CHAPTER VII.

HERESY AND SCHISM.

You may talk about religion with a free and open mind,

For ten dollars you may criticize a judge;

You may discuss in politics the newest thing you find,

And open scientific truth to all the deaf and blind,

But there's one place where the brain must never budge!

CHORUS.

Oh, the Home is Utterly Perfect!

And all its works within!

To say a word about it--

To criticize or doubt it--

To seek to mend or move it--

To venture to improve it--

Is The Unpardonable Sin!

--"Old Song."

Mr. Porne took an afternoon off and came with his wife to hear their

former housemaid lecture. As many other men as were able did the same.

All the members not bedridden were present, and nearly all the guests

they had invited.

So many were the acceptances that a downtown hall had been taken; the

floor was more than filled, and in the gallery sat a block of servant

girls, more gorgeous in array than the ladies below whispering excitedly

among themselves. The platform recalled a "tournament of roses," and,

sternly important among all that fragrant loveliness, sat Mrs. Dankshire

in "the chair" flanked by Miss Torbus, the Recording Secretary, Miss

Massing, the Treasurer, and Mrs. Ree, tremulous with importance in her

official position. All these ladies wore an air of high emprise, even

more intense than that with which they usually essayed their public

duties. They were richly dressed, except Miss Torbus, who came as near

it as she could.

At the side, and somewhat in the rear of the President, on a chair quite

different from "the chair," discreetly gowned and of a bafflingly serene

demeanor, sat Miss Bell. All eyes were upon her--even some opera

glasses.

"She's a good-looker anyhow," was one masculine opinion.

"She's a peach," was another, "Tell you--the chap that gets her is well

heeled!" said a third.

The ladies bent their hats toward one another and conferred in flowing

whispers; and in the gallery eager confidences were exchanged, with

giggles.

On the small table before Mrs. Dankshire, shaded by a magnificent bunch

of roses, lay that core and crux of all parliamentry dignity, the gavel;

an instrument no self-respecting chairwoman may be without; yet which

she still approaches with respectful uncertainty.

In spite of its large size and high social standing, the Orchardina Home

and Culture Club contained some elements of unrest, and when the yearly

election of officers came round there was always need for careful work

in practical politics to keep the reins of government in the hands of

"the right people."

Mrs. Thaddler, conscious of her New York millions, and Madam

Weatherstone, conscious of her Philadelphia lineage, with Mrs. Johnston

A. Marrow ("one of the Boston Marrows!" was awesomely whispered of her),

were the heads of what might be called "the conservative party" in this

small parliament; while Miss Miranda L. Eagerson, describing herself as

'a journalist,' who held her place in local society largely by virtue of

the tacit dread of what she might do if offended--led the more radical

element.

Most of the members were quite content to follow the lead of the solidly

established ladies of Orchard Avenue; especially as this leadership

consisted mainly in the pursuance of a masterly inactivity. When wealth

and aristocracy combine with that common inertia which we dignify as

"conservatism" they exert a powerful influence in the great art of

sitting still.

Nevertheless there were many alert and conscientious women in this large

membership, and when Miss Eagerson held the floor, and urged upon the

club some active assistance in the march of events, it needed all Mrs.

Dankshire's generalship to keep them content with marking time.

On this auspicious occasion, however, both sides were agreed in interest

and approval. Here was a subject appealing to every woman present, and

every man but such few as merely "boarded"; even they had memories and

hopes concerning this question.

Solemnly rose Mrs. Dankshire, her full silks rustling about her, and let

one clear tap of the gavel fall into the sea of soft whispering and

guttural murmurs.

In the silence that followed she uttered the momentous announcements:

"The meeting will please come to order," "We will now hear the reading

of the minutes of the last meeting," and so on most conscientiously

through officer's reports and committees reports to "new business."

Perhaps it is their more frequent practice of religious rites, perhaps

their devout acceptance of social rulings and the dictates of fashion,

perhaps the lifelong reiterance of small duties at home, or all these

things together, which makes women so seriously letter-perfect in

parliamentry usage. But these stately ceremonies were ended in course

of time, and Mrs. Dankshire rose again, even more solemn than before,

and came forward majestically.

"Members---and guests," she said impressively, "this is an occasion

which brings pride to the heart of every member of the Home and Culture

Club. As our name implies, this Club is formed to serve the interests

of The Home--those interests which stand first, I trust, in every human

heart."

A telling pause, and the light patter of gloved hands.

"Its second purpose," pursued the speaker, with that measured delivery

which showed that her custom, as one member put it, was to "first write

and then commit," "is to promote the cause of Culture in this community.

Our aim is Culture in the broadest sense, not only in the curricula of

institutions of learning, not only in those spreading branches of study

and research which tempts us on from height to height"--("proof of

arboreal ancestry that," Miss Eagerson confided to a friend, whose

choked giggle attracted condemning eyes)--"but in the more intimate

fields of daily experience."

"Most of us, however widely interested in the higher education, are

still--and find in this our highest honor--wives and mothers." These

novel titles called forth another round of applause.

"As such," continued Mrs. Dankshire, "we all recognize the

difficult--the well-nigh insuperable problems of the"--she glanced at

the gallery now paying awed attention--"domestic question."

"We know how on the one hand our homes yawn unattended"--("I yawn while

I'm attending--eh?" one gentleman in the rear suggested to his

neighbor)--while on the other the ranks of mercenary labor are

overcrowded. Why is it that while the peace and beauty, the security

and comfort, of a good home, with easy labor and high pay, are open to

every young woman, whose circumstances oblige her to toil for her

living, she blindly refuses these true advantages and loses her health

and too often what is far more precious!--in the din and tumult of the

factory, or the dangerous exposure of the public counter."

Madam Weatherstone was much impressed at this point, and beat her black

fan upon her black glove emphatically. Mrs. Thaddler also nodded; which

meant a good deal from her. The applause was most gratifying to the

speaker, who continued:

"Fortunately for the world there are some women yet who appreciate the

true values of life." A faint blush crept slowly up the face of

Diantha, but her expression was unchanged. Whoso had met and managed a

roomful of merciless children can easily face a woman's club.

"We have with us on this occasion one, as we my say, our equal in birth

and breeding,"--Madam Weatherstone here looked painfully shocked as also

did the Boston Marrow; possibly Mrs. Dankshire, whose parents were Iowa

farmers, was not unmindful of this, but she went on smoothly, "and whose

first employment was the honored task of the teacher; who has

deliberately cast her lot with the domestic worker, and brought her

trained intelligence to bear upon the solution of this great

question--The True Nature of Domestic Service. In the interests of this

problem she has consented to address us--I take pleasure in introducing

Miss Diantha Bell."

Diantha rose calmly, stepped forward, bowed to the President and

officers, and to the audience. She stood quietly for a moment,

regarding the faces before her, and produced a typewritten paper. It

was clear, short, and to some minds convincing.

She set forth that the term "domestic industry" did not define certain

kinds of labor, but a stage of labor; that all labor was originally

domestic; but that most kinds had now become social, as with weaving and

spinning, for instance, for centuries confined to the home and done by

women only; now done in mills by men and women; that this process of

socialization has now been taken from the home almost all the

manufactures--as of wine, beer, soap, candles, pickles and other

specialties, and part of the laundry work; that the other processes of

cleaning are also being socialized, as by the vacuum cleaners, the

professional window-washers, rug cleaners, and similar professional

workers; and that even in the preparation of food many kinds are now

specialized, as by the baker and confectioner. That in service itself

we were now able to hire by the hour or day skilled workers necessarily

above the level of the "general."

A growing rustle of disapproval began to make itself felt, which

increased as she went on to explain how the position of the housemaid is

a survival of the ancient status of woman slavery, the family with the

male head and the group of servile women.

"The keynote of all our difficulty in this relation is that we demand

celibacy of our domestic servants," said Diantha.

A murmur arose at this statement, but she continued calmly:

"Since it is natural for women to marry, the result is that our domestic

servants consist of a constantly changing series of young girls,

apprentices, as it were; and the complicated and important duties of the

household cannot be fully mastered by such hands."

The audience disapproved somewhat of this, but more of what followed.

She showed (Mrs. Porne nodding her head amusedly), that so far from

being highly paid and easy labor, house service was exacting and

responsible, involving a high degree of skill as well as moral

character, and that it was paid less than ordinary unskilled labor, part

of this payment being primitive barter.

Then, as whispers and sporadic little spurts of angry talk increased,

the clear quiet voice went on to state that this last matter, the

position of a strange young girl in our homes, was of itself a source of

much of the difficulty of the situation.

"We speak of giving them the safety and shelter of the home,"--here

Diantha grew solemn;--"So far from sharing our homes, she gives up her

own, and has none of ours, but the poorest of our food and a cramped

lodging; she has neither the freedom nor the privileges of a home; and

as to shelter and safety--the domestic worker, owing to her peculiarly

defenceless position, furnishes a terrible percentage of the

unfortunate."

A shocked silence met this statement.

"In England shop-workers complain of the old custom of 'sleeping

in'--their employers furnishing them with lodging as part payment; this

also is a survival of the old apprentice method. With us, only the

domestic servant is held to this antiquated position."

Regardless of the chill displeasure about her she cheerfully pursued:

"Let us now consider the economic side of the question. 'Domestic

economy' is a favorite phrase. As a matter of fact our method of

domestic service is inordinately wasteful. Even where the wife does all

the housework, without pay, we still waste labor to an enormous extent,

requiring one whole woman to wait upon each man. If the man hires one

or more servants, the wastes increase. If one hundred men undertake

some common business, they do not divide in two halves, each man having

another man to serve him--fifty productive laborers, and fifty cooks.

Two or three cooks could provide for the whole group; to use fifty is to

waste 47 per cent. of the labor.

"But our waste of labor is as nothing to our waste of money. For, say

twenty families, we have twenty kitchens with all their furnishings,

twenty stoves with all their fuel; twenty cooks with all their wages; in

cash and barter combined we pay about ten dollars a week for our

cooks--$200 a week to pay for the cooking for twenty families, for about

a hundred persons!

"Three expert cooks, one at $20 a week and two at $15 would save to

those twenty families $150 a week and give them better food. The cost

of kitchen furnishings and fuel, could be reduced by nine-tenths; and

beyond all that comes our incredible waste in individual purchasing.

What twenty families spend on individual patronage of small retailers,

could be reduced by more than half if bought by competent persons in

wholesale quantities. Moreover, our whole food supply would rise in

quality as well as lower in price if it was bought by experts.

"To what does all this lead?" asked Diantha pleasantly.

Nobody said anything, but the visible attitude of the house seemed to

say that it led straight to perdition.

"The solution for which so many are looking is no new scheme of any

sort; and in particular it is not that oft repeated fore-doomed failure

called "co-operative housekeeping."

At this a wave of relief spread perceptibly. The irritation roused by

those preposterous figures and accusations was somewhat allayed. Hope

was relit in darkened countenances.

