reduced sometimes even to cannibalism. Polite people at a banquet show
no hint of such fierce, relentless greed. Relieved of the necessity for
spending our whole time taking care of ourselves, we shall deliciously
launch forward into the much larger pleasure of taking care of one
another. Relieved of the ceaseless, instant pressure of purely physical
needs, we shall be able to put forth the true demands of human life at
last. The mind, no longer penned in its weary treadmill of private
affairs, will spread into its legitimate area--public affairs. We shall
be able to see a greater number of things at once, and care about them.
That larger-mindedness will be an immediate result; for we have already
far more capacity than we use.
We have developed the modern civilised mind, the social mind, through
the world's work; but we bury it, enslave it, stultify it, in the
home's work. A new power--a new sense of range--freedom, growth, as of
a great stream flowing freely; plenty of force to work with, plenty of
room to work in--this is what will follow as we learn to properly
relate the home to the rest of life.
Once the mind rises, free, outside those old enclosing, crushing walls,
it will see life with different eyes. Our common good will appear to us
as naturally as our private good does now. At present the average mind
does not seem able to grasp a great general fact, be it for good or
evil.
To make a man appreciate the proposed advantage, realise the impending
or existing evil, we must "bring it home to him," make him feel it
"where he lives." When his home does not occupy most of his mind, tax
his strength, reduce his range of interest and affection, he can see
the big things more easily. When he "lives" in the whole city--_i.e._,
thinks about it, cares about it, works for it, loves it--then he will
promptly feel anything that affects it in any part. This common love
and care are just as possible to human beings as love and care for
one's own young are possible to the beasts. It is possible; it is
natural; it is a great and increasing joy; but its development is
checked by a system which requires all our love and care for our own,
and even then does not properly provide for them.
The love of human beings for each other is not a dream of religion, it
is a law of nature. It is bred of human contact, of human relation, of
human service; it rests on identical interest and the demands of a
social development which must include all, if it permanently lift any.
Against this perfectly natural development stands this opposing shell;
this earlier form of life, essential in its place, most mischievous out
of it; this early cradle of humanity in which lie smothered the
full-grown people of to-day.
Must we then leave it--lose it--go without it? Never. The more broadly
socialised we become, the more we need our homes to rest in. The large
area is necessary for the human soul; the big, modern, civilised social
nature. But we are still separate animal beings as well as collective
social beings. Always we need to return to the dear old ties, to the
great primal basis, that we may rise refreshed and strengthened, like
Antæus from the earth. Private, secluded, sweet, wholly our own; not
invaded by any trade or work or business, not open to the crowd; the
place of the one initial and undying group of father, mother, and
child, will remain to us. These, and the real friend, are all that
belong to the home.
It should be the recognised base and background of our lives; but those
lives must be lived in their true area, the world. And so lived, by
both of us, all of us; shared in by the child, served in by the woman
as well as the man; that world will grow to have the sense of intimacy,
of permanent close attachment, of comfort and pleasure and rest, which
now attaches only to the home.
So, living, really living in the world and loving it, the presence
there of father, mother, and child will gradually bring out in it all
the beauty and safety, the refreshment and strength we so vainly seek
to ensure in our private home. The sense of duty, of reverence, of
love, honestly transferred to the world we live in, will have its
natural, its inevitable effect, and make that world our home at last.
THE END
BOOKS BY CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN
The Man-made World, or: Our Androcentric Culture.
By
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN
Many books have been written about women, as such; women as females.
This is a book about men, as such; men as males.
Women have been considered as a sex, and their character and actions so
discussed.
This book considers men as a sex; and their character and actions are
so discussed.
Too much of women's influence is dreaded as "feminization"--as likely
to render our culture "effeminate."
Too much of men's influence is here studied as "masculization" and as
having rendered our culture--there is no analogue for "effeminate."
We have heard much of the "eternal womanly;" this book treats of the
eternal manly.
"_Cherchez la femme!_" is the old hue and cry; this book raises a
new one: "_Cherchez l'homme!_"
By mail of Charlton Co., $1.00.
What Diantha Did.
A Novel by
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN
We have had military novels, and marine novels; novels of adventure, of
mystery and crime; religious novels, historic novels, novels of
business life, trades unions and the labor question; novels of "local
color," dialect novels; and romances pure and simple--also impure and
complicated. This novel deals with the most practical problem of
women's lives today--and settles it--NOT by cooperation.
By mail of Charlton Co., $1.00.
CHARLTON COMPANY, 67 Wall St., New York
"THE YELLOW WALLPAPER"
Worthy of a place beside some of the weird masterpieces of Hawthorne
and Poe.--_Literature._
As a short story it stands among the most powerful produced in
America.--_Chicago News._
By mail of Charlton Co., $0.50.
