projected when Ellis was a medical student of nineteen. But his short
practice of medicine, his editing of the _Mermaid Series of Old British
Dramatists_, and the preparation of several sociological treatises, had
intervened before, in 1898, _Sexual Inversion_, the first volume, had
appeared. George Bedborough, printer, had been arrested for selling a
copy, and charged with “publishing an obscene libel with the intention
of corrupting the laws of Her Majesty’s subjects.” Ellis, the scholar,
preferred to ignore controversy; the martyr’s crown would not have
coincided favorably with calm and dispassionate research. Judging it
merely stupid of the British Government to have pushed the case to
trial, he suspended the sale of the volume immediately, so disappointed
that his own countrymen did not understand his motives that he stated
then and there he would not have his other volumes published in England,
and he never has.
He, beyond any other person, has been able to clarify the question of
sex, and free it from the smudginess connected with it from the
beginning of Christianity, raise it from the dark cellar, set it on a
higher plane. That has been his great contribution. Like an alchemist,
he transmuted the psychic disturbance which had followed my reading of
his books into a spiritual essence.
We had many things to discuss, but suddenly it dawned upon me that I
must have outstayed my time. Seven o’clock struck before I realized how
late it was. It had seemed so short to me.
I was not excited as I went back through the heavy fog to my own dull
little room. My emotion was too deep for that. I felt as though I had
been exalted into a hitherto undreamed-of world.
Some of my new friends, Guy Aldred, Henry Sara, and Rose Witcop, invited
me to tea with them Christmas Eve. Rose was deliberate in her movements,
tall and dark, with straight black hair falling low over her forehead
and caught at the nape of the neck. She and Guy were both ardent
pacifists. A few days earlier I had overheard them reproving their son,
aged six, for suggesting that Santa Claus bring him some lead soldiers.
He had seen uniforms in every street and toy replicas in every shop
window; all little boys were having them. I had not been able to send
many presents to my children, and before leaving the house slipped into
his room. He was sound asleep and his clothes were stretched out neatly
at the foot of his bed. Outraging my own principles I tucked a box of
soldiers under the blanket so that he might see this martial array the
first thing in the morning.
Rose and Guy were thoroughly disgusted with me.
Much that evening combined to stir me. Carol singers paraded Torrington
Square, group after group lifting plaintive voices in _Good King
Wenceslas_ and _We Three Kings of Orient Are_. I was headachy but I went
out and strolled about the streets to see Merrie England at Yuletide. I
had on so much clothing that I could scarcely walk, and still I was icy
cold. It was just about a year since I had left France with the
children, never to be reunited with Bill.
Since I am slow in my decisions and cannot separate myself from past
emotions quickly, all breaches must come gradually. A measure of
frustration is an inevitable accompaniment to endeavor. My marriage had
not been unhappy; I had not let it be. It had not failed because of lack
of love, romance, wealth, respect, or any of those qualities which were
supposed to cause marital rifts, but because the interests of each had
widened beyond those of the other. Development had proceeded so fast
that our lives had diverged, due to that very growth which we had sought
for each other. I could not live with a human being conscious that my
necessities were thwarting or dwarfing his progress.
It had been a crowded year, encompassing the heights and depths of
feeling. Christmas Eve was too much for me. I went back again and sat,
wondering whether the children were well and contented. The next morning
came a cable from them, flowers from Bill, and a nice note from Havelock
Ellis.
Thereafter Havelock aided me immensely in my studies by guiding my
reading. Tuesdays and Fridays were his days at the British Museum, and
he often left little messages at my seat, listing helpful articles or
offering suggestions as to books which might assist me in the particular
aspect I was then engaged upon.
If when traveling about with him on the tram, going to a concert,
shopping for coffee and cigarettes outside the Museum, a thought came to
him, he would pull out a bit of paper and jot down notes. That was how
he compiled his material for books, gathering it piecemeal and storing
it away in envelopes. Anything on the dance went into the dance
envelope, music into music, and so on. As soon as any one became full
enough to attract his attention, he took it out and started to make
something of it.