"The inefficiency of a dozen tottering households is not removed by

combining them," said Diantha. This was of dubious import. "Why should

we expect a group of families to "keep house" expertly and economically

together, when they are driven into companionship by the fact that none

of them can do it alone."

Again an uncertain reception.

"Every family is a distinct unit," the girl continued. "Its needs are

separate and should be met separately. The separate house and garden

should belong to each family, the freedom and group privacy of the home.

But the separate home may be served by a common water company, by a

common milkman, by a common baker, by a common cooking and a common

cleaning establishment. We are rapidly approaching an improved system

of living in which the private home will no more want a cookshop on the

premises than a blacksmith's shop or soap-factory. The necessary work

of the kitchenless house will be done by the hour, with skilled labor;

and we shall order our food cooked instead of raw. This will give to

the employees a respectable well-paid profession, with their own homes

and families; and to the employers a saving of about two-thirds of the

expense of living, as well as an end of all our difficulties with the

servant question. That is the way to elevate--to enoble domestic

service. It must cease to be domestic service--and become world

service."

Suddenly and quietly she sat down.

Miss Eagerson was on her feet. So were others.

"Madam President! Madam President!" resounded from several points at

once. Madam Weatherstone--Mrs. Thaddler--no! yes--they really were both

on their feet. Applause was going on--irregularly--soon dropped. Only,

from the group in the gallery it was whole-hearted and consistent.

Mrs. Dankshire, who had been growing red and redder as the paper

advanced, who had conferred in alarmed whispers with Mrs. Ree, and Miss

Massing, who had even been seen to extend her hand to the gavel and

finger it threateningly, now rose, somewhat precipitately, and came

forward.

"Order, please! You will please keep order. You have heard the--we

will now--the meeting is now open for discussion, Mrs. Thaddler!" And

she sat down. She meant to have said Madam Weatherstone, by Mrs.

Thaddler was more aggressive.

"I wish to say," said that much beaded lady in a loud voice, "that I was

against this--unfortunate experiment--from the first. And I trust it

will never be repeated!" She sat down.

Two tight little dimples flickered for an instant about the corners of

Diantha's mouth.

"Madam Weatherstone?" said the President, placatingly.

Madam Weatherstone arose, rather sulkily, and looked about her. An

agitated assembly met her eye, buzzing universally each to each.

"Order!" said Mrs. Dankshire, "ORDER, please!" and rapped three times

with the gavel.

"I have attended many meetings, in many clubs, in many states," said

Madam Weatherstone, "and have heard much that was foolish, and some

things that were dangerous. But I will say that never in the course of

all my experience have I heard anything so foolish and so dangerous, as

this. I trust that the--doubtless well meant--attempt to throw light on

this subject--from the wrong quarter--has been a lesson to us all. No

club could survive more than one such lamentable mistake!" And she sat

down, gathering her large satin wrap about her like a retiring Caesar.

"Madam President!" broke forth Miss Eagerson. "I was up first--and have

been standing ever since--"

"One moment, Miss Eagerson," said Mrs. Dankshire superbly, "The Rev. Dr.

Eltwood."

If Mrs. Dankshire supposed she was still further supporting the cause of

condemnation she made a painful mistake. The cloth and the fine bearing

of the young clergyman deceived her; and she forgot that he was said to

be "advanced" and was new to the place.

"Will you come to the platform, Dr. Eltwood?"

Dr. Eltwood came to the platform with the easy air of one to whom

platforms belonged by right.

"Ladies," he began in tones of cordial good will, "both employer and

employed!--and gentlemen--whom I am delighted to see here to-day! I am

grateful for the opportunity so graciously extended to me"--he bowed six

feet of black broadcloth toward Mrs. Dankshire--"by your honored

President.

"And I am grateful for the opportunity previously enjoyed, of listening

to the most rational, practical, wise, true and hopeful words I have

ever heard on this subject. I trust there will be enough open-minded

women--and men--in Orchardina to make possible among us that higher

business development of a great art which has been so convincingly laid

before us. This club is deserving of all thanks from the community for

extending to so many the privilege of listening to our valued

fellow-citizen--Miss Bell."

He bowed again--to Miss Bell--and to Mrs. Dankshire, and resumed his

seat, Miss Eagerson taking advantage of the dazed pause to occupy the

platform herself.

"Mr. Eltwood is right!" she said. "Miss Bell is right! This is the

true presentation of the subject, 'by one who knows.' Miss Bell has

pricked our pretty bubble so thoroughly that we don't know where we're

standing--but she knows! Housework is a business--like any other

business--I've always said so, and it's got to be done in a business

way. Now I for one--" but Miss Eagerson was rapped down by the

Presidential gavel; as Mrs. Thaddler, portentous and severe, stalked

forward.

"It is not my habit to make public speeches," she began, "nor my desire;

but this is a time when prompt and decisive action needs to be taken.

This Club cannot afford to countenance any such farrago of mischievous

nonsense as we have heard to-day. I move you, Madam President, that a

resolution of condemnation be passed at once; and the meeting then

dismissed!"

She stalked back again, while Mrs. Marrow of Boston, in clear, cold

tones seconded the motion.

But another voice was heard--for the first time in that assembly--Mrs.

Weatherstone, the pretty, delicate widower daughter-in-law of Madam

Weatherstone, was on her feet with "Madam President! I wish to speak to

this motion."

"Won't you come to the platform, Mrs. Weatherstone?" asked Mrs.

Dankshire graciously, and the little lady came, visibly trembling, but

holding her head high.

All sat silent, all expected--what was not forthcoming.

"I wish to protest, as a member of the Club, and as a woman, against the

gross discourtesy which has been offered to the guest and speaker of the

day. In answer to our invitation Miss Bell has given us a scholarly and

interesting paper, and I move that we extend her a vote of thanks."

"I second the motion," came from all quarters.

"There is another motion before the house," from others.

Cries of "Madam President" arose everywhere, many speakers were on their

feet. Mrs. Dankshire tapped frantically with the little gavel, but Miss

Eagerson, by sheer vocal power, took and held the floor.

"I move that we take a vote on this question," she cried in piercing

tones. "Let every woman who knows enough to appreciate Miss Bell's

paper--and has any sense of decency--stand up!"

Quite a large proportion of the audience stood up--very informally.

Those who did not, did not mean to acknowledge lack of intelligence and

sense of decency, but to express emphatic disapproval of Miss Eagerson,

Miss Bell and their views.

"I move you, Madam President," cried Mrs. Thaddler, at the top of her

voice, "that every member who is guilty of such grossly unparlimentary

conduct be hereby dropped from this Club!"

"We hereby resign!" cried Miss Eagerson. "_We_ drop _you!_ We'll have

a New Woman's Club in Orchardina with some warmth in its heart and some

brains in its head--even if it hasn't as much money in its pocket!"

Amid stern rappings, hissings, cries of "Order--order," and frantic

"Motions to adjourn" the meeting broke up; the club elements dissolving

and reforming into two bodies as by some swift chemical reaction.

Great was the rejoicing of the daily press; some amusement was felt,

though courteously suppressed by the men present, and by many not

present, when they heard of it.

Some ladies were so shocked and grieved as to withdraw from club-life

altogether. Others, in stern dignity, upheld the shaken standards of

Home and Culture; while the most conspicuous outcome of it all was the

immediate formation of the New Woman's Club of Orchardina.

THE HOUSE OF APPLES

There was a certain King; young and inexperienced, but a man of resource

and initiative; an efficacious King if he did but know it. Being new to

his business, however, he did not, as yet, exert himself particularly.

This King, as it happened, was mightily fond of apples; but he was, as

aforesaid, youthful and inexperienced; and too much overwhelmed with new

duties, glories, and responsibilities, to be very exacting.

As a matter of expediency his stewards and servants strove to please

him. As a matter of course they gave him what he wanted, when they

could. As a matter of fact his table was provided with the best the

market could afford.

The market, however, could not afford to do very well; at least its

products did not satisfy the King.

"What is the trouble with these apples!" said the King, "Bring me

another kind!"

They brought him several kinds--as many as three or four.

"Bring me more kinds!" said the King.

"These are all that the market affords, O King," they replied.

"Confound the market!" said the King, "I will consider this business

myself."

Then the King consulted his books about apples; and the heads of

departments in his Bureaus of horticulture and of Commerce. Having thus

added to his information, he then went out to study the facts; and he

found that the facts were these:

Apples grew as easily as ever they did; and there were really more kinds

instead of less. People liked apples as well as ever they did, and

there were more people instead of less.

Yet in the country the orchards were neglected and the apples fed to

pigs or left to rot; and in the city, the fruit-stalls were loaded with

the monotonous tasteless apples of commerce, cold-stored from time

unknown; and those that were cheap were nasty, and those that were not

nasty and not cheap were by mo means as high in quality as they were in

price.

Then the King issued a Mandate, ordering his subjects far and wide to

send him samples of all kinds of apples that were grown; with their

names and histories and habits.

After this he made a tour of state, visiting his kingdom far and wide,

and studying Appleculture in every quarter. And he consulted the people

separately, in different places, saying, "Why do you not raise more

apples of this sort and of this?"

And with one accord the people answered him--"It does not pay!"

This his Financial Advisers explained to him, outwardly with deep

respect, but inwardly with derision at his inexperience, that there was

no market for these varieties of apples, and they discoursed on The Law

of Supply and Demand.

Then the King called upon his people to write everyone a postal card to

him, stating the kind of apples they would buy if they could; and how

many barrels or bushels or pecks or quarts they would like to use in a

season, if the price was $2.00 a barrel, or five cents a quart.

This furnished employment to many mathematicians and staticians and

tabulators for many days; but when all was done the King found that the

desire of his people for apples averaged a barrel apiece per year. And

the King briskly multiplied the number of his people by the price of a

barrel of apples, and obtained a great sum.

"Ah!" said the King. "This is 'The Market,' is it not?"

But his Financial Advisers laughed in their sleeves, saying solemnly to

him. "No, O King--this is merely an estimate of the idle desires of the

people--with two large Ifs in it."

"But this is 'the Demand' is it not?" said the King.

And his Financial Advisers put down their sleeves and said, "No, O King

this is but a desire--not a demand."

But the King was fond of apples, and obstinate.

So he caused to be built in every city a House of Apples; and appointed

to each an Apple-Master, to carry out his will. And he commanded all

his common carriers to carry apples in their season, so many carloads to

a city, according to the desires of his people. And he offered to all

fruit-raisers, from the humble Farmer to the haughty Horticulturist,

such and such a price for such and such apples; the number thereof to

increase as the population increased from year to year.

In the House of Apples was an Exhibition Hall, showing waxen examples of

every Apple upon earth; and a market where Apples were sold; the

short-lived Apples in their season, and the long-lived Apples the year

around, and some were costly and some were cheap; and in the autumn the

market was flooded--so that then all people could buy apples for a

song--to their hearts' content and their bodies' comfort.