"HUMAN WORK"
Charlotte Perkins Gilman has added a third to her great trilogy of
books on economic subjects as they affect our daily life, particularly
in the home. Mrs. Gilman is by far the most brilliant woman writer of
our day, and this new volume, which she calls "Human Work," is a
glorification of labor.--_New Orleans Picayune._
Charlotte Perkins Gilman has been writing a new book, entitled "Human
Work." It is the best thing that Mrs. Gilman has done, and it is meant
to focus all of her previous work, so to speak.--_Tribune, Chicago._
In her latest volume, "Human Work," Charlotte Perkins Gilman places
herself among the foremost students and elucidators of the problem of
social economics.--_San Francisco Star._
It is impossible to overestimate the value of the insistence on the
social aspect of human affairs as Mrs. Gilman has outlined it.--_Public
Opinion._
By mail of Charlton Co., $1.00.
"IN THIS OUR WORLD"
There is a joyous superabundance of life, of strength, of health, in
Mrs. Gilman's verse, which seems born of the glorious sunshine and rich
gardens of California.--_Washington Times._
The freshness, charm and geniality of her satire temporarily convert us
to her most advanced views.--_Boston Journal._
The poet of women and for women, a new and prophetic voice in the
world. Montaigne would have rejoiced in her.--_Mexican Herald._
By mail of Charlton Co., $1.25.
"THE HOME"
Indeed, Mrs. Gilman has not intended her book so much as a treatise for
scholars as a surgical operation on the popular mind.--_The Critic,
New York._
Whatever Mrs. Gilman writes, people read--approving or protesting,
still they read.--_Republican, Springfield, Mass._
Full of thought and of new and striking suggestions. Tells what the
average woman has and ought not keep, what she is and ought not
be.--_Literature World._
But it is safe to say that no more stimulating arraignment has ever
before taken shape and that the argument of the book is noble, and, on
the whole, convincing.--_Congregationalist, Boston._
The name of this author is a guarantee of logical reasoning, sound
economical principles and progressive thought.--_The Craftsman,
Syracuse._
By mail of Charlton Co., $1.00.
"The Home" has been translated into Swedish.
"WOMEN AND ECONOMICS"
Since John Stuart Mill's essay there has been no book dealing with the
whole position of women to approach it in originality of conception and
brilliancy of exposition.--_London Chronicle._
The most significant utterance on the subject since Mill's "Subjection
of Women."--_The Nation._
It is the strongest book on the woman question that has yet been
published.--_Minneapolis Journal._
A remarkable book. A work on economics that has not a dull page,--the
work of a woman about women that has not a flippant word.--_Boston
Transcript._
This book unites in a remarkable degree the charm of a brilliantly
written essay with the inevitable logic of a proposition of Euclid.
Nothing that we have read for many a long day can approach in clearness
of conception, in power of arrangement, and in lucidity of expression
the argument developed in the first seven chapters of this remarkable
book.--_Westminster Gazette, London._
Will be widely read and discussed as the cleverest, fairest, most
forcible presentation of the view of the rapidly increasing group who
look with favor on the extension of industrial employment to
women.--_Political Science Quarterly._
By mail of Charlton Co., $1.50.
"Women and Economics" has been translated into German,
Dutch, Italian, Hungarian, Russian and Japanese.
"CONCERNING CHILDREN"
WANTED:--A philanthropist, to give a copy to every English-speaking
parent.--_The Times, New York._
Should be read by every mother in the land.--_The Press, New York._
Wholesomely disturbing book that deserves to be read for its own
sake.--_Chicago Dial._
By mail of Charlton Co., $1.25.
"Concerning Children" has been translated into German, Dutch
and Yiddish.
CHARLTON COMPANY, 67 Wall St., New York
THE FORERUNNER
A monthly magazine; written, edited, owned and published by
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN
67 Wall Street, New York City, U.S.A.
SUBSCRIPTION PER YEAR:
Domestic $1.00
Canadian 1.12
Foreign 1.25
This magazine carries Mrs. Gilman's best and newest work; her social
philosophy, verse, satire, fiction, ethical teaching, humor, and
opinion.
It stands for Humanness in Women, and in Men; for better methods in
Child-culture; for the New Ethics, the New Economics, the New World we
are to make--are making.
ORDERS TAKEN FOR
Bound Vols. of first year, $1.25
BOOKS BY CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN
Women and Economics $1.50
Concerning Children 1.25
In This Our World (verse) 1.25
The Yellow Wallpaper (story) 0.50
The Home 1.00
Human Work 1.00
What Diantha Did (novel) 1.00
The Man-made World; or, Our Androcentric Culture 1.00
CHARLTON COMPANY, 67 Wall St., New York