The Forerunner, Volume 1 by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (page 11)

“You ought to close up the house,” he said, “and spend the winter in a warm climate. You need complete rest and change, for a long time, a year at least,” he told her. I urged her to go.

“Do make a change,” I begged. “Here’s Mrs. Sibthorpe perfectly willing to keep Mirabella–she’d be just as well off there; and you do really need a rest.”

Emma smiled that saintly smile of hers, and said, “Of course, if Mirabella would go to her sister’s awhile I could leave? But I can’t ask her to go.”

I could. I did. I put it to her fair and square,–the state of Emma’s health, her real need to break up housekeeping, and how Arabella was just waiting for her to come there. But what’s the use of talking to that kind? Emma wasn’t sick, couldn’t be sick, nobody could. At that very moment she paused suddenly, laid a fat hand on a fat side with an expression that certainly looked like pain; but she changed it for one of lofty and determined faith, and seemed to feel better. It made her cross though, as near it as she ever gets. She’d have been rude I think, but she likes my motor, to say nothing of my fudge.

I took them both out to ride that very afternoon, and Dr. Lucy with us.

Emma, foolish thing, insisted on sitting with the driver, and Mirabella made for her pet corner at once. I put Dr. Lucy in the middle, and encouraged Mirabella in her favorite backsliding, the discussion of her symptoms–the symptoms she used to have–or would have now if she gave way to “error.”

Dr. Lucy was ingeniously sympathetic. She made no pretence of taking up the new view, but was perfectly polite about it.

“Judging from what you tell me”, she said, “and from my own point of view, I should say that you had a quite serious digestive trouble; that you had a good deal of pain now and then; and were quite likely to have a sudden and perhaps serious attack. But that is all nonsense to you I suppose.”

“Of course it is!” said Mirabella, turning a shade paler.

We were running smoothly down the to avenue where Arabella lived.

“Here’s something to cheer you up,” I said, producing my two boxes of fudge. One I passed around in front to Emma; she couldn’t share it with us. The other I gave Mirabella.

She fell upon it at once; perfunctorily offering some to Dr. Lucy, who declined; and to me. I took one for politeness’s sake, and casually put it in my pocket.

We had just about reached Mrs. Sibthorpe’s gate when Mirabella gave in.

“Oh I have such a terrible pain!” said she. “Oh Dr. Lucy! What shall I do?”

“Shall I take you down to your healer?” I suggested; but Mirabella was feeling very badly indeed.

“I think I’d better go in here a moment,” she said; and in five minutes we had her in bed in what used to be her room.

Dr. Lucy seemed averse to prescribe.

“I have no right to interfere with your faith, Mrs. Vlack,” she said. “I have medicines which I think would relieve you, but you do not believe in them. I think you should summon your–practitioner, at once.”

“Oh Dr. Lucy!” gasped poor Mirabella, whose aspect was that of a small boy in an August orchard. “Don’t leave me! Oh do something for me quick!”

“Will you do just what I say?”

“I will! I will; I’ll do _anything_!” said Mirabella, curling up in as small a heap as was possible to her proportions, and Dr. Lucy took the case.

We waited in the big bald parlors till she came down to tell us what was wrong. Emma seemed very anxious, but then Emma is a preternatural saint.

Arabella came home and made a great todo. “So fortunate that she was near my door!” she said. “Oh my poor sister! I am so glad she has a real doctor!”

The real doctor came down after a while. “She is practically out of pain,” she said, “and resting quietly. But she is extremely weak, and ought not to be moved for a long time.”

“She shall not be!” said Arabella fervently. “My own sister! I am so thankful she came to me in her hour of need!”

I took Emma away. “Let’s pick up Mrs. Montrose,” I said. “She’s tired out with packing–the air will do her good.”

She was glad to come. We all sat back comfortably in the big seat and had a fine ride; and then Mrs. Montrose had us both come in and take dinner with her. Emma ate better than I’d seen her in months, and before she went home it was settled that she leave with Mrs. Montrose on Tuesday.