Golden Porters, crystalline and winy, were to be had in their brief

season; and succulent sweetings, to bake with molasses; and

gilliflowers, purple and mealy, and little scarlet sapsons, of which one

eats without counting. Then the people bought more even than they had

intended; and the farms found apples were a paying crop and cultivated

them; and the common carriers lost nothing, for their carrying grew

greater and the payment was steady and sure.

Now the King was really pleased at this, for he loved Apples and he

loved having his own way--as Kings do. Also he delighted in the

glorious array of Apples in his Houses; to look at, to eat, and to

smell.

"It is worth the Price!" said the King. "I know what I want and I'm

willing to pay for it."

But when the Reports of The Apple Masters came in, Lo! There was a

Great Profit for the King.

"There is no harm in that!" said he. And he showed the report to his

Financial Advisers--and his sleeve was across his mouth.

And the name of that King was Demos.

OUR ANDROCENTRIC CULTURE; or, THE MAN-MADE WORLD

VII.

ETHICS AND RELIGION.

The laws of physics were at work before we were on earth, and continued

to work on us long before we had intelligence enough to perceive, much

less understand, them. Our proven knowledge of these processes

constitutes "the science of physics"; but the laws were there before the

science.

Physics is the science of material relation, how things and natural

forces work with and on one another. Ethics is the science of social

relation, how persons and social forces work with and on one another.

Ethics is to the human world what physics is to the material world;

ignorance of ethics leaves us in the same helpless position in regard to

one another that ignorance of physics left us in regard to earth, air,

fire and water.

To be sure, people lived and died and gradually improved, while yet

ignorant of the physical sciences; they developed a rough "rule of

thumb" method, as animals do, and used great forces without

understanding them. But their lives were safer and their improvement

more rapid as they learned more, and began to make servants of the

forces which had been their masters.

We have progressed, lamely enough, with terrible loss and suffering,

from stark savagery to our present degree of civilization; we shall go

on more safely and swiftly when we learn more of the science of ethics.

Let us note first that while the underlying laws of ethics remain steady

and reliable, human notions of them have varied widely and still do so.

In different races, ages, classes, sexes, different views of ethics

obtain; the conduct of the people is modified by their views, and their

prosperity is modified by their conduct.

Primitive man became very soon aware that conduct was of importance. As

consciousness increased, with the power to modify action from within,

instead of helplessly reacting to stimuli from without, there arose the

crude first codes of ethics, the "Thou shalt" and "Thou shalt not" of

the blundering savage. It was mostly "Thou shalt not." Inhibition, the

checking of an impulse proven disadvantageous, was an earlier and easier

form of action than the later human power to consciously decide on and

follow a course of action with no stimulus but one's own will.

Primitive ethics consists mostly of Tabus--the things that are

forbidden; and all our dim notions of ethics to this day, as well as

most of our religions, deal mainly with forbidding.

This is almost the whole of our nursery government, to an extent shown

by the well-worn tale of the child who said her name was "Mary." "Mary

what?" they asked her. And she answered, "Mary Don't." It is also the

main body of our legal systems--a complex mass of prohibitions and

preventions. And even in manners and conventions, the things one should

not do far outnumber the things one should. A general policy of

negation colors our conceptions of ethics and religion.

When the positive side began to be developed, it was at first in purely

arbitrary and artificial form. The followers of a given religion were

required to go through certain motions, as prostrating themselves,

kneeling, and the like; they were required to bring tribute to the gods

and their priests, sacrifices, tithes, oblations; they were set little

special performances to go through at given times; the range of things

forbidden was broad; the range of things commanded was narrow. The

Christian religion, practically interpreted, requires a fuller "change

of heart" and change of life than any preceding it; which may account at

once for its wide appeal to enlightened peoples, and to its scarcity of

application.

Again, in surveying the field, it is seen that as our grasp of ethical

values widened, as we called more and more acts and tendencies "right"

and "wrong," we have shown astonishing fluctuations and vagaries in our

judgment. Not only in our religions, which have necessarily upheld each

its own set of prescribed actions as most "right," and its own special

prohibitions as most "wrong"; but in our beliefs about ethics and our

real conduct, we have varied absurdly.

Take, for instance, the ethical concept among "gentlemen" a century or

so since, which put the paying of one's gambling debts as a well-nigh

sacred duty, and the paying of a tradesman who had fed and clothed one

as a quite negligible matter. If the process of gambling was of social

service, and the furnishing of food and clothes was not, this might be

good ethics; but as the contrary is true, we have to account for this

peculiar view on other grounds.

Again, where in Japan a girl, to maintain her parents, is justified in

leading a life of shame, we have a peculiar ethical standard difficult

for Western minds to appreciate. Yet in such an instance as is

described in "Auld Robin Gray," we see precisely the same code; the

girl, to benefit her parents, marries a rich old man she does not

love--which is to lead a life of shame. The ethical view which

justifies this, puts the benefit of parents above the benefit of

children, robs the daughter of happiness and motherhood, injures

posterity to assist ancestors.

This is one of the products of that very early religion, ancestor

worship; and here we lay a finger on a distinctly masculine influence.

We know little of ethical values during the matriarchate; whatever they

were, they must have depended for sanction on a cult of promiscuous but

efficient maternity. Our recorded history begins in the patriarchal

period, and it is its ethics alone which we know.

The mother instinct, throughout nature, is one of unmixed devotion, of

love and service, care and defence, with no self-interest. The animal

father, in such cases as he is of service to the young, assists the

mother in her work in similar fashion. But the human father in the

family with the male head soon made that family an instrument of desire,

and combat, and self-expression, following the essentially masculine

impulses. The children were his, and if males, valuable to serve and

glorify him. In his dominance over servile women and helpless children,

free rein was given to the growth of pride and the exercise of

irresponsible tyranny. To these feelings, developed without check for

thousands of years, and to the mental habits resultant, it is easy to

trace much of the bias of our early ethical concepts.

Perhaps it is worth while to repeat here that the effort of this book is

by no means to attribute a wholly evil influence to men, and a wholly

good one to women; it is not even claimed that a purely feminine culture

would have advanced the world more successfully. It does claim that the

influence of the two together is better than that of either one alone;

and in especial to point out what special kind of injury is due to the

exclusive influence of one sex heretofore.

We have to-day reached a degree of human development where both men and

women are capable of seeing over and across the distinctions of sex, and

mutually working for the advancement of the world. Our progress is,

however, seriously impeded by what we may call the masculine tradition,

the unconscious dominance of a race habit based on this long

androcentric period; and it is well worth while, in the interests of

both sexes, to show the mischievous effects of the predominance of one.

We have in our ethics not only a "double standard" in one special line,

but in nearly all. Man, as a sex, has quite naturally deified his own

qualities rather than those of his opposite. In his codes of manners,

of morals, of laws, in his early concepts of God, his ancient religions,

we see masculinity written large on every side. Confining women wholly

to their feminine functions, he has required of them only what he called

feminine virtues, and the one virtue he has demanded, to the complete

overshadowing of all others, is measured by wholly masculine

requirements.

ln the interests of health and happiness, monogamous marriage proves its

superiority in our race as it has in others. It is essential to the

best growth of humanity that we practice the virtue of chastity; it is a

human virtue, not a feminine one. But in masculine hands this virtue

was enforced upon women under penalties of hideous cruelty, and quite

ignored by men. Masculine ethics, colored by masculine instincts,

always dominated by sex, has at once recognized the value of chastity in

the woman, which is right; punished its absence unfairly, which is

wrong; and then reversed the whole matter when applied to men, which is

ridiculous.

Ethical laws are laws--not idle notions. Chastity is a virtue because

it promotes human welfare--not because men happen to prize it in women

and ignore it themselves. The underlying reason for the whole thing is

the benefit of the child; and to that end a pure and noble fatherhood is

requisite, as well as such a motherhood. Under the limitations of a too

masculine ethics, we have developed on this one line social conditions

which would be absurdly funny if they were not so horrible.

Religion, be it noticed, does not bear out this attitude. The immense

human need of religion, the noble human character of the great religious

teachers, has always set its standards, when first established, ahead of

human conduct.

Some there are, men of learning and authority, who hold that the

deadening immobility of our religions, their resistance to progress and

relentless preservation of primitive ideals, is due to the conservatism

of women. Men, they say, are progressive by nature; women are

conservative. Women are more religious than men, and so preserve old

religious forms unchanged after men have outgrown them.

If we saw women in absolute freedom, with a separate religion devised by

women, practiced by women, and remaining unchanged through the

centuries; while men, on the other hand, bounded bravely forward, making

new ones as fast as they were needed, this belief might be maintained.

But what do we see? All the old religions made by men, and forced on

the women whether they liked it or not. Often women not even considered

as part of the scheme--denied souls--given a much lower place in the

system--going from the service of their father's gods to the service of

their husbands--having none of their own. We see religions which make

practically no place for women, as with the Moslem, as rigidly bigoted

and unchanging as any other.

We see also this: that the wider and deeper the religion, the more

human, the more it calls for practical applications in Christianity--the

more it appeals to women. Further, in the diverging sects of the

Christian religion, we find that its progressiveness is to be measured,

not by the numbers of its women adherents, but by their relative

freedom. The women of America, who belong to a thousand sects, who

follow new ones with avidity, who even make them, and who also leave

them all as men do, are women, as well as those of Spain, who remain

contented Romanists, but in America the status of women is higher.

The fact is this: a servile womanhood is in a state of arrested

development, and as such does form a ground for the retention of ancient

ideas. But this is due to the condition of servility, not to womanhood.

That women at present are the bulwark of the older forms of our

religions is due to the action of two classes of men: the men of the

world, who keep women in their restricted position, and the men of the

church, who take every advantage of the limitations of women. When we

have for the first time in history a really civilized womanhood, we can

then judge better of its effect on religion.

Meanwhile, we can see quite clearly the effect of manhood. Keeping in

mind those basic masculine impulses--desire and combat--we see them

reflected from high heaven in their religious concepts. Reward!

Something to want tremendously and struggle to achieve! This is a

concept perfectly masculine and most imperfectly religious. A religion

is partly explanation--a theory of life; it is partly emotion--an

attitude of mind, it is partly action--a system of morals. Man's

special effect on this large field of human development is clear. He

pictured his early gods as like to himself, and they behaved in

accordance with his ideals. In the dimmest, oldest religions, nearest

the matriarchate, we find great goddesses--types of Motherhood,

Mother-love, Mother-care and Service. But under masculine dominance,

Isis and Ashteroth dwindle away to an alluring Aphrodite--not Womanhood

for the child and the World--but the incarnation of female

attractiveness for man.

As the idea of heaven developed in the man's mind it became the Happy

Hunting Ground of the savage, the beery and gory Valhalla of the

Norseman, the voluptuous, many-houri-ed Paradise of the Mohammedan.

These are men's heavens all. Women have never been so fond of hunting,

beer or blood; and their houris would be of the other kind. It may be

said that the early Christian idea of heaven is by no means planned for

men. That is trite, and is perhaps the reason why it has never had so

compelling an attraction for them.

Very early in his vague efforts towards religious expression, man voiced

his second strongest instinct--that of combat. His universe is always

dual, always a scene of combat. Born with that impulse, exercising it

continually, he naturally assumed it to be the major process in life.

