All the nice men in our town have left it--or are married. There are
thirty or forty more unmarried women than men. What shall I do? X."
Answer: "Leave that town and go to some place where there are more men.
Go as a matter of business, earning your own living. Keep well, be as
good as you know how, and trust in Providence."
GET YOUR WORK DONE
Get your work DONE, to remember,--
Nothing can take it away,
Then shall the sun of December
Shine brighter than goldenest May.
What is the Spring-time of flowers for?
Why does the sunshine come down?
What are the harvest-day hours for
But fruit? In the fruit is the crown.
Why should we grieve over losses?
Why should we fret over sin?
Death is the smallest of crosses
To the worker whose harvest is in.
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WOMAN'S ERA
THE NEW MAGAZINE
OF INSPIRATION FOR
WOMEN OF AMERICA
IN A CLASS OF ITS OWN!
A monthly world-wide review of women's activities, achievements and aims
in all the broader fields of work; reviews and original, authoritative
articles on
Economics, Ethics, Civics, Arts and Crafts, Music, Literature, Club and
College Work, etc.
Among its contributors are:
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Maude Ballington Booth
Florence Kelley
Mme. Sara Anderson
Prof. Margaret Cross
Miss Emma Church
Alice Hubbard
Kate Barnard
Mrs. Eva Perry Moore
Rev. Anna Shaw
And a host of other equally noted authorities in the world of women.
Initial Number out January 15, 1910
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THE FORERUNNER
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN'S MAGAZINE
CHARLTON CO., 67 WALL ST., NEW YORK
AS TO PURPOSE:
_What is The Forerunner?_ It is a monthly magazine, publishing stories
short and serial, article and essay; drama, verse, satire and sermon;
dialogue, fable and fantasy, comment and review. It is written entirely
by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
_What is it For?_ It is to stimulate thought: to arouse hope, courage
and impatience; to offer practical suggestions and solutions, to voice
the strong assurance of better living, here, now, in our own hands to
make.
_What is it about?_ It is about people, principles, and the questions
of every-day life; the personal and public problems of to-day. It gives
a clear, consistent view of human life and how to live it.
_Is it a Woman's magazine?_ It will treat all three phases of our
existence--male, female and human. It will discuss Man, in his true
place in life; Woman, the Unknown Power; the Child, the most important
citizen.
_Is it a Socialist Magazine?_ It is a magazine for humanity, and
humanity is social. It holds that Socialism, the economic theory, is
part of our gradual Socialization, and that the duty of conscious
humanity is to promote Socialization.
_Why is it published?_ It is published to express ideas which need a
special medium; and in the belief that there are enough persons
interested in those ideas to justify the undertaking.
AS TO ADVERTISING:
We have long heard that "A pleased customer is the best advertiser."
The Forerunner offers to its advertisers and readers the benefit of this
authority. In its advertising department, under the above heading, will
be described articles personally known and used. So far as individual
experience and approval carry weight, and clear truthful description
command attention, the advertising pages of The Forerunner will be
useful to both dealer and buyer. If advertisers prefer to use their own
statements The Forerunner will publish them if it believes them to be
true.
AS TO CONTENTS:
The main feature of the first year is a new book on a new subject with a
new name:--
_"Our Androcentric Culture."_ this is a study of the historic effect on
normal human development of a too exclusively masculine civilization.
It shows what man, the male, has done to the world: and what woman, the
more human, may do to change it.
_"What Diantha Did."_ This is a serial novel. It shows the course of
true love running very crookedly--as it so often does--among the
obstructions and difficulties of the housekeeping problem--and solves
that problem. (NOT by co-operation.)
Among the short articles will appear:
"Private Morality and Public Immorality."
"The Beauty Women Have Lost"
"Our Overworked Instincts."
"The Nun in the Kitchen."
"Genius: Domestic and Maternal."
"A Small God and a Large Goddess."
"Animals in Cities."
"How We Waste Three-Fourths Of Our Money."
"Prize Children"
"Kitchen-Mindedness"
"Parlor-Mindedness"
"Nursery-Mindedness"
There will be short stories and other entertaining matter in each issue.
The department of "Personal Problems" does not discuss etiquette,
fashions or the removal of freckles. Foolish questions will not be
answered, unless at peril of the asker.
AS TO VALUE:
If you take this magazine one year you will have:
One complete novel . . . By C. P. Gilman
One new book . . . By C. P. Gilman
Twelve short stories . . . By C. P. Gilman
Twelve-and-more short articles . . . By C. P. Gilman
Twelve-and-more new poems . . . By C. P. Gilman
Twelve Short Sermons . . . By C. P. Gilman
Besides "Comment and Review" . . . By C. P. Gilman
"Personal Problems" . . . By C. P. Gilman
And many other things . . . By C. P. Gilman
DON'T YOU THINK IT'S WORTH A DOLLAR?
THE FORERUNNER
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN'S MAGAZINE
CHARLTON CO., 67 WALL ST., NEW YORK
_____ 19__
Please find enclosed $_____ as subscription to "The Forerunner" from
_____ 19___ to _____ 19___
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C A L E N D U L A
CHILDREN CEASE TO CRY FOR IT.
This is a gratuitous advertisement, benefitting
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b) The Mother; who doesn't have to hear him cry;
c) The Nearest Druggist--a little.
CALENDULA is a good standard old drug--made of marigolds--in the
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place--his poor little knee is scraped raw. And he howls, how he howls!
square-mouthed and inconsolable.
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A R A W W O U N D
THE FORERUNNER
A MONTHLY MAGAZINE
BY
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN
AUTHOR, OWNER & PUBLISHER
1.00 A YEAR
.10 A COPY
Volume 1. No. 3
JANUARY, 1910
Copyright for 1910
C. P. Gilman
Forgive the Past--and forget it!--don't carry a grudge against
graveyards.
Accept the Present--you have to--here it is.
Concentrate on the Future--still yours to make--and get busy!
A CENTRAL SUN
A Song
Given a central sun--and a rolling world;
Into the light we whirl--and call it day;
Into the dark we turn--and call it night;
Glow of the dawn--glory of midday light--
Shadow of eve--rest of the fragrant night
And the dawn again!
Given a constant Power--and a passing frame;
Into the light we grow--and call it life;
Into the dark we go--and call It death;
Glory of youth--beauty and pride and power--
Shadow of age--rest of the final hour--
And are born again!