Sometimes we dined together at a Soho restaurant; occasionally I had tea
at his flat. In his combined kitchen and dining room, warmed by a coal
stove, he did his work, and there also he cooked meals for which he
marketed himself. He was proud of being able to lay a fire with fewer
sticks and less paper than an expert charwoman, and once said he would
rather win praise for the creation of a salad than of an essay.
One of the four rooms was set aside for the use of his wife, Edith. She
preferred the country and lived on her farm in Cornwall, whereas
Havelock loved to be in the city; though he was not a part of it, he
liked to hear it going on about him. Whenever she came to town she found
all her books and possessions inviolate; whenever he went to Cornwall he
found everything ready for him. Either of them could, on impulse, board
a train without baggage and in a few hours be at home.
Edith was short and stocky, high-colored, curly-haired, with mystical
blue eyes but accompanying them a strain of practicality. She could run
the farm, look after the livestock, and dispose of her products. Her
vitality was so great that it sought other outlets in writing fiction.
Bernard Shaw was once trying to find his way to the Ellis farm and
stopped at a cottage to inquire whether he was on the right road. The
goodwife could not tell him.
“But I know Mr. and Mrs. Ellis live near here.”
She kept protesting nobody of that name was in the neighborhood until
Shaw pointed to a house which appeared as though it might be the one.
“Who lives there?”
“Two strangers.”
“What do they do?”
“Oh, the man he writes out of other folks’ books, but she writes out of
her head.”
The person who saw most of Havelock was Olive Schreiner, a long-standing
friend of his and of Edith. I was delighted at the chance of meeting the
author of _Woman and Labor_ and of another favorite, _The Story of an
African Farm_. She had just come to England for the first time in
twenty-five years and been caught in the War.
Knowing Havelock to be a philosopher, I had expected him to be an
elderly man, but, despite his white hair, had found him young,
physically and mentally. Olive Schreiner’s writings were so alive that I
had visualized a young woman. Instead, although her hair was black, her
square and stout Dutch body was old and spread. She had, perhaps, been
partly aged by the frightful asthma from which she had suffered for so
many years. The effect was enhanced by the dark surroundings of the
shabby hotel in which I first saw her.
Certainly another contributing factor was her despondence over the War.
Although her mother was English, her father Dutch, and she a British
subject, her Germanic name was causing her the most harrowing
complications. Fellow hotel guests of her own sex, when they spied her
name on the register or heard her paged, insisted to the manager that
either she should be removed or they were going to seek quarters
elsewhere. She was literally being hounded from place to place.
Possibly Olive felt the tragedy of the War more than any other person I
met in London at this time. She had never believed that “the boys would
be out of the trenches by Christmas,” or that business as usual could
continue much longer. Already she had seen the horrors of armed conflict
in South Africa; it seemed to begin lightly, but it did not end that
way. She feared the whole world might be trapped in this one, that
internationalism and the peace movement were practically finished, and
that a whole new generation had to be born before we could recover what
we had lost. She appeared to me then unduly disheartened; it was only
later when her words came true that I comprehended how accurate were her
prophecies.
Better than any living being Olive understood Havelock. I realized this
during a conversation between herself and Edith. The latter had been in
the United States lecturing on three writers: her husband, James Hinton,
whom he admired tremendously, and Edward Carpenter. Her reception had
convinced her the name of Ellis had gone beyond the borders of England,
and she wanted him to return with her the following year to reap some of
the reward of the respect thousands of Americans had for him.
Havelock was terror-stricken, first at the idea of coming to a new
country, and second at the mere mention of speaking in public. He could
imagine no tortures worse than these. But in order to please Edith, whom
he loved dearly, and also because her persistency and determination were
so great that he found it hard to oppose her, he agreed to leave it to
the three of us.