It is not. Growth is the major process. Combat is a useful subsidiary

process, chiefly valuable for its initial use, to transmit the physical

superiority of the victor. Psychic and social advantages are not thus

secured or transmitted.

In no one particular is the androcentric character of our common thought

more clearly shown than in the general deification of what are now

described as "conflict stimuli." That which is true of the male

creature as such is assumed to be true of life in general; quite

naturally, but by no means correctly. To this universal masculine error

we may trace in the field of religion and ethics the great devil theory,

which has for so long obscured our minds. A God without an Adversary

was inconceivable to the masculine mind. From this basic misconception

we find all our ideas of ethics distorted; that which should have been

treated as a group of truths to be learned and habits to be cultivated

was treated in terms of combat, and moral growth made an everlasting

battle. This combat theory we may follow later into our common notions

of discipline, government, law and punishment; here is it enough to see

its painful effects in this primary field of ethics and religion?

The third essential male trait of self-expression we may follow from its

innocent natural form in strutting cock or stamping stag up to the

characteristics we label vanity and pride. The degradation of women in

forcing them to adopt masculine methods of personal decoration as a

means of livelihood, has carried with the concomitant of personal

vanity: but to this day and at their worst we do not find in women the

_naive_ exultant glow of pride which swells the bosom of the men who

march in procession with brass bands, in full regalia of any sort, so

that it be gorgeous, exhibiting their glories to all.

It is this purely masculine spirit which has given to our early concepts

of Deity the unadmirable qualities of boundless pride and a thirst for

constant praise and prostrate admiration, characteristics certainly

unbefitting any noble idea of God. Desire, combat and self-expression

all have had their unavoidable influence on masculine religions. What

deified Maternity a purely feminine culture might have put forth we do

not know, having had none such. Women are generally credited with as

much moral sense as men, and as much religious instinct; but so far it

has had small power to modify our prevailing creeds.

As a matter of fact, no special sex attributes should have any weight in

our ideas of right and wrong. Ethics and religion are distinctly human

concerns; they belong to us as social factors, not as physical ones. As

we learn to recognize our humanness, and to leave our sex

characteristics where they belong, we shall at last learn something

about ethics as a simple and practical science, and see that religions

grow as the mind grows to formulate them.

If anyone seeks for a clear, simple, easily grasped proof of our ethics,

it is to be found in a popular proverb. Struggling upward from beast

and savage into humanness, man has seen, reverenced, and striven to

attain various human virtues.

He was willing to check many primitive impulses, to change many

barbarous habits, to manifest newer, nobler powers. Much he would

concede to Humanness, but not his sex--that was beyond the range of

Ethics or Religion. By the state of what he calls "morals," and the

laws he makes to regulate them, by his attitude in courtship and in

marriage, and by the gross anomaly of militarism, in all its senseless

waste of life and wealth and joy, we may perceive this little masculine

exception:

"All's fair in love and war."

COMMENT AND REVIEW

"Inspired Millionaires," by Gerald Stanley Lee, has certainly inspired

one. We read among the quoted letters on the paper cover one from Mr.

Joseph Fels saying, "I want twenty-five copies of the book to distribute

among the millionaires here. If the books are well received I will

increase the order."

The impression to the lay mind, not too profusely acquainted with

millionaires, is of amazement at his opportunities; twenty-five among

"the millionaires here," and a possible demand for more!

The impression deepens as we read Mr. Fels' second letter, "Please send

fifty more copies. I am putting them where they tell."

Seventy-five millionaires "here"--wherever that was; and in other places

more and more and even more of them! Among so many there must be some

common humanity, possibly some uncommon humanity; it would appear as if

Mr. Lee might be right.

He believes that a millionaire may be a good man, a social enthusiast,

an artist and connoisseur, not in spite of his money, but because of it;

not by giving it away, pre- or post mortem; but by using it _in his

business_.

This is a simple thought after you see it; but it has been generally

overlooked. Mr. Lee has clear eyes and a silver tongue. His

perceptions are important and his expressions convincing. He speaks

plainly also, calling some millionaires by name, and designating others

almost as plainly.

"What could be more pathetic, for instance," he says, "than Mr. ----- as

an educator--a man who is educating-and-mowing-down two hundred thousand

(?) men a day, ten hours a day, for forty years of their lives; that is,

who is separating the souls of his employees from their work, bullying

them into being linked with a work and a method they despise, and who is

trying to atone for it all--this vast terrible schooling, ten hours a

fay, forty years, two hundred thousand men's lives--by piecing together

professors and scholars, putting up a little playhouse of learning,

before the world, to give a few fresh young boys and girls four years

with paper books?--a man the very thought of whom has ruined more men

and devastated more faiths and created more cowards and brutes and fools

in all walks of life than any other influence in the nineteenth century,

and who is trying to eke out at last a spoonful of atonement for it

all--all this vast baptism of the business world in despair and force

and cursing and pessimism, by perching up before it ----- University,

like a dove cote on a volcano.

"It may blur people's eyes for a minute, but everyone really knows in

his heart--every man in this nation--that the only real education Mr.

----- has established, or ever can establish, is the way he has made his

money. Everyone knows also that the only possible, the only real

education Mr. ----- can give to a man would have to be through the daily

thing he gives the man to do, ten hours a day, through the way he lets

him do it, through the spirit and expression he allows him to put into

it ten hours a day. Mr. -----'s real school, the one with two hundred

thousand men in it, and eighty million helpless spectators in the

galleries, is a school which is working out a daily, bitter, lying curse

upon the rich, and a bitter, lying curse upon the poor, which it is

going to take the world generations to redeem."

This is a long quotation; but it shows our prophet is not blinded by

sentiment; he knows an un-inspired millionaire when he sees him.

He makes this observation of one of the first important acts of Governor

Hughes. "He did one of the most memorable and enlightened silences that

has ever been done by any man in the United States." And then he goes

on to show the power that lies in simply being right.

There are plenty of epigrams in the book, plenty of imagination, plenty

of hard sense; and some mistakes. Various readers will assort these to

suit their several minds. But it is funny, having so many men, with so

much money, and so little idea of what to do with it, is it not?

Why shouldn't they, or some of them at least, really do business with it

as Mr. Lee suggests?

PERSONAL PROBLEMS

Question:--What can one do with a bore? I am not over strong, and very

sensitive to people. When some people come to see me--and stay--and

they always do stay--it makes me ill--I cannot work well next day.

--Sufferer.

Answer:--My dear Sufferer. Your problem is a serious one. Bores are

disagreeable to all and dangerous to some. They cannot be arrested or

imprisoned; and kerosene does not lessen their numbers. They commit no

active offence--it is not by doing that they affect us so painfully, but

simply by being. Especially by being there.

Sub-question:--Can a bore be a bore when no one else is present.

Sub-answer:--We suspect they can. It is because he bores himself when

alone that he seeks continually to bore others.

Yet some of them are well-intentioned persons who would be grieved to

know they were injurious. Even the dull and thick-skinned are open to

offence if it is forced upon them.

We suspect that the only real cure is courage on the part of the victim.

If the suffering host or hostess frankly said, "My dear Sir--or

Madam--you are making me very tired. I wish you would go away," the

result would leave nothing to be desired. "But," says the sufferer in

alarm, "they would never come to see us again!"

Well. Do you want them to?

"But--sometimes I like to see them." Or, "I cannot afford to quarrel

with So and So!"

Ah! We will now quote Emerson. "It you want anything, pay for it and

take it, says God."

Question:--"I have a sick parent. What is my whole duty in the case?"

--Filial Devotee.

Answer:--It depends on your sex. If you are a man, your duty is to

provide a home for the patient, a servant, a nurse, a physician, food,

medicine, and two short calls a day. You will be called "A Devoted

Son."

If you are a woman, you need provide none of these things; but must wait

upon the patient with your own hands as nurse and servant; regardless of

your special ability. If you do at does a devoted son you will be

called "An Unnatural Daughter."

Question:--"Why do the shapes of shoes change from year to year? Surely

the shapes of our feet do not.

Answer:--This is one of the inscrutable minor problems of Fashion and

The Market. The desire for novelty; the lack of a real feeling for

beauty; a savage indifference to physical comfort, the pressure of

necessity or greediness urging the manufacturer to sell more shoes than

people need; the brow-beaten submissiveness of most purchasers and the

persuasive--or insolent--compulsion of salesmen; all these combine to

make our feet ugly and painful.

SUFFRAGE

I became an advocate of full suffrage for women as soon as I was old

enough to understand the value of democratic government, to see that a

true democracy requires the intelligent participation of all the people,

and that women are people. With further knowledge I advocate woman

suffrage on two grounds: first because a dependent and servile womanhood

is an immovable obstacle to race development; second because the major

defects of our civilization are clearly traceable to the degradation of

the female and the unbalanced predominance of the male, which unnatural

relation is responsible for the social evil, for the predatory and

combative elements in our economic processes, and for that colossal

mingling of folly, waste, and horror, that wholly masculine

phenomenon--war.

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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

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Please find enclosed $_____ as subscription to "The Forerunner" from

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TO RENT

A Summer Cottage

on Lake Champlain

Near the Adirondacks

This is a six-room two-story cottage, natural wood finish, unplastered,

on two and a half acres of land, 600 feet on the lake, with an old apple

orchard and many other trees. It has on two sides covered piazzas,

outside blinds, open fireplaces in two rooms; and new white enameled

open plumbing, with hot and cold water. It is about a mile and a half

from Essex Village, and about one-quarter of a mile from the post

office, at the Crater Club, an exclusive summer colony. Access by boat

and train.

I have not seen this cottage, but I've seen plans, elevations and

photographs of it, and of views from it. It stands on a bluff, close to

the lake, the Green Mountains far in the east, and the Adirondacks some

twelve miles to the west. The people who own it will answer further

questions and state facts fully on request, both advantages and

disadvantages.

The list of furnishings is accurate and circumstantial, as follows:

INVENTORY OF CONTENTS OF COTTAGE

LIVING ROOM

Mahogany sofa, small mahogany table

Marble-topped table and "Crowning of Esther"

4 rosewood chairs, steamer chair

Whatnot, wall-bracket, books, basket

Mahogany table, small round 3-legged

Long mantel mirror, gilt frame

3 oil paintings, 3 engravings

Rustic seat (filled with wood)

Old-fashioned heating stove, crated

Candle-lantern, 2 Japanese trays

Door-scraper, woodbasket

Tongs-holder, hearth brush

Child's garden tools

2 sofa cushions

Various small ornaments

KITCHEN

Ironing Table, stand, wax, bosom board

Tin pail, dipper, basin

1 new broom, 1 old broom

Tool box, tools, nails, saw, hatchet

Hammock, barrel hammock, tie ropes

Soap rack, dustpan, scrap basket

Folding hat rack, ladder

Carving set, 6 knives (very old)

Coffee pot, toaster, egg whip, egg beater

5 large white china plates

5 medium and 6 small ditto

6 demi tasse and saucers, same

2 tea cups, 6 saucers, same

2 egg stands, green; 2 sugar bowls

1 butterfly cup and saucer

6 glasses, 1 lemon squeezer

1 mechanical red-glass lamp

2 reading lamps, 3 small hand lamps

3 small bracket lamps, 1 shade

White shades at all windows

GREEN BEDROOM

Green bedstead (three-quarter)

2 mattresses, 2 pillows, madras cover

Green bureau; green washstand

Green table; green rocking chair

Oak chair; 2 pictures; 1 chamber

LARGE EAST BEDROOM

Oak bedstead (double)

Oak bureau, oak washstand

2 mattresses, 2 feather beds, 1 bolster

2 pillows, madras spread

1 box cot, 1 mattress, straw pillow

2 chairs, 2 towel racks

Bureau cover, pen cushion, etc.