Dear Emma! She was as pleased as a child. I ran about with her, doing a little shopping. “Don’t bother with anything,” I said, “You can get things out there. Maybe you’ll go on to Japan next spring with the James’s.”

“If we could sell the house I would!” said Emma. She brisked and sparkled–the years fell off from her–she started off looking fairly girlish in her hope and enthusiasm.

I drew a long sigh of relief.

Mr. MacAvelly has some real estate interests.

The house was sold before Mirabella was out of bed.

SHARES

To those who in leisure may meet
Comes Summer, green, fragrant and fair, With roses and stars in her hair;
Summer, as motherhood sweet.
To us, in the waste of the street, No Summer, only–The Heat!

To those of the fortunate fold
Comes Winter, snow-clean and ice-bright, With joy for the day and the night,
Winter, as fatherhood bold.
To us, without silver or gold,
No Winter, only–The Cold!

GENIUS, DOMESTIC AND MATERNAL. II.

Consider the mighty influence of Dr. Arnold, of Emma Willard; and think of that all lost to the world, and concentrated relentlessly on a few little Arnolds and Willards alone!

The children of such genius can healthfully share in its benefits but not healthily monopolize them.

Our appreciation of this study is hampered by the limitation of little exercised minds. Most of us accept things as they are–cannot easily imagine them different, and fear any change as evil.

There was a time when there wasn’t a school or a schoolhouse on earth; people may yet be found who see no need of them. To build places for children to spend part of the day in–away from their mothers–and be cared for by specialists!–Horrible!

The same feeling meets us now when it is suggested that places should be built for the babies to spend part of the day in–away from their mothers–and be cared for by specialists!–Horrible! Up hops in every mind those twin bugaboos, the Infant Hospital and the Orphan Asylum. That is all the average mind can think of as an “institution” for babies.

Think of the kindergarten. Think of the day-nursery. Multiply and magnify these a thousand fold; make them beautiful, comfortable, hygienic, safe and sweet and near–one for every twenty or thirty families perhaps; and put in each, not a casual young kindergarten apprentice or hired nurse; but Genius, Training and Experience. Then you can “teach the mothers,” for at last there can be gathered a body of facts, real knowledge, on the subject of child culture; and it can take its place in modern progress.

Every mother whose baby spent its day hours in such care would take home new knowledge and new standards to aid her there; and the one mother out of twenty or thirty who cared most about it would be in that baby house herself–she is the Genius. Not anybody’s hired “nursemaid,” but a nurse-mother, a teacher-mother, a Human Mother at last.

The same opening confronts us when we squirm so helplessly in what we call “the domestic problem.” That problem is “How can every woman carry on the same trade equally well?”

Answer–She can’t.

All women do not like to “keep house;” and there is no reason why all men, and all children, as well as the women, should suffer in health, comfort and peace of mind under their mal-administration. We need the Expert, the Specialist, the Genius, here too.

Thousands of discontented women are doing very imperfectly what hundreds could do well and enjoy.

Thousands of men are paying unnecessary bills, eating what we may politely call “unnecessary food,” and putting up with the discontented woman. Thousands of children are growing up as best they can under inexpert mothers and inexpert housekeepers. Thousands of unnecessary deaths, invalids, and miserable lives; millions and millions of dollars wasted; and all this for the simple lack of society’s first law–Specialization.

Here are all these unspecialized housekeepers wriggling miserably with their unspecialized servants; and others–the vast majority, remember–“doing their own work” in a crude and ineffectual manner; and there is not even a standard whereby to judge our shortcomings! We have never known anything better, and the average mind cannot imagine anything better than it has ever known.

(When we have expert Childculture, we shall cultivate the imagination!)

“Do you want us to give up our homes?” cries the Average Mind. “Must we live in hotels, eat in restaurants?”

No, dear Average Mind.

Every family should have its own home; and it ought to be a real home, with a real garden. Among the homes and gardens should stand the baby-house with its baby-gardens; and quite apart from these fair homes should stand the Workshops. The Cleaning Establishment, the Laundry–the Cookshop; the Service Bureau; each and all in charge of its Genius–its special person who likes that kind of work and does it well.

