Up above, men wore black clothes and boiled shirts, and women dressed
in beautiful gowns. Also, there were good things to eat, and there
was plenty to eat. This much for the flesh. Then there were the
things of the spirit. Up above me, I knew, were unselfishnesses of
the spirit, clean and noble thinking, keen intellectual living. I
knew all this because I read "Seaside Library" novels, in which, with
the exception of the villains and adventuresses, all men and women
thought beautiful thoughts, spoke a beautiful tongue, and performed
glorious deeds. In short, as I accepted the rising of the sun, I
accepted that up above me was all that was fine and noble and
gracious, all that gave decency and dignity to life, all that made
life worth living and that remunerated one for his travail and
misery.
But it is not particularly easy for one to climb up out of the
working-class--especially if he is handicapped by the possession of
ideals and illusions. I lived on a ranch in California, and was hard
put to find the ladder whereby to climb.
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