3 pictures

SOUTHWEST BEDROOM

Black walnut single bedstead

1 hair mattress and bolster

1 pillow, 1 feather bed, 1 madras spread

Bureau (mirror broken), 2 towel racks

Mahogany washstand, mirror

Small 3-legged table

3 rosewood chairs

Bureau cover, pin cushion, etc.

Shoebag on wall

Oil painting, on copper

Brass stair rods, in closet

NORTHWEST BEDROOM

2 mahogany bureaus, empty trunk

Portable bath-tub, clothes basket

On shelves: 7 sheets, 7 pillow cases

3 table cloths, 10 doilies

4 towels, dish cloths and towels

Bureau and tray cloths

Curtains, enough for doors

Curtains for some windows

Apply to "Summer Cottage," care of The Forerunner or to John B. Burnham,

Agent, Essex, N.Y.

THE FORERUNNER

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE

BY

CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN

AUTHOR, OWNER & PUBLISHER

1.00 A YEAR

.10 A COPY

Volume 1. No. 8

JUNE, 1910

Copyright for 1910

C. P. Gilman

Clothing is for five purposes: Decoration, Protection, Warmth, Modesty,

and Symbolism. Can you explain yours?

THE PURITAN

"Where is God?" I cried. "Let me hear!"

"I long for the voice of God!"

And I smote and trod

On all things clamoring near;

Small voices dear,

That wept and murmured and sung

Till my heart was wrung;

That shrieked, shrieked loud and clear,

As I with hammer and sword

Slew them in the name of the Lord.

Where is God?" I cried. "Let me hear!"

But my ears were ringing yet

With cries I could not forget;

The blood was flowing still,

From the thing I could not kill;

A smothered sobbing cry

Filled all the red, wet earth, the cold, hard sky--

God came not near.

Then long I lived alone,

On the desolate land; a stone

On the thing I could not kill.

I bent to my hardened will

All things that lived below;

I strove to climb above,

To the land of living love

I had dreamed of long ago,

But I could not see--not know.

"O God!" I cried, "Come near!

Speak! Let thy servant hear!

Have I not utterly slain

With tears of blood, with sweat of pain,

In this base heart of mine

All voices old and dear--to hear but Thine!

And if there struggleth still

The thing I could not kill,

Have I not put a stone

On its head? O Thou alone

Whom I would follow and fear--

Speak! Let Thy servant hear!"

Silent I lay, and weak;

Then did the darkness speak;

"Child of the World! My love

Is beneath as well as above!

Thou art not always led

By a light that shines ahead!

But pushed by an impulse blind--

A mighty Power behind!

Lifted, as all things grow,

By forces from below!

Fear not for thy long mistake--

Listen! And there shall wake

The voice that has found the way

From the beginning, upward ever, into the light of day!

Lo! I am with thee still--

The thing thou couldst not kill!

MAKING A LIVING

"There won't be any litigation and chicanery to help you out, young man.

I've fixed that. Here are the title deeds of your precious

country-place; you can sit in that hand-made hut of yours and make

poetry and crazy inventions the rest of your life! The water's

good--and I guess you can live on the chestnuts!"

"Yes, sir," said Arnold Blake, rubbing his long chin dubiously. "I

guess I can."

His father surveyed him with entire disgust. "If you had wit enough you

might rebuild that old saw-mill and make a living off it!"

"Yes, sir," said Arnold again. "I had thought of that."

"You had, had you?" sneered his father. "Thought of it because it

rhymed, I bet you! Hill and mill, eh? Hut and nut, trees and breeze,

waterfall--beat-'em-all? I'm something of a poet myself, you see!

Well,--there's your property. And with what your Mother left you will

buy books and writing paper! As for my property--that's going to Jack.

I've got the papers for that too. Not being an idiot I've saved out

enough for myself--no Lear business for mine! Well, boy--I'm sorry

you're a fool. But you've got what you seem to like best."

"Yes, sir," said Arnold once more. "I have, and I'm really much obliged

to you, Father, for not trying to make me take the business."

Then young John Blake, pattern and image of his father, came into

possession of large assets and began to use them in the only correct

way; to increase and multiply without end.

Then old John Blake, gazing with pride on his younger son, whose acumen

almost compensated him for the bitter disappointment of being father to

a poet; set forth for a season of rest and change.

"I'm going to see the world! I never had time before!" quoth he; and

started off for Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Then Arnold Blake, whose eyes were the eyes of a poet, but whose mouth

had a touch of resemblance to his father's, betook himself to his Hill.

But the night before they separated, he and his brother both proposed to

Ella Sutherland. John because he had made up his mind that it was the

proper time for him to marry, and this was the proper woman; and Arnold

because he couldn't help it.

John got to work first. He was really very fond of Ella, and made hot

love to her. It was a painful surprise to him to be refused. He argued

with her. He told her how much he loved her.

"There are others!" said Miss Ella.

He told her how rich he was.

"That isn't the point," said Ella.

He told her how rich he was going to be.

"I'm not for sale!" said Ella, "even on futures!"

Then he got angry and criticised her judgement.

"It's a pity, isn't it," she said, "for me to have such poor

judgment--and for you to have to abide by it!"

"I won't take your decision," said John. "You're only a child yet. In

two years' time you'll be wiser. I'll ask you again then."

"All right," said Ella. "I'll answer you again then."

John went away, angry, but determined.

Arnold was less categorical.

"I've no right to say a word," he began, and then said it. Mostly he

dilated on her beauty and goodness and his overmastering affection for

her.

"Are you offering marriage?" she inquired, rather quizzically.

"Why yes--of course!" said he, "only--only I've nothing to offer."

"There's you!" said Ella.

"But that's so little!" said Arnold. "O! if you will wait for me!--I

will work!--"

"What will you work at?" said Ella.

Arnold laughed. Ella laughed. "I love to camp out!" said she.

"Will you wait for me a year?" said Arnold.

"Ye-es," said Ella. I'll even wait two--if I have to. But no longer!"

"What will you do then?" asked Arnold miserably.

"Marry you," said Ella.

So Arnold went off to his Hill.

What was one hill among so many? There they arose about him, far green,

farther blue, farthest purple, rolling away to the real peaks of the

Catskills. This one had been part of his mother's father's land; a big

stretch, coming down to them from an old Dutch grant. It ran out like a

promontory into the winding valley below; the valley that had been a

real river when the Catskills were real mountains. There was some river

there yet, a little sulky stream, fretting most of the year in its

sunken stony bed, and losing its temper altogether when the spring

floods came.

Arnold did not care much for the river--he had a brook of his own; an

ideal brook, beginning with an over-flowing spring; and giving him three

waterfalls and a lake on his own land. It was a very little lake and

handmade. In one place his brook ran through a narrow valley or

valleyette--so small it was; and a few weeks of sturdy work had damned

the exit and made a lovely pool. Arnold did that years ago, when he was

a great hulking brooding boy, and used to come up there with his mother

in summer; while his father stuck to the office and John went to Bar

Harbor with his chums. Arnold could work hard even if he was a poet.

He quarried stone from his hill--as everyone did in those regions; and

built a small solid house, adding to it from year to year; that was a

growing joy as long as the dear mother lived.

This was high up, near the dark, clear pool of the spring; he had piped

the water into the house--for his mother's comfort. It stood on a level

terrace, fronting south-westward; and every season he did more to make

it lovely. There was a fine smooth lawn there now and flowering vines

and bushes; every pretty wild thing that would grow and bloom of itself

in that region, he collected about him.

That dear mother had delighted in all the plants and trees; she studied

about them and made observations, while he enjoyed them--and made poems.

The chestnuts were their common pride. This hill stood out among all

the others in the flowering time, like a great pompon, and the odor of

it was by no means attractive--unless you happened to like it, as they

did.

The chestnut crop was tremendous; and when Arnold found that not only

neighboring boys, but business expeditions from the city made a practice

of rifling his mountain garden, he raged for one season and acted the

next. When the first frost dropped the great burrs, he was on hand,

with a posse of strong young fellows from the farms about. They beat

and shook and harvested, and sack upon sack of glossy brown nuts were

piled on wagons and sent to market by the owner instead of the

depredator.

Then he and his mother made great plans, the eager boy full of ambition.

He studied forestry and arboriculture; and grafted the big fat foreign

chestnut on his sturdy native stocks, while his father sneered and

scolded because he would not go into the office.

Now he was left to himself with his plans and hopes. The dear mother

was gone, but the hill was there--and Ella might come some day; there

was a chance.

"What do you think of it?" he said to Patsy. Patsy was not Irish. He

was an Italian from Tuscany; a farmer and forester by birth and

breeding, a soldier by compulsion, an American citizen by choice.

"Fine!" said Patsy. "Fine. Ver' good. You do well."

They went over the ground together. "Could you build a little house

here?" said Arnold. "Could you bring your wife? Could she attend to my

house up there?--and could you keep hens and a cow and raise vegetables

on this patch here--enough for all of us?--you to own the house and

land--only you cannot sell it except to me?"

Then Patsy thanked his long neglected saints, imported his wife and

little ones, took his eldest daughter out of the box factory, and his

eldest son out of the printing office; and by the end of the summer they

were comfortably established and ready to attend to the chestnut crop.

Arnold worked as hard as his man. Temporarily he hired other sturdy

Italians, mechanics of experience; and spent his little store of capital

in a way that would have made his father swear and his brother jeer at

him.

When the year was over he had not much money left, but he had by his

second waterfall a small electrical plant, with a printing office

attached; and by the third a solid little mill, its turbine wheel

running merrily in the ceaseless pour. Millstones cost more money than

he thought, but there they were--brought up by night from the Hudson

River--that his neighbors might not laugh too soon. Over the mill were

large light rooms, pleasant to work in; with the shade of mighty trees

upon the roof; and the sound of falling water in the sun.

By next summer this work was done, and the extra workmen gone. Whereat

our poet refreshed himself with a visit to his Ella, putting in some

lazy weeks with her at Gloucester, happy and hopeful, but silent.

"How's the chestnut crop?" she asked him.

"Fine. Ver' good," he answered. "That's what Patsy says--and Patsy

knows."