Edith and I had called on Olive to talk it over. She, as usual, had just
recently moved. This time she was more cheerful, and after tea we took
up the momentous question of the destiny of another individual. Edith,
with her customary fire and fervor, started in to persuade Olive,
Havelock’s lifelong friend, and me, his new friend, that going to
America would be a crowning glory for him. She entreated our aid in
making him decide to do so.
Olive characteristically listened with rapt attention until Edith had
finished. Then she turned to me. “What do you think Havelock should do?”
I, knowing how much Americans expected of a speaker in the way of voice,
personality, and gift of oratory, and also how easily they could be
disappointed unless gestures and external appearance fulfilled their
anticipations, concluded he would not find this crown of glory or this
universal acclaim, and that he would probably return disillusioned after
the first fanfare of publicity. I said, without giving my reasons, “I
don’t think he should go.”
“Have either of you asked Havelock what he wants to do?” Olive
questioned.
“I have,” said Edith, “and he doesn’t want to.”
“Then that settles the matter entirely,” replied Olive. “Nobody has the
authority to make another do what he doesn’t want to, no matter how good
you or I or any of us think it might be for him. I myself will never
take a step that my instinct or intuition tells me not to. I am guided
wholly by that instinct, and if I should awaken tomorrow morning and my
inner voice told me to go to the top of the Himalayas, I would pack up
and go.”
This brief speech determined the question for Havelock, his right to
stay snugly in London, and to give up all the adventure Edith had
planned for him.
Olive, in her commonly dark mood, was encouraged more by the work being
done for women in birth control than by anything else. She herself, who
had had but one child, which had died, realized its significance. The
last time I saw her she put both arms around me and said, “We may never
meet again, but your endeavor is the bright star shining through the
black clouds of war.”
She was not able to go back to South Africa until the War was over. One
morning, not long afterwards, she was found dead in her bed. According
to her instructions, her little child and beloved dog were removed from
their old resting places and Kaffirs carried the three of them to the
peak of a mountain outside Queenstown, where they have since reposed on
their high eminence.
Ellis has been called the greatest living English gentleman. But England
alone cannot claim him; he belongs to all mankind. I define him as one
who radiates truth, energy, and beauty. I see him in a realm above and
beyond the shouting and the tumult. Captains and kings come and go.
Lilliputian warriors strut their hour, and boundary lines between
nations are made and unmade. Although he takes no active share in this
external trafficking, he does not dwell apart in an ivory tower of his
own construction.
This Olympian seems to be aloof from the pain of the world, yet he has
penetrated profoundly into the persistent problems of the race. Nothing
human is alien to his sympathy. His knowledge is broad and deep; his
wisdom even deeper. He makes no strident, blatant effort to cry aloud
his message, but gradually and in ever-increasing numbers, men and women
pause to listen to his serene voice.
Here is a phenomenon more amazing than the achievements of
radio-activity. Despite all the obstacles and obstructions that have
hindered his expression, his truth has filtered through to minds ready
to receive it. His philosophy, if it can be reduced to an essence, is
that of life more abundant—attained through a more complete
understanding of ourselves and an unruffled charity to all.
To Havelock Ellis we owe our concept of that Kingdom of God within us,
that inner world which hides all our inherent potentialities for joy as
well as suffering. Thanks to him we realize that happiness must be the
fruit of an attitude towards life, that it is in no way dependent upon
the rewards or the gifts of fortune. Like St. Francis of Assisi, he
teaches the beauty of nature, of his brother the sun and his sister the
moon, of birds and fish and animals, and all the pageantry of the
passing seasons.
I have never felt about any other person as I do about Havelock Ellis.
To know him has been a bounteous privilege; to claim him friend my
greatest honor.
_Chapter Twelve_
STORK OVER HOLLAND
Day after day the attendants at the British Museum piled books and
pamphlets on the table before my seat. As I pored over the vital
statistics of Europe it seemed to me that chiefly in the Netherlands was
there a force operating towards constructive race building. The Dutch
had long since adopted a common-sense attitude on the subject, looking
upon having a baby as an economic luxury—something like a piano or an
automobile that had to be taken care of afterwards.