The home, quiet, sweet and kitchenless, will be visited by swift skilled cleaners to keep it up to the highest sanitary standards; the dishes will come in filled with fresh, hot food, and go out in the same receptacle, for proper cleansing; the whole labor of “housekeeping” will be removed from the home, and the woman will begin to enjoy it as a man does. The man also will enjoy it more. It will be cleaner, quieter, more sanitary, more beautiful and comfortable, and far less expensive.

And what of the average woman?

She will cease to exist. She will become specialized as every civilized person must be. She will not be a woman less, but a human being more. And in these special lines of genius, domestic and maternal, she will lift the whole world forward with amazing speed. The health, the brain-power, the peace of mind, of all our citizens will be increased by the work of the Mother-Genius and maintained by the Domestic Genius.

Have you never known one of those born mothers, with perhaps some training as a kindergartner added; who loves to be with children and whom children love to be with? She is healthy and happy in her work, and the children she cares for grow up with fewer tears, with better constitutions, with strong young hearts and clear brains to meet life’s problems.

Have you never compared such a mother and such children with those we see commonly about us? The mother, nervous, irritable, unfit for her work and not happy in it; a discontented person, her energies both exhausted and unused. What she wastes in uncongenial effort she might spend joyfully in work she was fit for.

Have you never seen the sullen misery, the horrible impotent rage, the fretful unhappiness of mishandled children? Not orphans; and not “neglected”; not physically starved or beaten; but treated with such brutal clumsiness that their childhood is clouded and their whole lives embittered and weakened by the experience?

Are we so blinded by the beautiful ideal of motherhood as it should be, that we continually overlook the limitations of motherhood as it is?

Again have you not seen the home of homes; where the cleanliness is perfect, the quiet and harmony a joy to the soul; where beauty and peace are linked with economy and wisdom? There are such–but they are not common.

As in the other case, our ideals blind us to the facts. Most homes are sadly imperfect; enjoyed by their inmates because they are used to them–and have known no better. What we have so far failed to see is humanity’s right to the best; in these departments of life, as well as others.

As we live now, the ever-growing weight of our just demands for a higher order of home falling on the ever more inadequate shoulders of the Average Woman, both Motherhood and the home are imperilled. We are horribly frightened when we see our poor Average Woman shrink from maternity, and [illegible] at housework. We preach at her and scold her and flatter her and woo her, and, if we could, we would force her back into her old place, child-bearer and burden-hearer, the helpless servant of the world.

All this terror is wasted. It is not child-bearing–within reason–that the girl of to-day so dreads. It is the life-long task of child-rearing, for which she begins at last to realize she is unfit. An utterly ignorant woman has no such terror, she bears profusely, rears as she can, and buries as she must. Better one well-born and well-trained, than the incapable six survivors of the unnecessary twelve.

It is not home-life that our girls shrink from; men and women alike, we love and need a home; it is the housework, and the house management, which are no more alluring to a rational woman than to a rational man. “I love ocean travel,” says Mrs. Porne, “but that’s no reason I should wish to be either a captain or a stoker!”

Why not respect this new attitude of our women; study it, try to understand it; see if there is not some reason for it–and some way to change conditions.

Suppose a young woman stands, happy and successful, in her chosen profession. Suppose a young man offers her marriage. Suppose that this meant to her all that life held before–plus Love! Plus a Home Together! Plus Children! Children they both would love, both would provide for, both would work for; but to whom neither would be a living sacrifice–and an ineffectual sacrifice at that.

Children are not improved in proportion to their mother’s immolation. The father’s love, the mother’s love, the sheltering care of both, and all due association, they need, but in the detailed services and education of their lives, they need Genius.

And the Home–that should mean to her precisely what it means to him. Peace, comfort, joy and pride; seclusion; mutual companionship; rest, beautiful privacy and rest–not a workshop.

What we need in this matter is not noisy objurgations and adjurations on the part of men; and not the reluctant submission, or angry refusal, of women–forced to take so much needless bitter with life’s sweetest joy; but a rational facing of the question by the women themselves. It is their business–as much so as the most obdurate mossback can protest–but collectively, not individually.