She pursued her inquiries. "Who cooks for you? Who keeps your camp in

order? Who washes your clothes?"

"Mrs. Patsy," said he. "She's as good a cook as anybody need want."

"And how is the prospect?" asked Ella.

Arnold turned lazily over, where he lay on the sand at her feet, and

looked at her long and hungrily. "The prospect," said he, "is divine."

Ella blushed and laughed and said he was a goose; but he kept on

looking.

He wouldn't tell her much, though. "Don't, dear," he said when she

urged for information. "It's too serious. If I should fail--"

"You won't fail!" she protested. "You can't fail! And if you

do--why--as I told you before, I like to camp out!"

But when he tried to take some natural advantage of her friendliness she

teased him--said he was growing to look just like his father! Which

made them both laugh.

Arnold returned and settled down to business. He purchased stores of

pasteboard, of paper, of printers ink, and a little machine to fold

cartons. Thus equipped he retired to his fastness, and set dark-eyed

Caterlina to work in a little box factory of his own; while clever

Guiseppe ran the printing press, and Mafalda pasted. Cartons, piled

flat, do not take up much room, even in thousands.

Then Arnold loafed deliberately.

"Why not your Mr. Blake work no more?" inquired Mrs. Patsy of her

spouse.

"O he work--he work hard," replied Patsy. "You women--you not

understand work!"

Mrs. Patsy tossed her head and answered in fluent Italian, so that her

husband presently preferred out of doors occupation; but in truth Arnold

Blake did not seem to do much that summer. He loafed under his great

trees, regarding them lovingly; he loafed by his lonely upper waterfall,

with happy dreaming eyes; he loafed in his little blue lake--floating

face to the sky, care free and happy as a child. And if he scribbled a

great deal--at any sudden moment when the fit seized him, why that was

only his weakness as a poet.

Toward the end of September, he invited an old college friend up to see

him; now a newspaper man--in the advertising department. These two

seemed to have merry times together. They fished and walked and

climbed, they talked much; and at night were heard roaring with laughter

by their hickory fire.

"Have you got any money left?" demanded his friend.

"About a thou--" said Arnold. "And that's got to last me till next

spring, you know."

"Blow it in--blow in every cent--it'll pay you. You can live through

the winter somehow. How about transportation?"

"Got a nice electric dray--light and strong. Runs down hill with the

load to tidewater, you see, and there's the old motorboat to take it

down. Brings back supplies."

"Great!--It's simply great! Now, you save enough to eat till spring and

give me the rest. Send me your stuff, all of it! and as soon as you get

in a cent above expenses--send me that--I'll 'tend to the advertising!"

He did. He had only $800 to begin with. When the first profits began

to come in he used them better; and as they rolled up he still spent

them. Arnold began to feel anxious, to want to save money; but his

friend replied: "You furnish the meal--I'll furnish the market!" And he

did.

He began it in the subway in New York; that place of misery where eyes,

ears, nose, and common self-respect are all offended, and even an

advertisement is some relief.

"Hill" said the first hundred dollars, on a big blank space for a week.

"Mill" said the second. "Hill Mill Meal," said the third.

The fourth was more explicit.

"When tired of every cereal

Try our new material--

Hill Mill Meal."

The fifth--

"Ask your grocer if you feel

An interest in Hill Mill Meal.

Samples free."

The sixth--

"A paradox! Surprising! True!

Made of chestnuts but brand new!

Hill Mill Meal."

And the seventh--

"Solomon said it couldn't be done,

There wasn't a new thing under the sun--

He never ate Hill Mill Meal!"

Seven hundred dollars went in this one method only; and meanwhile

diligent young men in automobiles were making arrangements and leaving

circulars and samples with the grocer. Anybody will take free samples

and everybody likes chestnuts. Are they not the crown of luxury in

turkey stuffing? The gem of the confection as _marron glaces_? The

sure profit of the corner-merchant with his little charcoal stove, even

when they are half scorched and half cold? Do we not all love them,

roast, or boiled--only they are so messy to peel.

Arnold's only secret was his process; but his permanent advantage was in

the fine quality of his nuts, and his exquisite care in manufacture. In

dainty, neat, easily opened cartons (easily shut too, so they were not

left gaping to gather dust), he put upon the market a sort of samp,

chestnuts perfectly shelled and husked, roasted and ground, both coarse

and fine. Good? You stood and ate half a package out of your hand,

just tasting of it. Then you sat down and ate the other half.

He made pocket-size cartons, filled with whole ones, crafty man! And

they became "The Business Man's Lunch" forthwith. A pocketful of roast

chestnuts--and no mess nor trouble! And when they were boiled--well, we

all know how good boiled chestnuts are. As to the meal, a new variety

of mush appeared, and gems, muffins, and pancakes that made old epicures

feel young again in the joys of a fresh taste, and gave America new

standing in the eyes of France.

The orders rolled in and the poetry rolled out. The market for a new

food is as wide as the world; and Jim Chamberlin was mad to conquer it,

but Arnold explained to him that his total output was only so many

bushels a year.

"Nonsense!" said Jim. "You're a--a--well, a _poet_! Come! Use your

imagination! Look at these hills about you--they could grow chestnuts

to the horizon! Look at this valley, that rattling river, a bunch of

mills could run here! You can support a fine population--a whole

village of people--there's no end to it, I tell you!"

"And where would my privacy be then and the beauty of the place?" asked

Arnold, "I love this green island of chestnut trees, and the winding

empty valley, just freckled with a few farms. I'd hate to support a

village!"

"But you can be a Millionaire!" said Jim.

"I don't want to be a Millionaire," Arnold cheerfully replied.

Jim gazed at him, opening and shutting his mouth in silence.

"You--confounded old--_poet_!" he burst forth at last.

"I can't help that," said Arnold.

"You'd better ask Miss Sutherland about it, I think," his friend drily

suggested.

"To be sure! I had forgotten that--I will," the poet replied.

Then he invited her to come up and visit his Hill, met her at the train

with the smooth, swift, noiseless, smell-less electric car, and held her

hand in blissful silence as they rolled up the valley road. They wound

more slowly up his graded avenue, green-arched by chestnut boughs.

He showed her the bit of meadowy inlet where the mill stood, by the

heavy lower fall; the broad bright packing rooms above, where the busy

Italian boys and girls chattered gaily as they worked. He showed her

the second fall, with his little low-humming electric plant; a bluestone

building, vine-covered, lovely, a tiny temple to the flower-god.

"It does our printing," said Arnold, "gives us light, heat and

telephones. And runs the cars."

Then he showed her the shaded reaches of his lake, still, starred with

lilies, lying dark under the curving boughs of water maples, doubling

the sheer height of flower-crowned cliffs.

She held his hand tighter as they wound upward, circling the crown of

the hill that she might see the splendid range of outlook; and swinging

smoothly down a little and out on the green stretch before the house.

Ella gasped with delight. Gray, rough and harmonious, hung with

woodbine and wildgrape, broad-porched and wide-windowed, it faced the

setting sun. She stood looking, looking, over the green miles of

tumbling hills, to the blue billowy far-off peaks swimming in soft

light.

"There's the house," said Arnold, "furnished--there's a view room built

on--for you, dear; I did it myself. There's the hill--and the little

lake and one waterfall all for us! And the spring, and the garden, and

some very nice Italians. And it will earn--my Hill and Mill, about

three or four thousand dollars a year--above _all_ expenses!"

"How perfectly splendid!" said Ella. "But there's one thing you've left

out!"

"What's that?" he asked, a little dashed.

"_You_!" she answered. "Arnold Blake! My Poet!"

"Oh, I forgot," he added, after some long still moments. "I ought to

ask you about this first. Jim Chamberlain says I can cover all these

hills with chestnuts, fill this valley with people, string that little

river with a row of mills, make breakfast for all the world--and be a

Millionaire. Shall I?"

"For goodness sake--_No_!" said Ella. "Millionaire, indeed? And spoil

the most perfect piece of living I ever saw or heard of!"

Then there was a period of bliss, indeed there was enough to last

indefinitely.

But one pleasure they missed. They never saw even the astonished face,

much less the highly irritated mind, of old John Blake, when he first

returned from his two years of travel. The worst of it was he had eaten

the stuff all the way home-and liked it! They told him it was Chestnut

Meal--but that meant nothing to him. Then he began to find the jingling

advertisements in every magazine; things that ran in his head and

annoyed him.

"When corn or rice no more are nice,

When oatmeal seems to pall,

When cream of wheat's no longer sweet

And you abhor them all--"

"I do abhor them all!" the old man would vow, and take up a newspaper,

only to read:

"Better than any food that grows

Upon or in the ground,

Strong, pure and sweet

And good to eat

Our tree-born nuts are found."

"Bah!" said Mr. Blake, and tried another, which only showed him:

"Good for mother, good for brother,

Good for child;

As for father--well, rather!

He's just wild."

He was. But the truth never dawned upon him till he came to this one:

"About my hut

There grew a nut

Nutritious;

I could but feel

'Twould make a meal

Delicious.

I had a Hill,

I built a Mill

Upon it.

And hour by hour

I sought for power

To run it.

To burn my trees

Or try the breeze

Seemed crazy;

To use my arm

Had little charm--

I'm lazy!

The nuts are here,

But coal!--Quite dear

We find it!

We have the stuff.

Where's power enough

To grind it?

What force to find

My nuts to grind?

I've found it!

The Water-fall

Could beat 'em all--

And ground it!

PETER POETICUS."

"Confound your impudence!" he wrote to his son. "And confound your

poetic stupidity in not making a Big Business now you've got a start!

But I understand you do make a living, and I'm thankful for that."

*

Arnold and Ella, watching the sunset from their hammock, laughed softly

together, and lived.

TEN SUGGESTIONS

This is a sermon.

Its purpose is to point out the need of a clearer conception of right

and wrong, based on knowledge.

Its text is from Ecclesiastes I, 13, "And I gave my heart to seek and

search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven;

this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised

therewith."

(Let me remark here that I had my sermon in mind before I looked for the

text; but a more expressive and beautifully apposite one I never saw!)

The Preacher of old is right; this sore travail was laid upon us, a most

useful exercise; but we have lazily evaded it and taken other people's

judgment as to our duties.

That would-be Empire Builder, Moses, legislated for his people with an

unlimited explicitness that reflects small credit on their power to

search out by wisdom.

His cut and dried rules went down to most delicate selection of ovine

vicera for the sacrifice--"the fat and the rump, and the fat that

covereth the inwards and the caul above the liver, and the two kidneys";

and into careful dietetics, which would cut out from our food list the

hare and rabbit, the lobster, the crab, the turtle, the clam, oyster and

scallop, indeed all shellfish.

The "fowls that creep, going upon all four," whatever they may be, are

also considered an abomination; but locusts, bald locusts, and

grasshoppers are recommended by name. Even in clothing we are carefully

forbidden to use a garment of linen and woolen, yet among our pious

Puritan ancestors "linsey-woolsey" was a very common and useful cloth.