The Drysdales often mentioned the great work done by Dr. Aletta Jacobs
of Amsterdam and Dr. Johannes Rutgers of the Hague. The story of Dr.
Jacobs’ conquest of nearly insuperable obstacles to a medical career was
particularly appealing. Born in 1854 in the Province of Groningen, she
was the eighth child of a physician who, on eight hundred dollars a
year, had to support his wife and eleven children. Even before
adolescence she had asked defiantly, “What’s the use of brains if you’re
born a girl?” She was determined to become a doctor like her father,
though no woman had ever been admitted to Groningen University. Her
spirit was so indomitable that when at seventeen she had passed the
examinations and demanded entrance, she had been permitted to listen for
a year, and then allowed to register as a permanent student.
In 1878 Dr. Jacobs had finished her studies in medicine at Amsterdam
University and gone to London, where she had attended the Besant and
Bradlaugh trial, met the Fabians, met the Malthusians, become an ardent
suffragist. This first woman physician in the Netherlands had returned
to Amsterdam and there had braved the disapproval of her father’s
friends by practicing her profession and by opening a free clinic for
poor women and children, where she gave contraceptive advice and
information, the first time this had ever been done in the world.
Within a few years and within a radius of five miles the proportion of
stillbirths and abortions as well as venereal disease had started to
decline, children were filling the schools, people were leaving their
canal boats to go into agriculture.
The Netherlands being such a small country, where one person’s business
was everybody’s business, such changes could not escape notice. Just
about this time Dr. Charles R. Drysdale, then President of the English
League, had been invited to address an International Medical Congress
held in Amsterdam. The results of Dr. Jacobs’ clinic were so apparent
that immediately thereafter the Dutch Neo-Malthusian League had been
formed and thirty-four physicians had joined it. When other centers were
established, purely for consultation, the word clinic was applied to
them also. In 1883 Dr. Mensinga, a gynecologist of Flensburg, Germany,
had published a description of a contraceptive device called a diaphragm
pessary, which he and Dr. Jacobs had perfected. Dr. and Madame Hoitsema
Rutgers had taken charge of the League in 1899 with such success that
the work had spread through that well-ordered kingdom. In recognition of
its extensive and valuable accomplishment, Queen Wilhelmina had
presented it with a medal of honor and a charter, and counted it one of
the great public utilities.
In my statistical investigations I paid special attention to the birth
and mortality rates of the Netherlands to see how they had been affected
over this period of thirty-five years. They showed the lowest maternal
mortality, whereas the United States was at the top of the list; three
times more mothers’ lives were being saved in the little dike country
than in my native land. Furthermore, the infant death rate of Rotterdam,
Amsterdam, and the Hague, the three cities in which the League was most
active, were the lowest of all those in the world.
During the same period the death rate had been cut in half, but,
surprisingly, I found that the birth rate had been reduced only a third.
In other words, the death rate had fallen faster than the birth rate,
which meant that the population of the Netherlands was increasing more
rapidly than that of any other country in Europe.
I had much difficulty in reconciling these figures with my preconceived
idea that birth control would automatically bring about a decrease in
population. Since it was increasing, then perhaps birth control was not,
after all, the answer to the economic international problem. If this
were true all my calculations were going to be upset.
Impatient to go to the Netherlands and dig out the real facts, not only
from Dutch records but from personal observation, I decided quietly—most
of my decisions in those days were quiet ones—to cross the Channel. This
implied possible unwelcome encounters with inquisitive officials,
floating bombs, submarines, and every type of inconvenience and delay,
but my eagerness made me discount the hindrances.
I applied, to the Dutch Consul for a visa to Bertha Watson’s passport.
“Eighty cents, please,” and no questions asked.
So that I should not have to return to London before going on to Paris I
presented myself at the French Consulate also. I waited two hours. “Two
dollars, please,” and still no queries.
