“Oh, Lord! Another day! What a grind!”

 

If you ask me whom I mean by the plain man, my reply is that I mean almost every man. I mean you. I certainly mean me. I mean the rich and the poor, the successful and the unsuccessful, the idle and the diligent³, the luxurious⁴ and the austere⁵. For, what with the limits of digestion⁶, the practical impossibility of wearing two neckties at once, the insecurity of investments, the responsibilities of wealth and of success, the exhaustingness of the search for pleasure, and the cheapness of travel—the real differences between one sort of plain man and another are slight in these times. (And indeed they always were slight.)

 

The plain man has a lot to do before he may have his breakfast—and he must do it. The tyrannic routine begins instantly he is out of bed. To lave limbs, to shave the jaw⁷, to select clothes and assume them—these things are naught⁸. He must exercise his muscles—all his muscles equally and scientifically—with the aid of a text-book and of diagrams on a large card; which card he often hides if he is expecting visitors in his chamber⁹, for he will not always confess to these exercises; he would have you believe that he alone, in a world of simpletons, is above the faddism¹⁰ of the hour; he is as ashamed of these exercises as of a good resolution, and when his wife happens to burst in on them he will pretend to be doing some common act, such as walking across the room or examining a

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