these very things assimilated and sweetened with the blending they have undergone which has doubled and trebled their use. The discontentment at living along is part of the living along, and so are the aspirations and the exaltations and dulness and chagrin at the pettiness of it all. Even the realizing of it made looking out of a window across a rain-soaked lawn suggestive and the writing of it — ah, that ended the afternoon charmingly and brought about the finding of an extra stamp that was a complete surprise! There only remains the reading, but that will be part of the living along of other people, which always seems a poor business at best .

      To be caught reading a book of towering mental dimensions is exactly as embarrassing as to be discovered reading a very yellow novel. The latter you explain at once you read for the descriptions, while the former needs so much explaining that you are speechless. To be caught reading a book of towering mental dimensions is exactly as embarrassing as to be discovered reading a very yellow novel. It is presumptuous to be reading Burke on the French Revolution and to look as though you understood it. All such pretensions are hurriedly disclaimed, and a denial thrown in that this is at all your usual habit, as well as a plea offered that you be not expected to comment intelligently upon it. People are so horridly apt to say: “Ah, yes! Stunning on limitations in the second chapter, isn’t it?” You are well on to the middle of the book, but you saw nothing about limitations. You really wish people wouldn’t annoy you. To be seen reading such a book gives a totally wrong impression and may do one untold harm. They think you have a reason for behaving so and draw respectful conclusions, while all the while you have no reason at all. You read it because — well, because that is what it was intended for; and the last book you read was so delightful that penance seemed only proper and — well, as a matter of fact, you didn’t read it, you only started it, which was no great harm, and the sort of thing that might happen to any one.
 

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