REASONABLE RESOLUTIONS
The trouble with our "New Year Resolutions" is that they are too
personal. We are always fussing about our little individual tempers and
weaknesses and bad habits.
While we, Socially, behave as badly as we do, we individually can
accomplish little.
Says the wiseacre--"Ah! but if each of us was individually perfect
Society would be perfect!"
Not at all! You can amass any number of perfect parts of a
mechanism--or organism--but if they do not _work together right_ the
thing is no good.
And you can't learn to work together by trying to be perfect separately.
Can you?
We need collective aims, collective efforts, collective attainments.
Let us collectively resolve:
That we will stop wasting our soil and our forests and our labor!
*
That we will stop poisoning and clogging our rivers and harbors.
*
That we will stop building combustible houses.
*
That we will _now_--_this year_--begin in good earnest to prevent all
preventable diseases.
*
That we will do our duty by our children and young people, as a wise
Society should, and cut off the crop of criminals by not making them.
*
That--; no; here are quite enough resolutions for one year.
HER HOUSEKEEPER
On the top floor of a New York boarding-house lived a particularly
attractive woman who was an actress. She was also a widow, not
divorcee, but just plain widow; and she persisted in acting under her
real name, which was Mrs. Leland. The manager objected, but her
reputation was good enough to carry the point.
"It will cost you a great deal of money, Mrs. Leland," said the manager.
"I make money enough," she answered.
"You will not attract so many--admirers," said the manager.
"I have admirers enough," she answered; which was visibly true.
She was well under thirty, even by daylight--and about eighteen on the
stage; and as for admirers--they apparently thought Mrs. Leland was a
carefully selected stage name.
Besides being a widow, she was a mother, having a small boy of about
five years; and this small boy did not look in the least like a "stage
child," but was a brown-skinned, healthy little rascal of the ordinary
sort.
With this boy, an excellent nursery governess, and a maid, Mrs. Leland
occupied the top floor above mentioned, and enjoyed it. She had a big
room in front, to receive in; and a small room with a skylight, to sleep
in. The boy's room and the governess' rooms were at the back, with
sunny south windows, and the maid slept on a couch in the parlor. She
was a colored lady, named Alice, and did not seem to care where she
slept, or if she slept at all.
"I never was so comfortable in my life," said Mrs. Leland to her
friends. "I've been here three years and mean to stay. It is not like
any boarding-house I ever saw, and it is not like any home I ever had.
I have the privacy, the detachment, the carelessness of a
boarding-house, and 'all the comforts of a home.' Up I go to my little
top flat as private as you like. My Alice takes care of it--the
housemaids only come in when I'm out. I can eat with the others
downstairs if I please; but mostly I don't please; and up come my little
meals on the dumbwaiter--hot and good."
"But--having to flock with a lot of promiscuous boarders!" said her
friends.
"I don't flock, you see; that's just it. And besides, they are not
promiscuous--there isn't a person in the house now who isn't some sort
of a friend of mine. As fast as a room was vacated I'd suggest
somebody--and here we all are. It's great."
"But do you _like_ a skylight room?" Mrs. Leland's friends further
inquired of her?"
"By no means!" she promptly replied. "I hate it. I feel like a mouse
in a pitcher!"
"Then why in the name of reason--?"
"Because I can sleep there! _Sleep_!--It's the only way to be quiet in
New York, and I have to sleep late if I sleep at all. I've fixed the
skylight so that I'm drenched with air--and not drenched with rain!--and
there I am. Johnny is gagged and muffled as it were, and carried
downstairs as early as possible. He gets his breakfast, and the
unfortunate Miss Merton has to go out and play with him--in all
weathers--except kindergarten time. Then Alice sits on the stairs and
keeps everybody away till I ring."
Possibly it was owing to the stillness and the air and the sleep till
near lunchtime that Mrs. Leland kept her engaging youth, her vivid
uncertain beauty. At times you said of her, "She has a keen intelligent
face, but she's not pretty." Which was true. She was not pretty. But
at times again she overcame you with her sudden loveliness.
All of which was observed by her friend from the second floor who wanted
to marry her. In this he was not alone; either as a friend, of whom she
had many, or as a lover, of whom she had more. His distinction lay
first in his opportunities, as a co-resident, for which he was heartily
hated by all the more and some of the many; and second in that he
remained a friend in spite of being a lover, and remained a lover in
spite of being flatly refused.
His name in the telephone book was given "Arthur Olmstead, real estate;"
office this and residence that--she looked him up therein after their
first meeting. He was rather a short man, heavily built, with a quiet
kind face, and a somewhat quizzical smile. He seemed to make all the
money he needed, occupied the two rooms and plentiful closet space of
his floor in great contentment, and manifested most improper domesticity
of taste by inviting friends to tea. "Just like a woman!" Mrs. Leland
told him.
"And why not? Women have so many attractive ways--why not imitate
them?" he asked her.
"A man doesn't want to be feminine, I'm sure," struck in a pallid,
overdressed youth, with openwork socks on his slim feet, and perfumed
handkerchief.
Mr. Olmstead smiled a broad friendly smile. He was standing near the
young man, a little behind him, and at this point he put his hands just
beneath the youth's arms, lifted and set him aside as if he were an
umbrella-stand. "Excuse me, Mr. Masters," he said gravely, but you were
standing on Mrs. Leland's gown."
Mr. Masters was too much absorbed in apologizing to the lady to take
umbrage at the method of his removal; but she was not so oblivious. She
tried doing it to her little boy afterwards, and found him very heavy.
When she came home from her walk or drive in the early winter dusk, this
large quietly furnished room, the glowing fire, the excellent tea and
delicate thin bread and butter were most restful. "It is two more
stories up before I can get my own;" she would say--"I must stop a
minute."
When he began to propose to her the first time she tried to stop him.
"O please don't!" she cried. _"Please_ don't! There are no end of
reasons why I will not marry anybody again. Why can't some of you men
be nice to me and not--that! Now I can't come in to tea any more!"
"I'd like to know why not," said he calmly. "You don't have to marry me
if you don't want to; but that's no reason for cutting my acquaintance,
is it?"
She gazed at him in amazement.
"I'm not threatening to kill myself, am I? I don't intend going to the
devil. I'd like to be your husband, but if I can't--mayn't I be a
brother to you?"