Let them collect then! Let them organize and specialize–the two go together. Let them develop Genius–and use it; heaven knows it is needed!

IMPROVED METHODS OF HABIT CULTURE

Most of us recognize that common force, “the power of habit.” Most of us have been rigorously, often painfully, almost always annoyingly, trained into what our parents and guardians considered good habits. Most of us know something of the insidious nature of “bad habits”–how easily they slip in, how hard they are to eject.

But few of us know the distinct pleasure of voluntary habit culture, by modern methods.

ln my youth an improving book was prepared for children concerning a Peasant and a Camel. The Peasant was depicted as having a Hut, and a Fireside, and as loafing lazily in its warm glow. Then, in the crack of the door, appeared the appealing nose of a Camel–might he warm that nose? The lazy Peasant wouldn’t take the trouble to get up and shut him out. The appealing nose became an insinuating neck, then intrusive shoulders, and presently we have a whole camel lying by the fire, and the peasant, now alarmed and enraged, vainly belaboring the tough hind quarters of the huge beast which lay in his place.

I was a child of a painfully logical mind, and this story failed of its due effect on me because of certain discrepancies. A. Peasants (in my limited reading) belonged with asses and oxen–not with Camels. Camels had Arab companions–Bedouins–turbaned Blacks–not Peasants. I did not understand the intrusion of this solitary camel into a peasant country. B. Why should the Camel want to come into the hut? Camels are not house-beasts, surely. And to lie by the fire;–cats and dogs like firesides, and crickets, but in my pictures of the Ship of the Desert I never had seen this overmastering desire to get warm. And if it was in sooth a cold country–then in the name of all nursery reasonableness, how came the camel there?

Furthermore, if he was a stray camel, a camel escaped from a circus and seeking the only human companionship he could discover,–in that case such an unusual apparition would have scared the laziest of Peasants into prompt resistance. Moreover, a Hut, to my mind, was necessarily a small building, with but a modest portal; and camels are tall bony beasts, not physically able to slink and crawl. How could the beast get in!

Beyond these criticisms I was filled with contempt at the resourcelessness of the Peasant, who found no better means of ejecting the intruder than to beat him where he felt it the least. It seemed to me a poor story on the face of it, though I did not then know how these things are made up out of whole cloth, as it were, and foisted upon children.

In later years, I found that it was sometimes desirable to catch and tame one’s own camels. Certain characteristics were assuredly more desirable than others, and seemed open to attainment if one but knew how. I experimented with processes, and worked out a method; simple, easy, safe and sure. Safe–unless overdone. It is not well to overdo anything, and if our young people should develop a morbid desire to acquire too many virtues at once, this method would be a strain on the nervous system! Short of such excess, there is no danger involved.

Here is the Subject; up for moral examination; as if for physical examination in a gymnasium. Self-measurements are taken–this is a wholly personal method. Many of us, indeed most of us, are willing to acquire good habits of our own choosing and by our own efforts who would strenuously object to outside management! Very well. The subject decides which Bad Habit He or She wishes to check, or, which Good Habit to develop.

I will take as an illustrative instance a Combination effort: to check the habit of Thoughtless Speech, and substitute the habit of Conscious Control. Common indeed are the offences of the unbridled tongue; and in youth they are especially prevalent.

“Why don’t you think before you speak?” demands the Irate Parent; but has not the faintest idea of the reason–patent though it be to any practical psychologist.

Here is the reason:

Reflex action is earlier established than voluntary action. In a child most activity is reflex–unconscious. It may be complex, modified by many contradictory stimuli, but whatever else modifies it, a clear personal determination seldom does.

Most of us carry this simple early state of mind through life. We speak according to present impulse, provocation, and state of mind; and afterward are sorry for it. When we are called upon to “think before we speak”, a distinct psychological process is required. We have to establish a new connection between the speech center and the center of volition. To hold the knife in the right hand and carve is easy; to hold it in the left is hard, for most of us, merely because the controlling impulse has always been sent to the muscles of the right arm. To learn to cut with the left is an extra effort, but can be done if necessary. It is merely a matter of repetition of command, properly measured.

