ignition systems, and body colors. It was much more
than a study of transportation. It was an aspiration for knightly
rank. In the city of Zenith, in the barbarous twentieth century, a
family's motor indicated its social rank as precisely as the grades
of the peerage determined the rank of an English family - indeed,
more precisely, considering the opinion of old county families upon
newly created brewery barons and woolen-mill viscounts. The details
of precedence were never officially determined. There was no court
to decide whether the second son of a Pierce Arrow limousine should
go in to dinner before the first son of a Buick roadster, but of
their respective social importance there was no doubt; and where
Babbitt as a boy had aspired to the presidency, his son Ted aspired
to a Packard twin-six and an established position in the motored
gentry.
The favor which Babbitt had won from his family by
speaking of a new car evaporated as they realized that he didn't
intend to buy one this year. Ted lamented, "Oh, punk! The old boat
looks as if it'd had fleas and been scratching its varnish off."
Mrs. Babbitt said abstractedly, "Snoway talkcher father." Babbitt
raged, "If you're too much of a high-class gentleman, and you
belong to the bon ton and so on, why, you needn't take the car out
this evening." Ted explained, "I didn't mean - " and dinner dragged
on with normal domestic delight to the inevitable point at which
Babbitt protested, "Come, come now, we can't sit here all evening.
Give the girl a chance to clear away the table."
He was fretting, "What a family! I don't know how we
all get to scrapping this way. Like to go off some place and be
able to hear myself think.... Paul ... Maine ... Wear old pants,
and loaf, and cuss." He said cautiously to his wife, "I've been in
correspondence with a man in New York - wants me to see him about a
real-estate trade - may not come off till summer. Hope it doesn't
break just when we and the Rieslings get ready to go to Maine. Be a
shame if we couldn't make the trip there together. Well, no use
worrying now."
Verona escaped, immediately after dinner, with no
discussion save an automatic "Why don't you ever stay home?" from
Babbitt.
In the living-room, in a corner of the davenport,
Ted settled down to his Home Study; plain geometry, Cicero, and the
agonizing metaphors of Comus.
"I don't see why they give us this old-fashioned
junk by Milton and Shakespeare and Wordsworth and all these
has-beens," he protested. "Oh, I guess I could stand it to see a
show by Shakespeare, if they had swell scenery and put on a lot of
dog, but to sit down in cold blood and READ 'em - These teachers -
how do they get that way?"
Mrs. Babbitt, darning socks, speculated, "Yes, I
wonder why. Of course I don't want to fly in the face of the
professors and everybody, but I do think there's things in
Shakespeare - not that I read him much, but when I was young the
girls used to show me passages that weren't, really, they weren't
at all nice."
Babbitt looked up irritably from the comic strips in
the Evening Advocate. They composed his favorite literature and
art, these illustrated chronicles in which Mr. Mutt hit Mr. Jeff
with a rotten egg, and Mother corrected Father's vulgarisms by
means of a rolling-pin. With the solemn face of a devotee,
breathing heavily through his open mouth, he plodded nightly
through every picture, and during the rite he detested
interruptions. Furthermore, he felt that on the subject of
Shakespeare he wasn't really an authority. Neither the
Advocate-Times, the Evening Advocate, nor the Bulletin of the
Zenith Chamber of Commerce had ever had an editorial on the matter,
and until one of them had spoken he found it hard to form an
original opinion. But even at risk of floundering in strange bogs,
he could not keep out of an open controversy.
"I'll tell you why you have to study Shakespeare and
those. It's because they're required for college entrance,
than a study of transportation. It was an aspiration for knightly
rank. In the city of Zenith, in the barbarous twentieth century, a
family's motor indicated its social rank as precisely as the grades
of the peerage determined the rank of an English family - indeed,
more precisely, considering the opinion of old county families upon
newly created brewery barons and woolen-mill viscounts. The details
of precedence were never officially determined. There was no court
to decide whether the second son of a Pierce Arrow limousine should
go in to dinner before the first son of a Buick roadster, but of
their respective social importance there was no doubt; and where
Babbitt as a boy had aspired to the presidency, his son Ted aspired
to a Packard twin-six and an established position in the motored
gentry.
The favor which Babbitt had won from his family by
speaking of a new car evaporated as they realized that he didn't
intend to buy one this year. Ted lamented, "Oh, punk! The old boat
looks as if it'd had fleas and been scratching its varnish off."
Mrs. Babbitt said abstractedly, "Snoway talkcher father." Babbitt
raged, "If you're too much of a high-class gentleman, and you
belong to the bon ton and so on, why, you needn't take the car out
this evening." Ted explained, "I didn't mean - " and dinner dragged
on with normal domestic delight to the inevitable point at which
Babbitt protested, "Come, come now, we can't sit here all evening.
Give the girl a chance to clear away the table."
He was fretting, "What a family! I don't know how we
all get to scrapping this way. Like to go off some place and be
able to hear myself think.... Paul ... Maine ... Wear old pants,
and loaf, and cuss." He said cautiously to his wife, "I've been in
correspondence with a man in New York - wants me to see him about a
real-estate trade - may not come off till summer. Hope it doesn't
break just when we and the Rieslings get ready to go to Maine. Be a
shame if we couldn't make the trip there together. Well, no use
worrying now."
Verona escaped, immediately after dinner, with no
discussion save an automatic "Why don't you ever stay home?" from
Babbitt.
In the living-room, in a corner of the davenport,
Ted settled down to his Home Study; plain geometry, Cicero, and the
agonizing metaphors of Comus.
"I don't see why they give us this old-fashioned
junk by Milton and Shakespeare and Wordsworth and all these
has-beens," he protested. "Oh, I guess I could stand it to see a
show by Shakespeare, if they had swell scenery and put on a lot of
dog, but to sit down in cold blood and READ 'em - These teachers -
how do they get that way?"
Mrs. Babbitt, darning socks, speculated, "Yes, I
wonder why. Of course I don't want to fly in the face of the
professors and everybody, but I do think there's things in
Shakespeare - not that I read him much, but when I was young the
girls used to show me passages that weren't, really, they weren't
at all nice."
Babbitt looked up irritably from the comic strips in
the Evening Advocate. They composed his favorite literature and
art, these illustrated chronicles in which Mr. Mutt hit Mr. Jeff
with a rotten egg, and Mother corrected Father's vulgarisms by
means of a rolling-pin. With the solemn face of a devotee,
breathing heavily through his open mouth, he plodded nightly
through every picture, and during the rite he detested
interruptions. Furthermore, he felt that on the subject of
Shakespeare he wasn't really an authority. Neither the
Advocate-Times, the Evening Advocate, nor the Bulletin of the
Zenith Chamber of Commerce had ever had an editorial on the matter,
and until one of them had spoken he found it hard to form an
original opinion. But even at risk of floundering in strange bogs,
he could not keep out of an open controversy.
"I'll tell you why you have to study Shakespeare and
those. It's because they're required for college entrance,
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