She was inclined to think he was making fun of her, but no--his proposal
had had the real ring in it. "And you're not--you're not going to--?"
it seemed the baldest assumption to think that he was going to, he
looked so strong and calm and friendly.
"Not going to annoy you? Not going to force an undesired affection on
you and rob myself of a most agreeable friendship? Of course not. Your
tea is cold, Mrs. Leland--let me give you another cup. And do you think
Miss Rose is going to do well as 'Angelina?'"
So presently Mrs. Leland was quite relieved in her mind, and free to
enjoy the exceeding comfortableness of this relation. Little Johnny was
extremely fond of Mr Olmstead; who always treated him with respect, and
who could listen to his tales of strife and glory more intelligently
than either mother or governess. Mr. Olmstead kept on hand a changing
supply of interesting things; not toys--never, but real things not
intended for little boys to play with. No little boy would want to play
with dolls for instance; but what little boy would not be fascinated by
a small wooden lay figure, capable of unheard-of contortions. Tin
soldiers were common, but the flags of all nations--real flags, and true
stories about them, were interesting. Noah's arks were cheap and
unreliable scientifically; but Barye lions, ivory elephants, and
Japanese monkeys in didactic groups of three, had unfailing attraction.
And the books this man had--great solid books that could be opened wide
on the floor, and a little boy lie down to in peace and comfort!
Mrs. Leland stirred her tea and watched them until Johnny was taken
upstairs.
"Why don't you smoke?" she asked suddenly. "Doctor's orders?"
"No--mine," he answered. "I never consulted a doctor in my life."
"Nor a dentist, I judge," said she.
"Nor a dentist."
"You'd better knock on wood!" she told him.
"And cry 'Uncle Reuben?' he asked smilingly.
"You haven't told me why you don't smoke!" said she suddenly.
"Haven't I?" he said. "That was very rude of me. But look here.
There's a thing I wanted to ask you. Now I'm not pressing any sort of
inquiry as to myself; but as a brother, would you mind telling me some
of those numerous reasons why you will not marry anybody?"
She eyed him suspiciously, but he was as solid and calm as usual,
regarding her pleasantly and with no hint of ulterior purpose. "Why--I
don't mind," she began slowly. "First--I have been married--and was
very unhappy. That's reason enough."
He did not contradict her; but merely said, "That's one," and set it
down in his notebook.
"Dear me, Mr. Olmstead! You're not a reporter, are you!"
"O no--but I wanted to have them clear and think about them," he
explained. "Do you mind?" And he made as if to shut his little book
again.
"I don't know as I mind," she said slowly. "But it looks
so--businesslike."
"This is a very serious business, Mrs. Leland, as you must know. Quite
aside from any personal desire of my own, I am truly 'your sincere
friend and well-wisher,' as the Complete Letter Writer has it, and there
are so many men wanting to marry you."
This she knew full well, and gazed pensively at the toe of her small
flexible slipper, poised on a stool before the fire.
Mr. Olmstead also gazed at the slipper toe with appreciation.
"What's the next one?" he said cheerfully.
"Do you know you are a real comfort," she told him suddenly. "I never
knew a man before who could--well leave off being a man for a moment and
just be a human creature."
"Thank you, Mrs. Leland," he said in tones of pleasant sincerity. "I
want to be a comfort to you if I can. Incidentally wouldn't you be more
comfortable on this side of the fire--the light falls better--don't
move." And before she realized what he was doing he picked her up,
chair and all, and put her down softly on the other side, setting the
footstool as before, and even daring to place her little feet upon
it--but with so businesslike an air that she saw no opening for rebuke.
It is a difficult matter to object to a man's doing things like that
when he doesn't look as if he was doing them.
"That's better," said he cheerfully, taking the place where she had
been. "Now, what's the next one?"
"The next one is my boy."
"Second--Boy," he said, putting it down. "But I should think he'd be a
reason the other way. Excuse me--I wasn't going to criticize--yet! And
the third?"
"Why should you criticize at all, Mr. Olmstead?"
"I shouldn't--on my own account. But there may come a man you love."
He had a fine baritone voice. When she heard him sing Mrs. Leland
always wished he were taller, handsomer, more distinguished looking; his
voice sounded as if he were. And I should hate to see these reasons
standing in the way of your happiness," he continued.
"Perhaps they wouldn't," said she in a revery.
"Perhaps they wouldn't--and in that case it is no possible harm that you
tell me the rest of them. I won't cast it up at you. Third?"
"Third, I won't give up my profession for any man alive."
"Any man alive would be a fool to want you to," said he setting down,
"Third--Profession."
"Fourth--I like _Freedom!"_ she said with sudden intensity. "You don't
know!--they kept me so tight!--so _tight_--when I was a girl! Then--I
was left alone, with a very little money, and I began to study for the
stage--that was like heaven! And then--O what _idiots_ women are!" She
said the word not tragically, but with such hard-pointed intensity that
it sounded like a gimlet. "Then I married, you see--I gave up all my
new-won freedom to _marry!_--and he kept me tighter than ever." She
shut her expressive mouth in level lines--stood up suddenly and
stretched her arms wide and high. "I'm free again, free--I can do
exactly as I please!" The words were individually relished. "I have
the work I love. I can earn all I need--am saving something for the
boy. I'm perfectly independent!"
"And perfectly happy!" he cordially endorsed her. "I don't blame you
for not wanting to give it up."
"O well--happy!" she hesitated. "There are times, of course, when one
isn't happy. But then--the other way I was unhappy all the time."
"He's dead--unfortunately," mused Mr. Olmstead.
"Unfortunately?--Why?"
He looked at her with his straightforward, pleasant smile. "I'd have
liked the pleasure of killing him," he said regretfully.
She was startled, and watched him with dawning alarm. But he was quite
quiet--even cheerful. "Fourth--Freedom," he wrote. "Is that all?"
"No--there are two more. Neither of them will please you. You won't
think so much of me any more. The worst one is this. I like--lovers!
I'm very much ashamed of it, but I do! I try not to be unfair to
them--some I really try to keep away from me--but honestly I like
admiration and lots of it."
"What's the harm of that?" he asked easily, setting down,
"Fifth--Lovers."