So with our Subject.

“You speak thoughtlessly, do you? You say things you wish you hadn’t? You’d like to be able to use your judgement beforehand instead of afterward when it’s too late?” Very well.

First Step.–Make up your mind that you _will_ think before you speak. This “making up one’s mind,” as we so lightly call it, is in itself a distinct act. Suppose you have to get up at five, and have no alarm clock nor anyone to waken you. You “make up your mind,” hard, that you must wake up at five; you rouse yourself from coming sleep with the renewed intense determination to wake up at five; your last waking thought is “I must wake up at five!”–and you do wake up at five. You set an alarm inside–and it worked. After a while, the need continuing, you always wake up at five–no trouble at all–and a good deal of trouble to break the habit when you want to. When the mind is “made up” it is apt to stay.

Second Step.–Dismiss the matter from your mind. You may not think of your determination again for a month–but at last you do.

Third Step.–When your determination reappears to you, welcome it easily. Do not scold because it was so long in coming. Do not lament its lateness. Just say, “Ah! Here you are! I knew you’d come!” Then _drive it in._ That is, make up your mind again–harder than before, and again dismiss it completely. You will remember it again in less time–say in a fortnight. Then you can welcome it more cordially, feeling already that the game is yours: and drive it in again with good will.

Presently it reappears–in a week maybe. “Hurrah!” you say, wasting never a spark of energy on lamenting the delay; this is a natural process and takes time, and once more you make up your mind. Presently you will think of it oftener and oftener, daily perhaps; the idea of control will flutter nearer and nearer to the moment of expression, but always too soon–when you are not about to say anything, or too late–after you have said it.

Do not waste energy in fretting over this delay; just renew your determination as often as it pops into your head–“I _will_ think _before_ I speak.”

By and by you do so. You remember _in time._ Your brother aggravates you–your mother is swearing–your father is too severe–your girl friends tempt you to unwise confidences–but–you remember!

Then, for the first time, a new nerve connection is established. From the center of volition a little pulse of power goes down; the unruly member is checked in mid-career, and you decide what you shall or shall not say!

Very well. The miracle is wrought, you think. You have attained. Wait a bit.

Fourth Step.–_Turn off the power._ Don’t think of it again that day. But to-morrow it will come again; use it twice; next day four times, perhaps; but go slowly.

Here is the formula:

1st. Make up your mind.

2nd. Release the spring.

3rd. Remake as often as you think of it cheerfully, always releasing the spring.

4th. When you have at last established connection;

Do it as often as you think of it;–

Stop _before_ you are tired.

The last direction is the patentable secret of this process.

Always before we have been taught to strive unceasingly for our virtues; and to reproach ourselves bitterly if we “back-slide.” When we learn more of our mental machinery we shall feel differently about back-sliding. When you are learning the typewriter or the bicycle or the use of skates, you do not gain by practicing day and night. Practice–_and rest;_ that is the trick.

After you have learned your new virtue, it will not tire you to practice it; but while you are learning, go slow.

If you essay to hold your arm out straight; and hold it there till muscle and nerve are utterly exhausted, you have gone backward rather than forward in establishing the habit. But if you deliberately pour nerve force along that arm for a while, holding it out as you choose; and then withdraw the nerve force, release the pressure, discontinue the determination, drop the arm, _because you choose,_ and _before you are tired_–then you can repeatedly hold it out a little longer until you have mastered the useless art.

Don’t waste nerve force on foolish and unnecessary things–physical or moral; but invest it, carefully, without losing an ounce, in the gradual and easy acquisition of whatever new habits You, as the Conscious Master, desire to develop in your organism.

O FAITHFUL CLAY!

O faithful clay of ancient brain!
Deep graven with tradition dim,
Hard baked with time and glazed with pain, On your blind page man reads again
What else were lost to him.

Blessed the day when art was found
To carve and paint, to print and write, So may we store past memory’s bound,
Make our heaped knowledge common ground. So may the brain go light.

Oh wondrous power of brain released,
Kindled–alive–set free;
Knowledge possessed; desire increased; We enter life’s continual feast
To see–to see–to see!

