A MULTIPLICITY OF CHOICE. T HE element of choice in life
has very much increased lately. On the other hand, so far at least as the professional classes are concerned, there is nothing very good to choose from. We are faced with a choice—a very large choice indeed—of moderate goods and evils. The educated man of to-day feels like a fastidious woman in a cheap shop—she has to make up her mind between a multiplicity of articles, none of which is exactly what she wants. It is all faute de mieux, but, however unsatis- factory her purchase, she cannot say, " I had no alter- native." " Nothing is quite what it was," say not only old people but middle aged and young ones. The very young no doubt say it sometimes with an incredulous smile. Are not the good times which are supposed to be gone painted in rather too bright colours ? they ask themselves. Even they, however, half believe that " things " have changed for the worse, and all but the adolescent believe it implicitly.
To the young man and woman of to-day almost every way of life is open, if both are content to be uncomfortable in it. It is not only (socially speaking) the upward path whose gates have been with such a blare of trumpets set open to pedestrians ; the way to the plains is open too, and a man may trudge thither without any loss of pride.
If he wants to work like a labourer from morning to night upon a tiny fruit farm, no one will think any the less of him, and, what is more to the purpose, he will not think any the less of himself. Not long ago it would have been a fearful blow to a successful professional man that one of his sons should lead the life of an agricultural labourer.
He would have said, " It is impossible." If nowadays two brothers become one a professional man and one a market- gardener in a very small way, each will quote the other about the affairs of the mind or the price of apples with equal unconcern. Both will probably marry in the same rank of life, both will " have a struggle " ; neither of their wives will be much at ease, and neither will ever be free of anxiety or have " much to look forward to," but each will know that he chose his lot and might have chosen other- wise. He has had, he will say to himself, more choice than his father, though among less good things. Where women are concerned, all this is obviously still more true. There are fewer men to marry, but " eligibility " is a wider term. To be really poor, to be unable to take the mechanical work of life—cooking, the care of children, and the making of clothes—off his wife's shoulders was considered a bar to marriage. Men not infrequently remained bachelors till well after thirty because they simply could not afford to keep a wife. They had no choice in the matter. Now scores of young women, whose mothers never touched a bit of housework or even pushed a perambulator, are perfectly willing to marry and lead a life not unlike that of a " working woman." It is a hard life ; but it is open to them to choose it. Supposing, however, they do not want to marry or have no chance of doing so, they have a great choice of work open to them. The life of the ordinary professional woman, no matter what profession she goes in for, is, in some sense at any rate, a hard-one. She will probably know some privations and certainly some terrible fears. All those who have any acquaintance with young women who work for their bread will admit that they take an astonishingly sad view of the w. orld, and most of them express a hope that they may never live beyond their second youth. After forty, they say, our sort of life is misery. No doubt they speak out of more impatience than thought, but whether they are so very much happier than the old maid of the past whe had hardly any choice in her manner of life may be doubted. Still, they can reflect that the exact form of their dis- comforts and disappointments is theirs by their own choosing.
If we come to the subject of education, a great deal more choice lies before parents than formerly. If they can make a clever boy work, they can get him " every advan- tage " without paying for it. The son of their heart is not doomed to a second-rate education if they cannot afford " the mill." It is impossible not to feel a little sad when one sees boys and girls begin about ten years old literally to earn their livings—to work early and late with no time limit but an anxious mother's determination that they should not wreck their healths, to get scholarships, to get to a good school, to get to the university, to " make " what comes without thought to their more lucky fellows. The parents, however, choose between a light-hearted youth and a bad start in life, and no youth at all and a good one ; there is no must in the matter. They have a freedom unknown before. Suppose, however, they have money and dislike " the mill," there are other ways of education open. Formerly there was for most people nothing to be had but a classical education." Now the public schools offer a modern one to a great proportion of boys, and there is ample provision outside of them for what one might call cranky education, or co-education, or almost any form of training that the heart of parent can conceive.
It is not even necessary nowadays to " keep a roof over one's head " in the old sense. A greatly increasing number of persons live in flats or in boarding-houses, and know nothing about " the roof " whatever. Not many years ago the present writer listened open-mouthed to a story of some eccentric persons who kept a motor-car and did not keep a servant. Now no one would be sur- prised to hear of such an arrangement. The choice between pleasure and ease is open to those who have sufficient income to pay for one but not both. If we turn to small matters, never was fashion in dress so little exacting and never were outward conventions so little binding. Almost all the irksome duties connected with pleasure have been swept away. Young people take care of themselves. A neglected attention in the way of " calling " is no crime. Whether in all this freedom ordinary social life is as pleasant as it was is an open question, but, anyhow, it is much freer. No one need go to church if he does not want to ; there is no earthly opinion that anyone need be afraid to express. He may make some one angry, but no one will dispute his right to be wrong " from the fundamental point of view.
Was life easier when the word " must " was legibly written all over it ? We wonder if really it made much difference ? Obviously, there is not enough of luck to go round. If a person is unhappy in his work, is it much comfort to know he might have done another sort ? If a woman is unhappily married, is it much consolation to know she need never have married at all ? If she is unhappy single, is it of any use to her to reflect that she might have married and been bitterly poor ? Supposing one's children turn out ill or reproach us that they have been unhappy, will it blunt the serpent's tooth which pierces our hearts to know that we could have educated them differently ? The inevitable has its good side, and after all underneath all the alternatives there still lie the great inevitables. " What is the death-rate in this parish ? " asked a nervous visitor of an old boatman in a seaside town. " I don't know," said the man, adding, with a grin. " about one each, I expect."
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