"No harm, so long as I'm my own mistress," said she defiantly. "I take
care of my boy, I take care of myself--let them take care of themselves!
Don't blame me too much!"
"You're not a very good psychologist, I'm afraid," said he.
"What do you mean?" she asked rather nervously.
"You surely don't expect a man to blame you for being a woman, do you?"
"All women are not like that," she hastily asserted. "They are too
conscientious. Lots of my friends blame me severely."
"Women friends," he ventured.
"Men, too. Some men have said very hard things of me."
"Because you turned 'em down. That's natural."
"You don't!"
"No, I don't. I'm different.".
"How different?" she asked.
He looked at her steadily. His eyes were hazel, flecked with changing
bits of color, deep, steady, with a sort of inner light that grew as she
watched till presently she thought it well to consider her slipper
again; and continued, "The sixth is as bad as the other almost. I
hate--I'd like to write a dozen tragic plays to show how much I
hate--Housekeeping! There! That's all!"
"Sixth--Housekeeping," he wrote down, quite unmoved. "But why should
anyone blame you for that--it's not your business."
"No--thank goodness, it's not! And never will be! I'm _free,_ I tell
you and I stay free!--But look at the clock!" And she whisked away to
dress for dinner.
He was not at table that night--not at home that night--not at home for
some days--the landlady said he had gone out of town; and Mrs. Leland
missed her afternoon tea.
She had it upstairs, of course, and people came in--both friends and
lovers; but she missed the quiet and cosiness of the green and brown
room downstairs.
Johnny missed his big friend still more. "Mama, where's Mr. Olmstead?
Mama, why don't Mr. Olmstead come back? Mama! When is Mr. Olmstead
coming back? Mama! Why don't you write to Mr. Olmstead and tell him to
come back? Mama!--can't we go in there and play with his things?"
As if in answer to this last wish she got a little note from him saying
simply, "Don't let Johnny miss the lions and monkeys--he and Miss Merton
and you, of course, are quite welcome to the whole floor. Go in at any
time."
Just to keep the child quiet she took advantage of this offer, and
Johnnie introduced her to all the ins and outs of the place. In a
corner of the bedroom was a zinc-lined tray with clay in it, where
Johnnie played rapturously at making "making country." While he played
his mother noted the quiet good taste and individuality of the place.
"It smells so clean!" she said to herself. "There! he hasn't told me
yet why he doesn't smoke. I never told him I didn't like it."
Johnnie tugged at a bureau drawer. "He keeps the water in here!" he
said, and before she could stop him he had out a little box with bits of
looking-glass in it, which soon became lakes and rivers in his clay
continent.
Mrs. Leland put them back afterward, admiring the fine quality and
goodly number of garments in that drawer, and their perfect order. Her
husband had been a man who made a chowder of his bureau drawers, and who
expected her to find all his studs and put them in for him.
"A man like this would be no trouble at all," she thought for a
moment--but then she remembered other things and set her mouth hard.
"Not for mine!" she said determinedly.
By and by he came back, serene as ever, friendly and unpresuming.
"Aren't you going to tell me why you don't smoke?" she suddenly demanded
of him on another quiet dusky afternoon when tea was before them.
He seemed so impersonal, almost remote, though nicer than ever to
Johnny; and Mrs. Leland rather preferred the personal note in
conservation.
"Why of course I am," he replied cordially. "That's easy," and he
fumbled in his inner pocket.
"Is that where you keep your reasons?" she mischievously inquired.
"It's where I keep yours," he promptly answered, producing the little
notebook. "Now look here--I've got these all answered--you won't be
able to hold to one of 'em after this. May I sit by you and explain?"
She made room for him on the sofa amiably enough, but defied him to
convince her. "Go ahead," she said cheerfully.
"First," he read off, "Previous Marriage. This is not a sufficient
objection. Because you have been married you now know what to choose
and what to avoid. A girl is comparatively helpless in this matter; you
are armed. That your first marriage was unhappy is a reason for trying
it again. It is not only that you are better able to choose, but that
by the law of chances you stand to win next time. Do you admit the
justice of this reasoning?"
"I don't admit anything," she said. "I'm waiting to ask you a
question."
"Ask it now."
"No--I'll wait till you are all through. Do go on."
"'Second--The Boy,'" he continued. "Now Mrs. Leland, solely on the
boy's account I should advise you to marry again. While he is a baby a
mother is enough, but the older he grows the more he will need a father.
Of course you should select a man the child could love--a man who could
love the child."
"I begin to suspect you of deep double-dyed surreptitious designs, Mr.
Olmstead. You know Johnnie loves you dearly. And you know I won't
marry you," she hastily added.
"I'm not asking you to--now, Mrs. Leland. I did, in good faith, and I
would again if I thought I had the shadow of a chance--but I'm not at
present. Still, I'm quite willing to stand as an instance. Now, we
might resume, on that basis. Objection one does not really hold against
me--now does it?"
He looked at her cheerily, warmly, openly; and in his clean, solid
strength and tactful kindness he was so unspeakably different from the
dark, fascinating slender man who had become a nightmare to her youth,
that she felt in her heart he was right--so far. "I won't admit a
thing," she said sweetly. "But, pray go on."
He went on, unabashed. "'Second--Boy,' Now if you married me I should
consider the boy as an added attraction. Indeed--if you do marry
again--someone who doesn't want the boy--I wish you'd give him to me. I
mean it. I think he loves me, and I think I could be of real service to
the child."
He seemed almost to have forgotten her, and she watched him curiously.
"Now, to go on," he continued. "'Third-Profession.' As to your
profession," said he slowly, clasping his hands over one knee and gazing
at the dark soft-colored rug, "if you married me, and gave up your
profession I should find it a distinct loss, I should lose my favorite
actress."
She gave a little start of surprise.
"Didn't you know how much I admire your work?" he said. "I don't hang
around the stage entrance--there are plenty of chappies to do that; and
I don't always occupy a box and throw bouquets--I don't like a box
anyhow. But I haven't missed seeing you in any part you've played
yet--some of 'em I've seen a dozen times. And you're growing--you'll do
better work still. It is sometimes a little weak in the love
parts--seems as if you couldn't quite take it seriously--couldn't let
yourself go--but you'll grow. You'll do better--I really think--after
you're married "
She was rather impressed by this, but found it rather difficult to say
anything; for he was not looking at her at all. He took up his notebook
again with a smile.
