House & Garden 
ARE YOU AFRAID TO BE ALONE? 
T he other evening a well-known American playwright stood on 
the steps of a New York club watching the theatre crowds pass. 
It was shortly after eight o’clock and the st’' ets and pavements were 
packed with men and women, boys and girls hurrying to reach their 
theatres before the curtain rose. They pushed one another aside. 
Motors jockeyed for position. Women dodged in and out between 
traffic. All rushing with a great frenzy as though driven by the dread 
of an invisible and terrible Something. 
For a long time the playwright watched them, then he remarked, 
“In my youthful vanity I used to think that people went to the theatre 
to be amused, but I am beginning to believe that they go because they 
are afraid to be alone. They haven’t enough mental furniture to make 
their lives livable, haven’t enough thoughts or resourcefulness or amuse¬ 
ments in their own homes to keep off the devils of ennui. They’re 
bored with themselves and with each other. They wouldn’t dare stay 
home alone for seven nights in succession—they’d go stark, raving 
mad.” 
Perhaps an exaggeration, but there’s a world of truth in that remark. 
Discontent is on us like the plague. It is eating the vital tissues of our 
American life. Sentimentalists used to think that the war would sober 
the American people into being content with their lives at home. Some 
fanatics think that legislative prohibition will do it. Nonsense. The 
change has to start within. Contentment, like charity, begins on the 
lee-side of the doormat. The only possible solution for this wild flight 
from ennui and fear is to get inter¬ 
ested in your home, to develop its 
resources and yours. 
AT the present moment many 
people are worrying about Bol¬ 
shevism or, rather, worrying lest 
we have a repetition here in Amer¬ 
ica of the slaughter and pillage 
that accompanied the establishment 
of Bolshevism in Russia. Theo¬ 
retically there are some excellent 
ideas in the Bolshevist program; 
there are also some terrible evils. 
The great weakness with the Rus¬ 
sian program is that the ideals can¬ 
not be put into the working without 
the evils. One of these evils is the 
utter abolition of the home and 
property. The Bolshevist constitu¬ 
tion couldn’t last ten minutes in a 
country where the people own their 
own homes. Bolshevism is a re¬ 
ligion of tenants. The man who 
owns his own home, who works in 
his own garden and reaps the fruits 
of decent labor has no desire to 
overthrow those in authority or take 
from his neighbor the good things 
he has acquired through years of 
work. Authority preserves prop¬ 
erty. Own your own home, plant 
your own garden, pay your share 
of the taxes, take your part in the 
community life—and Bolshevism 
will fade like a bad dream at dawn. 
The solution of any Bolshevik 
tendencies that may be haunting the 
American people is found in that 
excellent “Own Your Own Home” 
movement. 
it. 
ND having acquired your own 
home, what ? Be content with 
Contentment is not a stifling of 
ambition, a refuge of lazy minds. 
Philosophers in all ages have dis¬ 
covered it to be the touchstone of 
life. Marcus Aurelius and old 
Solomon both arrived at this con¬ 
clusion after the discipline of bitter 
experience. Start in and see what 
TO LET 
A Wood where no man dwells, 
It is a holy place 
Enisled with sleeping boughs 
That lean out into space; 
A Desert without Man 
Is full of dreams, is far— 
Much like the magic face 
Of an untravelled star; 
A Meadow lush with grass 
Is rich with little joys 
Where thighed grasshoppers leap 
Like elves or playing boys; 
But, O this Wood or Stone 
Is chill with alien cold. 
Too long built to be new. 
Yet too new to be old. . . . 
I hate a vacant house 
With its long reach of stair: 
’Tis such a place that none 
Do wish to tarry there 
Where small mice squeak and flash 
Along each dusty shelf 
And Silence shrinks, afraid. 
Because it hears itself! 
Harry Kemp 
your capacities are, they say. Get to know yourself. See what you 
can do. Before you know it you’ll discover a hobby or a taste for this 
or that which will satisfy you thoroughly. The old mad flight from 
ennui will cease. You’ll no longer be afraid to be alone. 
Contentment breeds on activity. Activity clears the mind, just as 
water purifies itself by moving. The stagnant mind is the discontented 
mind. Seven successive stagnant nights after labor will eventually 
make a man afraid to be alone with himself. 
T he activities of a contented man may be legion. His family 
suffice for him. And in the majority of cases he pursues a hobby 
or some creative or cultural interest. Books furnish one, music another, 
collecting a third—these three are the great trinity of contentment. 
Can you imagine Charles M. Schwab being bored with himself? 
Charlie Schwab is one of the best amateur organists in America. So 
is John Wanamaker, and the dream of John Wanamaker’s life is to 
give an organ concert. I could fill this page with the names of promi¬ 
nent Americans who are accomplished amateur musicians—-men of 
huge interests and great responsibilities who find in music an untiring 
solace and amusement. 
One bright light on the horizon is the return of music as a family 
custom. Mr. George Eastman, of kodak fame, maintains an orchestra 
in his house, and there are hundreds of families this land over who are 
discovering enough musical talent in their own family circle to furnish 
homemade musicales. For those 
who cannot play or sing, there are 
the player-piano and the talking 
machine. Really, when you come 
to think of it, the American people 
should lead the world as music-, 
lovers, so great are their advantages 
in their own homes. 
With the library facilities at the 
command of all, it is also a marvel 
that the American people are not 
the best read in the world. But 
reading takes time and thought, it 
requires a certain sense of ease. It 
can breed contentment only after 
one has become initiated into that 
noble company of those to whom 
books are friends. And yet, it is 
amazing the number of houses one 
can find in America—homes of 
well-to-do folk who own motor 
cars and wear smart, clothes—where 
books are not to be found and read¬ 
ing is as a lost art. 
The collecting hobby needs no 
bush. The custom is growing. Each 
day brings to House & Garden 
evidences of the spreading interest 
in collecting antiques and curios. 
That way lies contentment. For 
the collector must necessarily be a 
student of his subject—and once 
one begins to study a subject ennui 
flies out the window. 
N OW these three breeders of 
contentment—music, books 
and collecting—are cultural mat¬ 
ters. One does not make money by 
them; in fact, the less commercial 
they are, the more happiness one 
can derive from them. They re¬ 
quire activity to maintain, but it is 
a different sort of activity with 
which one drives through the ordi¬ 
nary day’s work. Therein lies their 
power of attraction for busy men 
and women and the peculiar sooth¬ 
ing tendency they have on the mind. ' 
Each man should have at least one 
interest about his home to which he 
is ardently devoted and whose ben¬ 
efits cannot be calculated in cash. 