All these secondary Mosaic directions have long since been relegated to

their place in archaeology; at least by the Christian churches, but the

ten commandments are still held as coming direct from God; and form the

main basis of our ethics. Yet while tacitly accepted they are not

studied, and few people have remarked how the pressure of social

development has changed their weight and relative value.

At first they stood, imposing and alike, an even row, to break anyone of

which was held an equal sin. Few persons now would hold disrespect to a

patently disrespectable parent as wrong as murder; or a failure to

"remember the Sabbath" as great a sin as adultery. Experience has

taught us something, and those who have undertaken that sore travail--to

seek and search out by wisdom--have found that some things are much more

wrong than others--and why.

I met once a very pious man; dark, gloomy, violently virtuous. He

looked like one of Cromwell's deacons; but was in fact a southerner and

an Episcopalian. Mention was made of an enlightened jury, somewhere in

the west, who had acquitted a man who stole bread for his starving

children.

"Good!" said I; "good! we are at last learning to discriminate in our

judgment of right and wrong."

He glowered at me forbiddingly. "There is no room for judgment," he

said; as if he were Fate itself. "There is a Commandment which says,

'Thou shalt not steal!'"

"Do you mean that all the Commandments stand equally?" I inquired.

"That we must hold all of the same importance, without qualification,

and to break any is an equal sin?"

"I do!" he said, with solemn assurance.

I meditated a little, and then asked, "Did you not say to me the other

day that if the negroes ever tried to assert social equality, you would

be among the first to shoulder your gun and put them in their place?"

"I would!" he admitted proudly.

"But," said I, "is there not a commandment which says, 'Thou shalt not

kill?'"

He was silent. He was much annoyed, and saw no way out of his morass of

contradiction. Then I offered what looked like a plank, a

stepping-stone to safety. "Surely," said I, "there is some room for

judgment. The later and smaller laws and regulations give many

directions for killing. All through ancient Hebraic history it was

frequently a special mandate, the people being distinctly commanded to

slay and destroy, sometimes even to kill women, children and the unborn.

And to-day--even a Christian man, in the exercise of legal justice, in

defence of his life, his family, his country,--surely he has a right to

kill! Do you not think there are times when it is right to kill?"

With a long breath of relief he agreed.

"Then why may it not be sometimes right to commit adultery?"

The conversation lapsed. He knew the two offenses were not in the same

category. He knew that the reasons adultery is wrong, and killing is

wrong are older than Hebrew history, and rest on observed facts. It

would be a hardy thinker who would defend adultery; but we all know--to

quote Ecclesiastes again that "There is a time to kill and a time to

heal."

It may be that that set of ten applied with beautiful precision to the

special vices of that people and that time; but there is room for many

more needed ones to-day. There is no commandment against gambling, for

instance; one of the most universal and indefensible evils. Gambling

does no one good; the winner of unearned money is corrupted and the

loser both corrupted and deprived. Gambling undermines all habits of

industry and thrift; it unsettles our reliance on care, patience,

thoroughness, ability, and tempts us to rely on chance. It is an

unmitigated social evil, but goes unforbidden by the Mosaic code, which

was so careful about which kind of fat to sacrifice and how much

uncleaner a girl baby was than a boy.

Speaking of social evil, _the_ social evil is not referred to. Adultery

is an offence to be sure, dangerous and destructive to family and social

life; but prostitution is a greater evil; far more common--and goes

unmentioned; unless in the original it meant the same thing.

Lying is not referred to. Of course some say that bearing false witness

means lying; but surely malicious perjury is a special crime, distinctly

described, and not the same thing as mere misrepresentation.

Another of the blackest sins known to man, always so recognized and

punished, goes without notice in this list:--treason. To betray one's

country--what could be worse! Is it not visibly wickeder than to play

ball on Sunday?

On the positive side our whole code of ethics, Hebrew and Christian,

fails to mention the main duty of life--to do your best work. This is

the one constant social service; and its reverse is a constant social

injury.

The old ethics is wholly personal, the new ethics (still unwritten) is

social first--personal later. In the old list we find, on a par with

adultery, theft and murder, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord

thy God in vain." Does this mean common swearing? Is it as wrong to

say 'damn' as to commit murder?

No, we do know better than that. We know that in those days, when lying

was so universal a habit that no one thought of prohibiting it, the two

most evil extremes were flat perjury with intent to harm, and the solemn

invocation of God's name to bind a bargain or seal a vow, afterward

broken. Both these were carefully forbidden. No one thought of

believing anything unless it was sworn to--and if they broke their oath

there was no reliance anywhere. To compel a slippery people to keep

faith--that was good ethics; and then most necessary.

We do not run our business that way now; we do greater evil in new

ways--and there is no commandment to forbid us. If that one read, "Thou

shalt not break faith nor cheat," it would have applied equally well

now.

The very first one is a curious proof of the then belief in many gods.

Jehovah does not say, "I am the only God," He says, "Thou shalt have no

other gods before me." That there were others is admitted, but it is

forbidden to run after them.

Nowadays we do not care enough even for our own idea of God--to say

nothing of other people's! And look at all that careful objection to

images and likenesses, and idol worship generally. The Jews forebore

painting and sculpture for many centuries because of that prohibition.

Now everyone with a kodak breaks it. The growth of true religious

feeling, as well as scientific thought, makes it impossible for

civilized peoples to make images and worship them, as did those

ingenious old Moabites and Midianites, Jebuzites and Perrizites,

Hittites and Haggathites.

The rigorous prohibition of coveting has always puzzled me--to covet is

such a private feeling. And if you keep it to yourself, what harm does

it do? You may spend your life wishing you had your neighbor's large

red automobile; but he is none the poorer. Of course if one sits up

nights to covet; or does it daytimes, by the hour, to the exclusion of

other business; it would interfere with industry and injure the health.

Can it be that the ancient Hebrews were that covetous?

Now suppose we do in good earnest give our hearts to seek and search out

all things that are done under heaven, to classify and study them, to

find which are most injurious and which are most beneficial, and base

thereon a farther code of ethics--by no means excluding the old.

The two great Christian laws will stand solidly. The absolute and all

absorbing love of God and the love of the neighbor which is much the

same thing--are good general directions. But in daily living; in

confronting that ceaseless array of "all things that are done under

heaven," the average person cannot stop to think out just how this game

of bridge or that horse-race interferes with love of God or man. We

need good hard honest scientific study; sore travail, which God hath

given to the sons of men, to be exercised therewith; and a further code

of ethics, not claimed as directly handed down from Heaven, but proven

by plain facts of common experience. We do not need to imitate or

parody the authoritative utterance of any priesthood; we want an

exposition which a bright child can understand and a practical man

respect.

We have succeeded before now in establishing elaborate codes of

conduct--yes and enforcing them, without any better sanction than habit,

prejudice, tradition. A schoolboy has his notion of right behavior, not

traceable to Hebrew or Christian ethics; so has the grown man, putting

his quaint ideas of "honor" and "sportsmanship" far beyond any religious

teaching. Our scorn of the tell-tale and the coward is not based on the

Bible, but on experience; our inhuman cruelty to "the woman who has

sinned" is based on mere ignorance and falsehood.

Take that fatuous "unwritten law" which allows a man to murder another

man and the wife who has offended what he calls "his honor." There is

nothing about that honor of his in old or new testament. It is a notion

of his own, which overrides, "Thou shalt not kill," as easily as "lying

like a gentleman" overrides, "Thou shalt not bear false witness."

Since we have shown such simple capacity to invent and enforce codes of

ethics, of questionable value, why not exercise our ingenuity in making

some better ones? We know more now.

As a matter of fact we do not want commands, we want instructions; we

want to know why things are wrong, which are the most wrong, and what

are their respective consequences. But if a distinct set of

prohibitions is preferred it is quite possible to make some that would

fit our present day conditions more closely than the Hebraic list.

It would be an interesting thing to have earnest people give their minds

to this and seek and search out for themselves a new light on everyday

ethics. As a starter here is a tentative list to think about; open to

alteration and addition by anyone.

And on what authority are these presented? some will ask. Not on

"authority" at all; but on law, natural law, the right and wrong

indicated being long since known to us. And are these set

presumptuously in the place of the Divine Command? will be tremblingly

inquired. By no means. The Ten stand as before--these are auxiliary

and merely suggestive of study.

1. Thou shalt learn that human love is a natural law and obey it as the

main condition of life: the service of man is the worship of God.

2. Thou shalt learn that the first duty of human life is to find thy

work and do it; for by labor ye live and grow and in it is worship,

pride and joy.

3. Thou shalt keep an open mind and use it, welcoming new knowledge and

new truth and giving them to all.

4. Thou shalt maintain liberty and justice for everyone.

5. Thou shalt maintain thy health and thy chastity. Temperance and

purity are required of all men.

6. Thou shalt not lie, break faith or cheat.

7. Thou shalt not gamble, nor live idly on the labor of others, nor by

any usury.

8. Thou shalt not steal; nor take from one another save in fair

exchange or as a free gift.

9. Thou shalt not do unnecessary hurt to any living thing.

10. Thou shalt not worship the past nor be content with the present,

for growth is the law of life.

THE MALINGERER

Exempt! She "does not have to work!"

So might one talk

Defending long, bedridden ease,

Weak yielding ankles, flaccid knees,

With, "I don't have to walk!"

Not have to work. Why not? Who gave

Free pass to you?

You're housed and fed and taught and dressed

By age-long labor of the rest--

Work other people do!

What do you give in honest pay

For clothes and food?

Then as a shield, defence, excuse,

She offers her exclusive use--

Her function--Motherhood!

Is motherhood a trade you make

A living by?

And does the wealth you so may use,

Squander, accumulate, abuse,

Show motherhood as high?

Or does the motherhood of those

Whose toil endures,

The farmers' and mechanics' wives,

Hard working servants all their lives--

Deserve less price than yours?

We're not exempt! Man's world runs on,

Motherless, wild;

Our servitude and long duress,

Our shameless, harem idleness,

Both fail to serve the child.

GENIUS, DOMESTIC AND MATERNAL

Most of us believe the human race to be the highest form of life--so

far. Not all of us know why. Because we do not properly realize the

causes of our superiority and swift advance, we do not take advantage of

them as we should.

Among various causes of human supremacy, none counts more than our

social gift of genius, the special power that is given to some more than

others, as part of social specialization. In social life, which is

organic, we do not find each one doing the same work, but some,

especially fitted for one thing, doing that thing for the service of the

others. No creature approaches us in the degree of our specialization,

and the crowning power of individual genius.

Because of this power we, as a whole, have benefited by the "genius for

mechanics," for invention, for discovery, for administration, and all

the commoner lines of work, as well as in the fine arts and professions.

The great surgeon is a genius as well as the great painter or poet, and

the world profits by the mighty works of these specialized servants.

For the development of genius we must allow it to specialize, of course.

The genius of Beethoven would have done us little good if he had passed

his life as a bookkeeper or dealer in ironware. The greatest of poets

could produce little poetry if he worked twelve hours a day in a rolling

mill. Genius may overcome some forms of opposition, but it must be

allowed to do the work it has a genius for--or none will be manifested.