"So--if you married me, you would be more than welcome to go on with
your profession. I wouldn't stand in your way any more than I do now.
'Fourth--Freedom,'" he read slowly. "That is easy in one way--hard in
another. If you married me,"--She stirred resentfully at this constant
reference to their marriage; but he seemed purely hypothetical in tone;
"_I_ wouldn't interfere with your freedom any. Not of my own will. But
if you ever grew to love me--or if there were children--it would make
_some_ difference. Not much. There mightn't be any children, and it
isn't likely you'd ever love me enough to have that stand in your way.
Otherwise than that you'd have freedom--as much as now. A little more;
because if you wanted to make a foreign tour, or anything like that, I'd
take care of Johnnie. 'Fifth--Lovers.'" Here he paused leaning forward
with his chin in his hands, his eyes bent down. She could see the broad
heavy shoulders, the smooth fit of the well-made, coat, the spotless
collar, and the fine, strong, clean-cut neck. As it happened she
particularly disliked the neck of the average man--either the cordy, the
beefy or the adipose, and particularly liked this kind, firm and round
like a Roman's, with the hair coming to a clean-cut edge and stopping
there.
"As to lovers," he went on--"I hesitate a little as to what to say about
that. I'm afraid I shall shock you. Perhaps I'd better leave out that
one."
"As insuperable?" she mischievously asked.
"No, as too easy," he answered.
"You'd better explain," she said.
"Well then--it's simply this: as a man--I myself admire you more because
so many other men admire you. I don't sympathize with them, any!--Not
for a minute. Of course, if you loved any one of them you wouldn't be
my wife. But if you were my wife--"
"Well?" said she, a little breathlessly. "You're very irritating! What
would you do? Kill 'em all? Come--If I were your wife?--"
"If you were my wife--" he turned and faced her squarely, his deep eyes
blazing steadily into hers, "In the first place the more lovers you had
that you didn't love the better I'd be pleased."
"And if I did?" she dared him.
"If you were my wife," he purused with perfect quietness, "you would
never love anyone else."
There was a throbbing silence.
"'Sixth--Housekeeping,'" he read.
At this she rose to her feet as if released. "Sixth and last and
all-sufficient!" she burst out, giving herself a little shake as if to
waken. "Final and conclusive and admitting no reply!"--I will not keep
house for any man. Never! Never!! Never!!!"
"Why should you?" he said, as he had said it before; "Why not board?"
"I wouldn't board on any account!"
"But you are boarding now. Aren't you comfortable here?"
"O yes, perfectly comfortable. But this is the only boarding-house I
ever saw that was comfortable."
"Why not go on as we are--if you married me?"
She laughed shrilly. "With the other boarders round them and a whole
floor laid between," she parodied gaily. "No, sir! _If_ I ever married
again--and I wont--I'd want a home of my own--a whole house--and have it
run as smoothly and perfectly as this does. With no more care than I
have now!"
"If I could give you a whole house, like this, and run it for you as
smoothly and perfectly as this one--then would you marry me?" he asked.
"O, I dare say I would," she said mockingly.
"My dear," said he, "I have kept this house--for you--for three years."
"What do you mean?" she demanded, flushingly.
"I mean that it is my business," he answered serenely. "Some men run
hotels and some restaurants: I keep a number of boarding houses and make
a handsome income from them. All the people are comfortable--I see to
that. I planned to have you use these rooms, had the dumbwaiter run to
the top so you could have meals comfortably there. You didn't much like
the first housekeeper. I got one you liked better; cooks to please you,
maids to please you. I have most seriously tried to make you
comfortable. When you didn't like a boarder I got rid of him--or
her--they are mostly all your friends now. Of course if we were
married, we'd fire 'em all." His tone was perfectly calm and business
like. "You should keep your special apartments on top; you should also
have the floor above this, a larger bedroom, drawing-room, and bath and
private parlor for you;--I'd stay right here as I am now--and when you
wanted me--I'd be here."
She stiffened a little at this rather tame ending. She was stirred,
uneasy, dissatisfied. She felt as if something had been offered and
withdrawn; something was lacking.
"It seems such a funny business--for a man," she said.
"Any funnier than Delmonico's?" he asked. "It's a business that takes
some ability--witness the many failures. It is certainly useful. And
it pays--amazingly."
"I thought it was real estate," she insisted.
"It is. I'm in a real estate office. I buy and sell houses--that's how
I came to take this up!"
He rose up, calmly and methodically, walked over to the fire, and laid
his notebook on it. "There wasn't any strength in any of those
objections, my dear," said he. "Especially the first one. Previous
marriage, indeed! You have never been married before. You are going to
be--now."
It was some weeks after that marriage that she suddenly turned upon
him--as suddenly as one can turn upon a person whose arms are about
one--demanding.
"And why don't you smoke?--You never told me!"
"I shouldn't like to kiss you so well if you smoked!"--said he.
"I never had any idea," she ventured after a while, "that it could
be--like this."
LOCKED INSIDE
She beats upon her bolted door,
With faint weak hands;
Drearily walks the narrow floor;
Sullenly sits, blank walls before;
Despairing stands.
Life calls her, Duty, Pleasure, Gain--
Her dreams respond;
But the blank daylights wax and wane,
Dull peace, sharp agony, slow pain--
No hope beyond.
Till she comes a thought! She lifts her head,
The world grows wide!
A voice--as if clear words were said--
"Your door, o long imprisoned,
Is locked inside!"
PRIVATE MORALITY AND PUBLIC IMMORALITY
There is more sense in that convenient trick of blaming "the old Adam"
for our misbehavior than some of us have thought. That most culpable
sinner we no longer see as a white-souled adult baby, living on uncooked
food in a newmade garden, but as a husky, hairy, highly carnivorous and
bloodthirsty biped, just learning his giant strength, and exercising it
like a giant.
Growing self-conscious and intelligent, he developed an ethical sense,
and built up system after system of morals, all closely calculated to
advance his interests in this world or the next. The morals of the
early Hebrews, for instance, with which we are most familiar, were
strictly adjusted to their personal profit; their conception of Diety
definitely engaging to furnish protection and reward in return for
specified virtuous conduct.