I attached myself to the end of the long line waiting at Victoria
Station to have passports inspected, and was soon safely on the train
for Folkestone. We were late when we reached the Channel. Again we lined
up for inspection. Many Belgian women with four or five children were
going back to their people; the sleepy little ones and the tired women
settled on the platform to rest until some had gone through. Two
detectives glanced casually at my passport, and then allowed me to enter
the official chamber. Inspections had been growing steadily more strict;
this was the ultimate test. There sat in a row three officers in mufti,
well-fed and brusque with authority. I handed my passport to the first,
who looked me up and down as though I were a treacherous enemy, then
pushed it over to the next. This man too viewed me with suspicion and
mistrust, and pulled out a notebook, scanning the names to see whether
mine were on the proscribed list. The last of the three, who was to make
the final decision—crisp, trim, and hard as nails in voice and
manner—demanded, “What are you going to the Continent for, Madam?
Another joy ride? You Americans must think that’s all this War amounts
to. Can you produce any good reason for letting you through?”
Fortunately I was prepared for such a contingency. I took out of my
purse a letter from Bernarr MacFadden asking me to answer certain
questions in the form of articles for _Physical Culture_ such as the
relation between the unfit and population growth. I offered this
document while those in line behind me waited restively. He read it
meticulously, taking longer than necessary as it seemed to me in my
nervousness. At last he folded it neatly and said, “A good work, this.
Too bad someone hasn’t done it before.”
Then he put his last official stamp on my various papers and I passed
through for the gangplank.
No complications presented themselves at the Hague, and early on a
January morning in 1915 I registered at an inexpensive hotel. It was
comforting to hear a radiator sizzling once more. I joined the other
guests who were cheerfully breakfasting together _en famille_ at a
single table, and, since I spoke neither Dutch nor German, silently
munched my black bread and cheese, downed the excellent coffee, and
watched interestedly. Though stolid in appearance like all the Dutch,
they were friendly.
I did not try to telephone Dr. Rutgers. Instead, though it was not yet
nine o’clock, I hailed a taxi and held out to the driver a slip of paper
on which I had written the street and number. In response to my ring at
the door to which I was delivered, a tiny square window in the upper
part opened mysteriously and a face—wizened, aged, and inquisitive—was
framed in the aperture. It remained while I explained my mission.
Apparently trust was inspired because, my story finished, the door swung
wide and the face, materialized into Dr. Rutgers, ushered me into the
library, where I waited until he came back in his street clothing. Then
we went out to a second breakfast in a near-by café.
The doctor turned out to be a kindly little man, whose wife was now an
invalid. It was hard for him to talk English. Most of the Dutch had four
languages, but only those who had lived in England spoke English well.
The difficulties, however, lessened as we nibbled brioches and sipped
coffee after coffee until noon. Warming to my narrative of the battle in
the United States, he shook his head when he thought of what I might
have to face in the future, and expressed more concern over my
predicament and more heartfelt sympathy with my having had to leave the
children behind than anybody I had yet met. He was the first person to
whom I had been able to overflow about my personal sadness.
On his part Dr. Rutgers described his hardships in keeping the clinics
open and, through the League, preventing adverse legislation.
Neo-Malthusianism had never been popular anywhere, no matter what the
proof in the lessening of human misery and suffering. Dr. Rutgers had
borne alone the brunt of all the criticism directed at his society.
The Rutgers method for establishing new clinics had resulted in a sound
system for dealing with the birth rate. The men and women who acted as
his councilors understood that a rising birth rate, no matter where in
the country, would soon be followed by a high infant mortality rate.
Accordingly, they reported this quickly to the society, which sent a
midwife or practical nurse, trained in the technique standardized by Dr.
Rutgers, into the congested sector to set up a demonstration clinic. She
usually took an apartment with two extra rooms, one for waiting, the
other a modestly equipped office like that of any country midwife.
Her duty was to go into the home where a child had died, inquire into
the cause, and give friendly advice regarding the mother’s own health.
She also encouraged her not to have another baby until the condition of
ignorance, poverty, or disease, whichever it might be, had either been
bettered or eliminated. Whenever four had been born into such a family
this advice was made more emphatic.