Page:Points of View (1924).pdf/45

 the cares of this world than are ordinarily to be had upon the economic tableland of democracy. In a society where the most that the average person can expect is to start without a handicap, the occupations of the first four decades are essentially predetermined. Our average man has his work cut out for him if he keeps abreast of normal expectations; and to keep abreast, he is impelled by the strongest instincts in him.

There is nothing forbidding or externally formidable in the deputy powers that take him captive, and abduct him out of the irresponsible company of youth. Quite the contrary. He sees the invitation and the promise of life in a pair of grey eyes and white hands, and he runs to meet them, and while he is explaining in a moment of youthful intoxication, how sweet earth would be if Maytime would last forever and gipsying were in fashion, he is bound hand and foot, and delivered to a power which effectively terminates his roving in the Romany Rye. The law of self-preservation has him in thrall. Or to put the matter in plain terms, he must educate himself and pay for his education; he must find a profession; he must marry and pay for his wife; he must start a family and pay for his family; he must buy a lot and build a house; he must pay for his life insurance and start a fund for his old age; he must begin the education of his children. In this homespun garb the awful "law of nature" enforces itself before he knows what has got hold of him.