This is all reasonable and right in its way. If good conduct were not
ultimately advantageous it would not be good. The difficulty with the
ancient scheme of morality lies in its narrow range. "The soul that
sinneth it shall die," is the definite statement; the individual is the
one taken to task, threatened, promised, exhorted and punished. Our
whole race-habit of thought on questions of morality is personal. When
goodness is considered it is "my" goodness or "your" goodness--not ours;
and sins are supposed to be promptly traceable to sinners; visible,
catchable, hangable sinners in the flesh. We have no mental machinery
capable of grasping the commonest instances of collective sin; large,
public continuing sin, to which thousands contribute, for generations
upon generations; and under the consequences of which more thousands
suffer for succeeding centuries. Yet public evils are what society
suffer from most to-day, and must suffer from most in increasing ratio,
as years pass.
In concrete instance, we are most definitely clear as to the verb "to
steal." This is wrong. It says so in the Bible. It if a very simple
commandment. If a man steals he is a thief. And our law following
slowly along after our moral sense, punishes stealing. But it is one
man stealing from one other man who is a thief. It is the personal
attack upon personal property, done all at once, which we can see, feel,
and understand. Let a number of men in combination gradually alienate
the property of a number of other men--a very large number of other men,
and our moral sense makes no remark. This is not intended in any ironic
sense--it is a plain fact, a physiological, or psychological fact.
The racial mind, long accustomed to attach moral values to personal acts
only, cannot, without definite effort, learn to attach them to
collective acts. We can do it, in crude instances, when mere numbers
are in question and the offence is a plain one. If a number of men in a
visible moving group commit murder or arson before our eyes, we had as
lief hang a dozen as one: but when it comes to tracing complicity and
responsibility in the deaths of a few screaming tenants of firetrap
tenements, a death unnecessary perhaps, but for the bursting of the fire
hose--then we are at fault. The cringing wretch who lit the oilsoaked
rags in the cellar we seize in triumph. He did it. Him we can hang.
"The soul that sinneth it shall die." But if the fire is "an accident,"
owing to "a defective flue," if the fire-escape breaks, the stairs give
away under a little extra weight, or ill-built walls crumble
prematurely--who can we lay hands on? Where is the soul that sinneth?
Our brains are not trained to follow a complex moral relation; we travel
in the deep ruts of mental habit as old as Adam aforesaid. Our sense of
duty, of obligation, of blame or praise is all hopelessly egotistic.
"Who is to blame?" we continue to say; when we should say, "Who are to
blame?" One heavy dose of poison resulting in one corpse shows us
murder. A thousand tiny doses of poison, concealed in parcels of food,
resulting in the lowered vitality, increased illness and decreased
efficiency of thousands of persons, shows us nothing. There is need
to-day for very honest mental effort in readjusting our moral sense so
that we may recognize social evils, social offenders and social
responsibility.
Here we are all together, rising and falling in masses under the
influence of other person's conduct, with no possibility of tracing the
death of this particular baby to the dirty hands of that particular
milker of far-off cows. It wasn't murder--he never saw the baby. You
can't hang a man for not washing his hands. We see babies die, look in
vain for the soul that sinneth, and do nothing.
We should have a poor opinion of any state where there was no moral
sense ai all, no weight of public opinion to uphold standards, no
measures to protect innocence and punish crime. This we should call
barbarism or savagery, and feel proud of our Christian civilization,
where we legislate so profusely and punish so severely--when we can lay
hands on individual offenders, whose crimes, though small, are at least
whole ones. But we are in precisely that state of barbarism in regard
to the fractional crimes of our complex social life.
If seven doctors in succession refuse to answer a poor man's call and he
dies for lack of medical aid--who has killed him? Has he seven
murderers--or is each doctor one-seventh of a murderer? Or is it not
murder at all just to let a man die?
If again, the doctor does his duty and the man dies because the
medicine given him was different from what the doctor ordered--a
cheaper, weaker drug, an adulteration or substitute--then who killed
him? The druggist who sold--the clerk who put up the prescription--the
advertiser of the stuff--the manufacturer of it--or those who live on
money invested in the manufacturing company? "The clerk!" we cry,
delightedly. "He put up the poison! He knew it was not what was
ordered! He did it with his hands!" "The soul that sinneth _it_ shall
die." And perhaps it does--or at least the body of it. Yet the same
drug goes on poisoning.
We might perhaps pass on from that shaggy Adam of our remote past and
his necessary limitations, and begin to study the real relation of human
beings in modern life, learning at last that human conduct changes as
society develops, that morality is no longer a mere matter of "thou
shalt" and "thou shalt not," but a vast complex of mutually interactive
conduct in which personal responsibility has small place.
Take an evil like our railroad management with its yearly tale of
bloodshed and dismemberment, its hundreds and thousands of killed and
wounded. We cannot pick out and hang a director or president when the
dead brakeman is dragged out from between the cars that did not have
automatic couplers. The man is dead, is killed, is murdered--but we
cannot fix responsibility. Can we arrest for murder the poor mother who
is caring for her boy sick with typhoid fever; just because she empties
slops on a watershed that feeds a little brook, that feeds a river, that
feeds a city--and thousands die of that widespread disease? She is not
personally guilty of murder. There are others in plenty between her and
the victim and many back of her to blame for her ignorance. Who can
untangle the responsibility for the ruin of a girl who was utterly
untaught, underpaid, improperly dressed, ill-fed, influenced by every
gorgeously dressed idle woman who stood before her counter, and tempted
by many men in turn? There is the one "sin"--but is she the only
"sinner"?
Consider the two awful instances of recent date--the Iroquois Theatre
fire in Chicago, the Slocum disaster in New York. Even if it were
possible to "fix responsibility," to find the one person, or more than
one whom we could prove to blame for these holocausts, what could we do
to these persons as fit punishment for such an injury to society? If we
could devise tortures prolonged and painful enough to make such
criminals feel as felt their dying victims, what good would that do? It
would raise no dead, restore no health, prevent no repetition of similar
horrors. That much has been established by the history of our primitive
systems--punishment does not prevent.
What does?
Here is the real question for society to ask--Adam did not know enough.
The age of personal morals is the age of personal punishment. The age
of recognized public evils is the age of prevention. This we are
beginning to see, beginning to do. After the Iroquois fire we were more
stringent in guarding our theatres. After the Slocum disaster the
inspection of steamships was more thorough. After the slaughter of the
innocents in the burning schoolhouse, many other school buildings were
condemned and more were safeguarded.