WHAT DIANTHA DID

CHAPTER IX.

“SLEEPING IN.”

Men have marched in armies, fleets have borne them, Left their homes new countries to subdue; Young men seeking fortune wide have wandered– We have something new.

Armies of young maidens cross our oceans; Leave their mother’s love, their father’s care; Maidens, young and helpless, widely wander, Burdens new to bear.

Strange the land and language, laws and customs; Ignorant and all alone they come;
Maidens young and helpless, serving strangers, Thus we keep the Home.

When on earth was safety for young maidens Far from mother’s love and father’s care? We preserve The Home, and call it sacred– Burdens new they bear.

The sun had gone down on Madam Weatherstone’s wrath, and risen to find it unabated. With condensed disapprobation written on every well-cut feature, she came to the coldly gleaming breakfast table.

That Mrs. Halsey was undoubtedly gone, she had to admit; yet so far failed to find the exact words of reproof for a woman of independent means discharging her own housekeeper when it pleased her.

Young Mathew unexpectedly appeared at breakfast, perhaps in anticipation of a sort of Roman holiday in which his usually late and apologetic stepmother would furnish the amusement. They were both surprised to find her there before them, looking uncommonly fresh in crisp, sheer white, with deep-toned violets in her belt.

She ate with every appearance of enjoyment, chatting amiably about the lovely morning–the flowers, the garden and the gardeners; her efforts ill seconded, however.

“Shall I attend to the orders this morning?” asked Madam Weatherstone with an air of noble patience.

“O no, thank you!” replied Viva. “I have engaged a new housekeeper.”

“A new housekeeper! When?” The old lady was shaken by this inconceivable promptness.

“Last night,” said her daughter-in-law, looking calmly across the table, her color rising a little.

“And when is she coming, if I may ask?”

“She has come. I have been with her an hour already this morning.”

Young Mathew smiled. This was amusing, though not what he had expected. “How extremely alert and businesslike!” he said lazily. “It’s becoming to you–to get up early!”

“You can’t have got much of a person–at a minute’s notice,” said his grandmother. “Or perhaps you have been planning this for some time?”

“No,” said Viva. “I have wanted to get rid of Mrs. Halsey for some time, but the new one I found yesterday.”

“What’s her name?” inquired Mathew.

“Bell–Miss Diantha Bell,” she answered, looking as calm as if announcing the day of the week, but inwardly dreading the result somewhat. Like most of such terrors it was overestimated.

There was a little pause–rather an intense little pause; and then–“Isn’t that the girl who set ’em all by the ears yesterday?” asked the young man, pointing to the morning paper. “They say she’s a good-looker.”

Madam Weatherstone rose from the table in some agitation. “I must say I am very sorry, Viva, that you should have been so–precipitate! This young woman cannot be competent to manage a house like this–to say nothing of her scandalous ideas. Mrs. Halsey was–to my mind–perfectly satisfactory. I shall miss her very much.” She swept out with an unanswerable air.

“So shall I,” muttered Mat, under his breath, as he strolled after her; “unless the new one’s equally amiable.”

Viva Weatherstone watched them go, and stood awhile looking after the well-built, well-dressed, well-mannered but far from well-behaved young man.

“I don’t _know_,” she said to herself, “but I do feel–think–imagine–a good deal. I’m sure I hope not! Anyway–it’s new life to have that girl in the house.”

That girl had undertaken what she described to Ross as “a large order–a very large order.”

“It’s the hardest thing I ever undertook,” she wrote him, “but I think I can do it; and it will be a tremendous help. Mrs. Weatherstone’s a brick–a perfect brick! She seems to have been very unhappy–for ever so long–and to have submitted to her domineering old mother-in-law just because she didn’t care enough to resist. Now she’s got waked up all of a sudden–she says it was my paper at the club–more likely my awful example, I think! and she fired her old housekeeper–I don’t know what for–and rushed me in.

“So here I am. The salary is good, the work is excellent training, and I guess I can hold the place. But the old lady is a terror, and the young man–how you would despise that Johnny!”