We can easily see what a loss it would have been to the world if all

forms of genius had been checked and smothered; if we had no better

poetry than the average man writes when he is in love, no better surgery

than each of us could perform if he had to, no better music than the

tunes we make up to amuse ourselves, no better machinery than each of us

is capable of inventing. We know full well the limitation of the

average mind.

Now, suppose we had no better guide than that, no specialization at all,

no great financiers, no great administrators, no great astronomers or

architects, no great anything--simply the average mind, doing everything

for itself without any help from others. A nice, flat, low-grade world

we would have! Think of the houses, each of them "the house that Jack

built," and not a building on earth bigger or better than Jack alone

could make! No sciences, no arts, no skilled trades (one cannot develop

much special skill while doing everything for oneself); no teachers and

leaders of any sort--just the strength and ingenuity of each one of us,

trying to meet his own needs by his own efforts.

This would be stark savagery, not civilization.

All this is as true of women as it is of men; women also are human

beings, and members of society. Women have capacity for specialization,

for strong preference and high ability in certain kinds of work. But

since a man's world has viewed women only as females, since their

feminine functions were practically uniform, and since everything they

did was considered a feminine function, therefore women have not been

allowed to specialize and develop genius. All women were required to do

the same work (a) "keep house"; (b) "rear children."

These things we have at no time viewed as arts, trades, sciences or

professions; they were considered as feminine functions, and to be

performed by "instinct." Instinct is hereditary habit. It is developed

by the repeated action of identical conditions. It is a fine thing, for

animals, who have nothing else.

In humanity, instinct disappears in proportion as reason develops. Our

conditions vary, even more and rapidly, and we have to have something

much more rapid and alterable than instinct. No great man runs a

business by instinct; he learns how. For the performance of any social

service of importance, three powers are required. First, special

ability or genius; second, education; third, experience. When we are

served by special ability, education and experience, we are well served.

Any human business left without these is left at the bottom of the

ladder.

That is where we find the two great branches of human service left to

women, the domestic and the maternal. These universal services, of most

vital importance not only to our individual lives but to our social

development, are left to be performed by the average mind, by the

average woman, by instinct.

Our shoemaking is done by a shoemaker, our blacksmithing by a

blacksmith, our doctoring by a doctor; but our cooking is done not by a

cook, but by the woman a man happens to marry. She may, by rare chance,

have some genius for cooking; but even if she does, there is no

education and experience, save such as she may get from a cook book and

a lifetime of catering to one family. Quite aside from cooking, the

management of our daily living is a form of social service which should

be given by genius, education, and experience; and, like the cooking, it

is performed by any pretty girl a man secures in marriage.

This vast field of comfort or discomfort, ease or disease, happiness or

unhappiness, is cut off from the uplifting influence of specialization.

But it is in the tasks and cares we call "maternal" that our strange

restriction of normal development does most damage. We have lumped

under their large and generous term all the things done to the little

child--by his mother. What his father does for him is not so limited.

A child needs a house to live in--but his father does not have to build

it. A child needs shoes, hats, furniture, dishes, toys--his father does

not have to make them. A child needs, above all things,

instruction--his father does not have to give it.

No, the fathers, humanly specialized, developing great skill and making

constant progress, give to the world's children human advantages. A

partly civilized state, comparative peace, such and such religions and

systems of education, such and such fruits of the industry, trade,

commerce of the time, and the mighty works of genius; all these men give

to children, not individually, as parents, but collectively, as human

beings. The father who, as a savage, could give his children only a

father's services, now gives them the services of carpenters and masons,

farmers and graziers, doctors and lawyers, painters and glaziers,

butchers and bakers, soldiers and sailors--all the multiplied abilities

of modern specialization; while the mother is "only mother" still.

There are three exceptions: that most ancient division of labor which

provided the nurse, the next oldest which gave the servant, and the very

recent one which has lifted the world so wonderfully, the teacher. The

first two are still unspecialized. As any woman is supposed to be a

competent mother, so any woman is supposed to be a competent nursemaid

or housemaid. The teacher, however, has to learn his business, is a

skilled professional, and accomplishes much.

Teaching is a form of specialized motherhood. It gives "the mother

love"--an attribute of all female animals toward their own young--a

chance to grow to social form as a general love of children, and through

specialization, training, experience, it makes this love far more

useful. The teacher is to some degree a social mother, and the

advantage of this social motherhood is so great that it would seem

impossible to question it. Motherhood is common to all races of

humanity, down to the Bushmen, as well as to beasts and birds.

Education is found only with us; and in proportion to our stage of

social progress. Where there is no education but the mother's--no

progress. Where the teacher comes, and in proportion to the quantity

and quality of teachers, so advances civilization. In Africa there are

mothers, prolific and affectionate; in China, in India, everywhere. But

the nations with the most and best education are those which lead the

world.

Similarly in domestic service. Everywhere on earth, to the lowest

savages, we find the individual woman serving the individual man. "Home

cooking" varies with the home; from the oil-lamp of the Eskimo or

brazier of the Oriental, up to the more elaborate stoves and ranges of

to-day; but the art of cooking has grown through the men cooks, who made

it a business, and gave to this valuable form of social service the

advantages of genius, training and experience.

The whole people share in the development of architecture, of electric

transportation and communication, of science and invention. But no such

development is possible to the general public, in these basic

necessities of child care and house care, for the obvious reason above

stated, that these tasks are left to the unspecialized, untrained,

unexperienced average woman.

The child should have from birth the advantages of civilization. The

home should universally share in the progress of the age. To some

extent this now takes place, as far as the advance in child-culture can

spread and filter downward to the average mother, through the darkness

of ignorance and the obstacles of prejudice, and as far as public

statutes can enforce upon the private home the sanitary requirements of

the age. But this is a slow and pitifully small advance; we need

genius, for our children; genius to insure the health and happiness of

our daily lives.

Motherhood pure and simple, the bearing, nursing, loving and providing

for a child, is a feminine function, and should be common to all women.

But that "providing" does not have to be done in person. The mother has

long since deputed to the father the two main lines of child

care--defence and maintenance. She has allowed her responsibility to

shift in this matter on the ground that he could do it better than she

could.

In instruction she has accepted the services of the school, and of the

music-teacher, dancing-teacher, and other specialists; in case of

illness, she relies on the doctor; in daily use, she is glad to

patronize the shoemaker and hatter, seamstress and tailor. Yet in the

position of nurse and teacher to the baby, she admits no assistance

except a servant. But the first four or five years of a child's life

are of preeminent importance. Here above all is where he needs the

advantage of genius, training and experience, and is given but ignorant

affection and hired labor.

Some, to-day, driven to the wall by glaring facts such as these, that

babies die most of preventable diseases, and that their death rate is

greatest while they are most absolutely in their mother's care, do admit

the need of improvement. But they say, "The mother should engage this

specialist to help her in the home," or, "The mother must be taught."

If all normal women are to be mothers, as they should, how are any

specialists to be hired in private homes? A young nursemaid cannot

reach the heights of training and experience needed. As to teaching the

mother--_who is to teach her?_

Who understands this work? No one! And no one ever will until the

natural genius for child culture of some women is improved by training,

strengthened and deepened by experience, and recognized as social

service. Such women should be mothers themselves, of course, They would

be too few, by the laws of specialization, to be hired as private

nurses, and too expensive, if they were not too few. The great

Specialist in Child Culture should be as highly honored and paid as a

college president--more so; no place on earth is more important.

The average mother is not, and never can be, an eminent specialist, any

more than the average father can be. Averages do not attain genius.

Our children need genius in their service. "Where are we to get it?"

demand the carpers and doubters, clinging to their rocky fastnesses of

tradition and habit like so many limpets.

It is here already.

Some women have a natural genius for the care and training of babies and

little children. Some women have a natural genius for household

management. All this wealth of genius is now lost to the world except

in so far as it is advantageous to one family.

And here, by a paradox not surprising, it io often disadvantageous. A

woman capable of smoothly administering a large hotel may be extremely

wearing as a private housekeeper. Napoleon, as a drill sergeant, would

have been hard to bear.

A woman with the real human love for children, the capacity for detail

in their management, the profound interest in educational processes,

which would make her a beneficent angel if she had the care of hundreds,

may make her a positive danger if she has to focus all that capacity on

two or three.

(To be concluded.)

PRISONERS

A MAN IN PRISON.

His cell is small.

His cell is dark.

His cell is cold.

His labor is monotonous and hard.

He is cut off from the light of day, from freedom of movement, from the

meeting of friends, from all amusement and pleasure and variety.

His hard labor is the least of his troubles--without it he could not

support life. What he most suffers from is the monotony--the

confinement--from being in prison.

He longs for his wife. He longs for his children. He longs for his

friends.

But first and last and always; highest and deepest and broadest, with

all his body and soul and mind he longs for Freedom!

A WOMAN IN PRISON.

Her cell is small.

Her cell is dark.

Her cell is cold.

Her labor is monotonous and hard.

She is cut off from the light of day, from freedom of movement, from the

meeting of friends, from all amusement and pleasure and variety.

Her hard labor is the least of her troubles--without it she could not

support life. What she most suffers from is the monotony--the

confinement--from being in prison.

She longs for her husband. She longs for her children. She longs for

her friends.

But first and last and always; highest and deepest and broadest, with

all her body and soul and mind she longs for Freedom!

THE MAN OF ALL WORK.

A man is doing all the housework of one family. He loves this family.

It is his family.

He loves his home.

He does not hate his work; but he does get tired of it.

He has to sleep at home all night, and he would prefer to go away from

it in the morning; to go out into the air; to join his friends; to go to

the shop, the office, the mill, the mine; to work with other men at more

varied tasks.

He loves his children; and wishes to do his duty as a father, but he has

them with him by night as well as by day; and even a father's patience

sometimes gives out. Also he has to do the housework. And even a

father, with all his love and strength cannot be a cook, a teacher, and

a nurse at the same time.

Sometimes the cooking suffers, but more often it is the teaching or

nursing or both--for his wife is rather exacting in the matter of food.

He has a kind wife and they are happy together.

He is proud of his children and they love him.

But when he was a young man he had a strange ambition--he wanted to Be

Somebody--to Do Something--to be independent, to take hold of the

world's work and help.

His children say, "We need you, Father--you cannot be spared--your duty

is here!"

His wife says, "I need you, Husband! You cannot be spared. I like to

feel that you are here with the children--keeping up our Home--your duty

is here."

And the Voice of the Priest, and the Voice of the Past and the Voice of

Common Prejudice all say:

"The duty of a father is to his children. The duty of a husband is to

his wife. Somebody must do the housework! Your duty is here!"

Yet the man is not satisfied.

THE WOMAN OF ALL WORK.

? ? ? ? ?

MAY LEAVES

My whole heart grieves

To feel the thrashing winds of March

On the young May leaves--

The cold dry dust winds of March

On the tender, fresh May leaves.

WHAT DIANTHA DID