THE BOOK OF LIFE
The
Book of Life
By UPTON SINCLAIR
VOLUME ONE: MIND AND BODY
VOLUME TWO:
LOVE AND SOCIETY
Upton Sinclair
Pasadena, California
------
WHOLESALE DISTRIBUTORS THE PAINE BOOK COMPANY CHICAGO
Copyright, 1921, 1922
BY
UPTON SINCLAIR All Rights Reserved.
To
Kate Crane Gartz
in acknowledgment of her unceasing efforts for a
better world, and her fidelity to those
who struggle to achieve it.
Volume I
Contents Volume I Index Volume I
------ Volume II
Contents Volume II Index Volume II INTRODUCTORY
The writer of this book has been in this world some forty-two years. That may not seem long to some, but it is long enough to have made many painful mistakes, and to have learned much from them. Looking about him, he sees others making these same mistakes, suffering for lack of that same knowledge which he has so painfully acquired. This being the case, it seems a friendly act to offer his knowledge, minus the blunders and the pain.
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There come to the writer literally thousands of letters every year, asking him questions, some of them of the strangest. A man is dy-ing of cancer, and do I think it can be cured by a fast? A man is unable to make his wife happy, and can I tell him what is the matter with women? A man has invested his savings in mining stock, and can I tell him what to do about it? A man works in a sweatshop, and has only a little time for self-improvement, and will I tell him what books he ought to read? Many such questions every day make one aware of a vast mass of people, earnest, hungry for happiness, and groping as if in a fog. The things they most need to know they are not taught in the schools, nor in the newspapers they read, nor in the church they attend. Of these agencies, the first is not entirely competent, the second is not entirely honest, and the third is not entirely up to date. Nor is there anywhere a book in which the effort has been made to give to everyday human beings the everyday information they need for the successful living of their lives. For the present book the following claims may be made. First, it is a modern book; its writer watches hour by hour the new achievements of the human mind, he reaches out for information about them, he seeks to adjust his own thoughts to them and to test them in his own living. Second, it is, or tries hard to be, a wise book; its writer is not among those too-ardent young radicals who leap to
the conclusion that because many old things are stupid and tiresome, therefore everything that is old is to be spurned with contempt, and everything that proclaims itself new is to be taken at its own valuation. Third, it is an honest book; its writer will not pretend to know what he only guesses, and where it is necessary to guess, he will say so frankly. Finally, it is a kind book; it is not written for its author's glory, nor for his enrichment, but to tell you things that may be useful to you in the brief span of your life. It will attempt to tell you how to live, how to find health and happiness and success, how to work and how to play, how to eat and how to sleep, how
to love and to marry and to care for your children, how to deal with your fellow men in business and politics and social life, how to act and how to think, what religion to believe, what art to enjoy, what books to read. A large order, as the boys phrase it!
There are several ways for such a book to begin. It might begin with the child, because we all begin that way; it might begin with
love, because that precedes the child; it might begin with the care of the body, explaining that sound physical health is the basis of all right living, and even of right thinking; it might begin as most philosophies do, by defining life, discussing its origin and fundamental nature.
The trouble with this last plan is that there are a lot of people who have their ideas on life made up in tabloid form; they have creeds and catechisms which they know by heart, and if you suggest to them anything different, they give you a startled look and get out of your way. And then there is another, and in our modern world a still larger class, who say, "Oh, shucks! I don't go in for religion and that kind of thing." You offer them something that looks like a sermon, and they turn to the baseball page.
Who will read this Book of Life? There will be, among others, the great American tired business man. He wrestles with problems and cares all day, and when he sits down to read in the evening, he says: "Make it short and snappy." There is the wife of the tired business man, the American perfect lady. She does most of the reading for the family; but she has never got down to anything fundamental in her life, and mostly she likes to read about exciting love affairs, which she distinguishes from the unexciting kind she knows by the word "romance." Then there is the still more tired American workingman, who has been "speeded up" all day under the
bonus system or the piece-work system, and is apt to fall asleep in his chair before he finishes supper. Then there is the workingman's wife, who has slaved all day in the kitchen, and has a chance for a few minutes' intimacy with her husband before he falls asleep. She would like to have somebody tell her what to do for croup, but she is not sure that she has time to discuss the question whether life
is worth living.
Yet, I wonder; is there a single one among all these tired people, or even among the cynical people, who has not had some moment of awe when the thought came stabbing into his mind like a knife: "What a strange thing this life is! What am I anyhow? Where do
I come from, and what is going to become of me? What do I mean, what am I here for?" I have sat chatting with three hoboes by a railroad track, cooking themselves a mulligan in an old can, and heard one of them say: "By God, it's a queer thing, ain't it, mate?" I have sat on the deck of a ship, looking out over the midnight ocean and talking with a sailor, and heard him use almost the identical words. It is not only in the class-room and the schools that the minds of men are grappling with the fundamental problems; in fact, it was not from the schools that the new religions and the great moral impulses of humanity took their origin. It was from lonely shepherds sitting on the hillsides, and from fishermen casting their nets, and from carpenters and tailors and shoemakers at their benches.
Stop and think a bit, and you will realize it does make a difference what you believe about life, how it comes to be, where it is going, and what is your place in it. Is there a heaven with a God, who watches you day and night, and knows every thought you think, and will some day take you to eternal bliss if you obey his laws? If you really believe that, you will try to find out about his laws, and you will be comparatively little concerned about the success or failure of your business. Perhaps, on the other hand, you have knocked about in the world and lost your "faith"; you have been cheated and exploited, and have set out to "get yours," as the phrase is; to "feather your own nest." But some gust of passion seizes you, and you waste your substance, you wreck your life; then you wonder, "Who set that trap and baited it? Am I a creature of blind instincts, jealousies and greeds and hates beyond my own control entirely? Am I a poor, feeble insect, blown about in a storm and smashed? Or do I make the storm, and can I in any part control it?"