The home letters she now received were rather amusing. Ross, sternly patient, saw little difference in her position. “I hope you will enjoy your new work,” he wrote, “but personally I should prefer that you did not–so you might give it up and come home sooner. I miss you as you can well imagine. Even when you were here life was hard enough–but now!–

“I had a half offer for the store the other day, but it fell through. If I could sell that incubus and put the money into a ranch–fruit, hens, anything–then we could all live on it; more cheaply, I think; and I could find time for some research work I have in mind. You remember that guinea-pig experiment I want so to try?”

Diantha remembered and smiled sadly. She was not much interested in guinea-pigs and their potential capacities, but she was interested in her lover and his happiness. “Ranch,” she said thoughtfully; “that’s not a bad idea.”

Her mother wrote the same patient loving letters, perfunctorily hopeful. Her father wrote none–“A woman’s business–this letter-writin’,” he always held; and George, after one scornful upbraiding, had “washed his hands of her” with some sense of relief. He didn’t like to write letters either.

But Susie kept up a lively correspondence. She was attached to her sister, as to all her immediate relatives and surroundings; and while she utterly disapproved of Diantha’s undertaking, a sense of sisterly duty, to say nothing of affection, prompted her to many letters. It did not, however, always make these agreeable reading.

“Mother’s pretty well, and the girl she’s got now does nicely–that first one turned out to be a failure. Father’s as cranky as ever. We are all well here and the baby (this was a brand new baby Diantha had not seen) is just a Darling! You ought to be here, you unnatural Aunt! Gerald doesn’t ever speak of you–but I do just the same. You hear from the Wardens, of course. Mrs. Warden’s got neuralgia or something; keeps them all busy. They are much excited over this new place of yours–you ought to hear them go on! It appears that Madam Weatherstone is a connection of theirs–one of the F. F. V’s, I guess, and they think she’s something wonderful. And to have _you_ working _there!_–well, you can just see how they’d feel; and I don’t blame them. It’s no use arguing with you–but I should think you’d have enough of this disgraceful foolishness by this time and come home!”

Diantha tried to be very philosophic over her home letters; but they were far from stimulating. “It’s no use arguing with poor Susie!” she decided. “Susie thinks the sun rises and sets between kitchen, nursery and parlor!

“Mother can’t see the good of it yet, but she will later–Mother’s all right.

“I’m awfully sorry the Wardens feel so–and make Ross unhappy–but of course I knew they would. It can’t be helped. It’s just a question of time and work.”

And she went to work.

*

Mrs. Porne called on her friend most promptly, with a natural eagerness and curiosity.

“How does it work? Do you like her as much as you thought? Do tell me about it, Viva. You look like another woman already!”

“I certainly feel like one,” Viva answered. “I’ve seen slaves in housework, and I’ve seen what we fondly call ‘Queens’ in housework; but I never saw brains in it before.”

Mrs. Porne sighed. “Isn’t it just wonderful–the way she does things! Dear me! We do miss her! She trained that Swede for us–and she does pretty well–but not like ‘Miss Bell’! I wish there were a hundred of her!”

“If there were a hundred thousand she wouldn’t go round!” answered Mrs. Weatherstone. “How selfish we are! _That_ is the kind of woman we all want in our homes–and fuss because we can’t have them.”

“Edgar says he quite agrees with her views,” Mrs. Porne went on. “Skilled labor by the day–food sent in–. He says if she cooked it he wouldn’t care if it came all the way from Alaska! She certainly can cook! I wish she’d set up her business–the sooner the better.”

Mrs. Weatherstone nodded her head firmly. “She will. She’s planning. This was really an interruption–her coming here, but I think it will be a help–she’s not had experience in large management before, but she takes hold splendidly. She’s found a dozen ‘leaks’ in our household already.”

“Mrs. Thaddler’s simply furious, I hear,” said the visitor. “Mrs. Ree was in this morning and told me all about it. Poor Mrs. Ree! The home is church and state to her; that paper of Miss Bell’s she regards as simple blasphemy.”

They both laughed as that stormy meeting rose before them.

“I was so proud of you, Viva, standing up for her as you did. How did you ever dare?”