But this is only a beginning--a feeble, temporary, ineffectual effort.
Social morality does not consist in spasmodic attempts to be good,
following upon some terrible catastrophe. A mother's duty to a child is
not mere passionate protection after it has fallen through the ice; the
soldier's duty is not confined to wild efforts to recover the flag after
it has been lost. We have a constant definite active duty to society,
each one of us; there lies our responsibility and failing therein is our
fault.
When men or women fail in full honest efficient performance of their
social service, which means their special kind of work, they sin--if we
must call it sin--against society. Better drop the very name and
thought of "sin" and say merely, "Why are we to-day so inefficient and
unreliable in our social duty?" For reason good. We are not taught
social duty. For further reason that we are taught much that militates
against it. Our social instinct is not yet strong enough to push and
pull us into perfect relation with one another without conscious effort.
We need to be taught from infancy, which way our duty lies--the most
imperative duty of a human creature--to give his life's best service to
humanity.
This would call for new standards in the nursery, the school and the
shop, as well as the platform, press and pulpit. That is our crying
need; a truer standard of duty, and the proper development of it. The
School City is a step this way, a long one; as is the George Junior
Republic and other specific instances of effort to bring out the social
sense.
But it is in our work that we need it most. From babyhood we should be
taught that we are here dependent on one another, beautifully
specialized that we may serve one another; owing to the State, our great
centralized body, the whole service of our lives. What every common
soldier knows and most of them practice is surely not too difficult for
a common business man. Our public duty is most simple and clear--to do
our best work for the service of the world. And our personal sin--the
one sin against humanity--is to let that miserable puny outgrown
Ego--our exaggerated sense of personality--divert us from that service.
[Untitled]
With God Above--Beneath--Beside--
Without--Within--and Everywhere;
Rising with the resistless tide
Of life, and Sure of Getting There.
Patient with Nature's long delay,
Proud of our conscious upward swing;
Not sorry for a single day,
And Not Afraid of Anything!
With Motherhood at last awake--
With Power to Do and Light to See--
Women may now begin to Make
The People we are Meant to Be!
THE HUMANNESS OF WOMEN
A woman by the river's brim,
A wife and servant is to him--
And she is nothing more.
We have made mistakes, as old as humanity, about the world, and about
women.
First, as to the world:
This we have assumed to be a general battlefield for men to struggle in;
a place for free competition; full of innumerable persons whose natural
mode of life was to struggle, for existence, with one another.
This is the individualist view, and is distinctly masculine.
Males are essentially individualistic--born to vary and compete; and an
exclusively masculine world must be individualistic and competitive.
We have been wrong. The new Social Philosophy recognizes Society as an
orderly life-form, having its own laws of growth; and that we, as
individuals, live only as active parts of Society. Instead of accepting
this world of warfare, disease, and crime, of shameful, unnecessary
poverty and pain, as natural and right, we now see that all these evils
may be removed, and we propose to remove them. Humanity is waking up,
is beginning to understand its own nature, is beginning to face a new
and a possible problem, instead of the dark enigma of the past.
Second, as to the woman:
Our mistake about her was a very strange one. No one knows yet how or
why it was made; yet there it stands; one of the most colossal blunders
ever made by mankind. In the face of all creation, where the female is
sometimes found quite self-sufficient, often superior, and always equal
to the male, our human race set up the "andro-centric theory," holding
that man alone is the race type; and that woman was "his female." In
what "Mr. Venus" described as "the vicious pride of his youth," our
budding humanity distinguished itself by discrediting its mother. "You
are a female," said Ancient Man, "and that's all. We are the People!"
This is the alpha and omega of the old idea about woman. It saw in her
only sex--not Humanity.
The New Woman is Human first, last and always. Incidentally she is
female; as man is male. As a male he has done his small share in the
old physical process of reproduction; but as a Human Creature he has
done practically all in the new Social processes which make
civilization.
He has been Male--and Human:--She has been Female--and nothing
else;--that is, in our old idea.
Holding this idea; absurd, erroneous, and mischievous to a terrible
degree; we strove to carry it out in our behavior; and human history so
far is the history of a wholly masculine world, competing and fighting
as males must, forever seeking and serving the female as males must, yet
building this our world as best they could alone.
Theirs is the credit--and the shame--of the world behind us, the world
around us; but the world before us has a new element--the Humanness of
Woman.
For a little over a century we have become increasingly conscious of a
stir, an uprising, and protest among women. The long-suppressed "better
half" of humanity has begun to move and push and lift herself. This
Woman's movement is as natural, as beneficial, as irresistible as the
coming of spring; but it has been misunderstood and opposed from the
first by the glacial moraine of old ideas, the inert force of sheer
blank ignorance, and prejudice as old as Adam.
At first the women strove for a little liberty, for education; then for
some equality before the law, for common justice; then, with larger
insight, for full equal rights with men in every human field; and as
essential base of these, for the right of suffrage.
Woman suffrage is but one feature of the movement, but it is a most
important one. The opposition to it is wholly one of sex-prejudice, of
feeling, not of reason; the opposition of a masculine world; and of an
individualism also masculine. The male is physiologically an
individualist. It is his place in nature to vary, to introduce new
characteristics, and to strive mightily with his rivals for the favor of
the females. A world of males must fight.
With the whole of history of this combative sort; with masculinity and
humanity identical, in the average mind; there is something alien,
unnatural, even revolting, in the claim of woman to her share in the
work and management of the world. Against it he brings up one constant
cry--that woman's progress will injure womanhood. All that he sees in
woman is her sex; and he opposes her advance on the ground that "as a
woman" she is unfit to take part in "a man's world"--and that if she
did, it would mysteriously but inevitably injure her "as a woman."
Suggest that she might be able to take part in "a woman's world,"--and
has as much right to a world made her way as he has to his man-made
world! Suggest that without any such extreme reversal, she has a right
to half the world; half the work, half the pay, half the care, half the
glory!
To all this replies the Male-individualist:
"The World has to be as it is. It is a place to fight in; fight for
life, fight for money. Work is for slaves and poor people generally.
Nobody would work unless they had to. You are females and no part of
the world at all. Your place is at home: to bear and rear children--and
to cook."
Now what is the position toward women of this new philosophy that sees
Society as one thing, and the main thing to be considered; that sees the
world as a place open to ceaseless change and improvement; that sees the
way so to change and improve it that the major part of our poor silly
sins and sorrows will disappear utterly for lack of cause?
From this viewpoint male and female fall into two lower positions, both
right and proper; useful, beautiful, essential for the replenishment of
the race on earth. From this viewpoint men and women rise, together,
from that lower relation, to the far higher one of Humanness, that
common Humanness which is hers as much as his. Seeing Society as the
real life-form; and our individual lives as growing in glory and power
as we serve and develop Society; the movement of women becomes of
majestic importance. It is the advance of an entire half the race, from
a position of arrested development, into full humanness.
The world is no longer seen as a battlefield, where it is true, women do
not belong; but as a garden--a school--a church--a home, where they
visibly do belong. In the great task of cultivating the earth they have
an equal interest and an equal power. Equality is not identity. There
is work of all kinds and sizes--and half of it is woman's.
In that vast labor of educating humanity, till all of us understand one
another; till the thoughts and feelings necessary to our progress can
flow smooth and clear through the world-mind, women have preeminent
part. They are the born teachers, by virtue of their motherhood, as
well as in the human joy of it.
In the power of organization which is essential to our progress we have
special need of women, and their rapid and universal movement in this
direction is one of the most satisfactory proofs of our advance. In
every art, craft and profession they have the same interests, the same
power. We rob the world of half its service when we deny women their
share in it.
In direct political action there is every reason for women's voting that
there is for men's; and every reason for a spreading universal suffrage
that there is for democracy. As far as any special power in government
is called for, the mother is the natural ruler, the natural
administrator and executive. The functions of democratic government may
be wisely and safely shared between men and women.
Here we have our great position fairly before us:--the improvement of
the world is ours to make; women are coming forward to help make it;
women are human with every human power; democracy is the highest form of
government--so far; and the use of the ballot is essential to democracy;
therefore women should vote!
Against this rises the tottering fortress of the ultra-masculine,
abetted by a petty handful of witless traitors--those petticoated
creatures who also see in women nothing but their sex. They may be, in
some cases, honest in their belief; but their honesty does no credit to
their intelligence. They are obsessed by this dominant idea of sex; due
clearly enough to the long period of male dominance--to our androcentric
culture. The male naturally sees in the female, sex; first, last and
always. For all these centuries she has been restricted to the exercise
of feminine duties only, with the one addition of house-service.
The wife-and-mother sex, the servant sex, she is to him; and nothing
more. The woman does not look at men in this light. She has to
consider them as human creatures, because they monopolize the human
functions. She does not consider the motorman and conductor as males,
but as promotors of travel; she does not chuck the bellboy under the
chin and kiss the waiter!
Inextricably mingled with the masculine view is the individualist view,
seeing the world forever and ever as a place of struggle.
Then comes this great change of our time, the dawning of the Social
consciousness. Here is a world of combination, of ordered grouping and
inter-service. Here is a world now wasting its wealth like water--all
this waste may be saved. Here is a world of worse than unnecessary war.
We will stop this warfare. Here is a world of hideous diseases. We
will exterminate them. Here is a world of what we call "Sin"--almost
all of which is due to Ignorance, Ill-health, Unhappiness, Injustice.
When the world learns how to take care of itself decently; when there
are no dirty evil places upon it, with innocent children born daily and
hourly into conditions which inevitably produce a certain percentage of
criminality; when the intelligence and good breeding which now
distinguish some of us are common to all of us--we shan't hear so much
about sin!
A socially conscious world, intelligent, courageous, earnest to improve
itself, seeking to establish a custom of peaceful helpful
interservice--such a world has no fear of woman, and no feeling that she
is unfit to participate in its happy labors. The new social philosophy
welcomes woman suffrage.
*
But suppose you are not in any sense Socialistically inclined. Suppose
you are still an Individualist, albeit a believer in votes for women.
Even so, merely from the woman's point of view, enough can be said to
justify the promise of a New World.
What makes the peace and beauty of the Home--its
order--comfort--happiness?--the Woman.
Her service is given, not hired. Her attitude is of one seeking to
administer a common fund for the common good. She does not set her
children to compete for their dinner--does not give most to the
strongest and leave the weakest to go to the wall. It is only in her
lowest helplessness; under the degrading influence of utter poverty,
that she is willing to exploit her children and let them work before
their time.
If she, merely as Woman, merely as wife and mother, comes forward to
give the world the same service she has given the home, it will be
wholly to its advantage.
Go and look at the legislation initiated or supported by women in every
country where women vote--and you will see one unbroken line of social
service. Not self-interest--not mercenary profit--not competition; but
one steady upward pressure; the visible purpose to uplift and help the
world.
This world is ours as much as man's. We have not only a right to half
its management but a duty to half its service. It is our duty as human
beings to help make the world better--quickly! It is our duty as Women
to bring our Motherhood to comfort and help humanity--our children every
one!
HERE IS THE EARTH
Here is the earth: As big, as fresh, as clean,
As when it first grew green;
Our little spots of dirt walled in,
As easy to outgrow as sin,
In the swift, sweet, triumphal hour
Of nature's power.
We have not hurt the world: Still safe we rest
On that great loving breast.
Proud, patient mother! Strong and still!
Our little years of doing ill
Lost in her smooth, unmeasured time
Of life sublime.
We need not grieve, nor kneel our faults to own;
She has not even known
That we offended! Our misdeeds
She covers with one summer's weeds:
Her love we thought so long away--
Is ours to-day.
And here are we. Our bodies are as new
As ever Adam grew:
Replenished still with daily touch,
By the fair mother, loving much.
Glad living things! Still conscious part
Of earth's rich heart!
And for the soul which these fair bodies give
Increasing room to live--?
It is the same soul that was born
In the dim, lovely, unknown morn
Of Nature's waking--the same soul--
Still here, and whole!
Strong? `Tis the force that governs ring on ring
Where quiet planets swing.
Glad? `Tis the joy of riotous flowers
And meadow-larks in May, now ours,
Ours endlessly--to have--to give--
To all who live!
No grief behind have we, no fear before
But only more and more
The splendid passion of the soul
In new creation to unroll:
All life, poured new in all the lands,
Through our glad hands!
WHAT DIANTHA DID