“Why I got my courage from the girl herself. She was–superb! Talk of blasphemy! Why I’ve committed _lese majeste_ and regicide and the Unpardonable Sin since that meeting!” And she told her friend of her brief passage at arms with Mrs. Halsey. “I never liked the woman,” she continued; “and some of the things Miss Bell said set me thinking. I don’t believe we half know what’s going on in our houses.”

“Well, Mrs. Thaddler’s so outraged by ‘this scandalous attack upon the sanctities of the home’ that she’s going about saying all sorts of things about Miss Bell. O look–I do believe that’s her car!”

Even as they spoke a toneless voice announced, “Mr. and Mrs. Thaddler,” and Madam Weatherstone presently appeared to greet these visitors.

“I think you are trying a dangerous experiment!” said Mrs. Thaddler to her young hostess. “A very dangerous experiment! Bringing that young iconoclast into your home!”

Mr. Thaddler, stout and sulky, sat as far away as he could and talked to Mrs. Porne. “I’d like to try that same experiment myself,” said he to her. “You tried it some time, I understand?”

“Indeed we did–and would still if we had the chance,” she replied. “We think her a very exceptional young woman.”

Mr. Thaddler chuckled. “She is that!” he agreed. “Gad! How she did set things humming! They’re humming yet–at our house!”

He glanced rather rancorously at his wife, and Mrs. Porne wished, as she often had before, that Mr. Thaddler wore more clothing over his domestic afflictions.

“Scandalous!” Mrs. Thaddler was saying to Madam Weatherstone. “Simply scandalous! Never in my life did I hear such absurd–such outrageous–charges against the sanctities of the home!”

“There you have it!” said Mr. Thaddler, under his breath. “Sanctity of the fiddlesticks! There was a lot of truth in what that girl said!” Then he looked rather sheepish and flushed a little–which was needless; easing his collar with a fat finger.

Madam Weatherstone and Mrs. Thaddler were at one on this subject; but found it hard to agree even so, no love being lost between them; and the former gave evidence of more satisfaction than distress at this “dangerous experiment” in the house of her friends. Viva sat silent, but with a look of watchful intelligence that delighted Mrs. Porne.

“It has done her good already,” she said to herself. “Bless that girl!”

Mr. Thaddler went home disappointed in the real object of his call–he had hoped to see the Dangerous Experiment again. But his wife was well pleased.

“They will rue it!” she announced. “Madam Weatherstone is ashamed of her daughter-in-law–I can see that! _She_ looks cool enough. I don’t know what’s got into her!”

“Some of that young woman’s good cooking,” her husband suggested.

“That young woman is not there as cook!” she replied tartly. “What she _is_ there for we shall see later! Mark my words!”

Mr. Thaddler chuckled softly. “I’ll mark ’em!” he said.

Diantha had her hands full. Needless to say her sudden entrance was resented by the corps of servants accustomed to the old regime. She had the keys; she explored, studied, inventoried, examined the accounts, worked out careful tables and estimates. “I wish Mother were here!” she said to herself. “She’s a regular genius for accounts. I _can_ do it–but it’s no joke.”

She brought the results to her employer at the end of the week. “This is tentative,” she said, “and I’ve allowed margins because I’m new to a business of this size. But here’s what this house ought to cost you–at the outside, and here’s what it does cost you now.”

Mrs. Weatherstone was impressed. “Aren’t you a little–spectacular?” she suggested.

Diantha went over it carefully; the number of rooms, the number of servants, the hours of labor, the amount of food and other supplies required.

“This is only preparatory, of course,” she said. “I’ll have to check it off each month. If I may do the ordering and keep all the accounts I can show you exactly in a month, or two at most.”

“How about the servants?” asked Mrs. Weatherstone.

There was much to say here, questions of competence, of impertinence, of personal excellence with “incompatibility of temper.” Diantha was given a free hand, with full liberty to experiment, and met the opportunity with her usual energy.

She soon discharged the unsatisfactory ones, and substituted the girls she had selected for her summer’s experiment, gradually adding others, till the household was fairly harmonious, and far more efficient and economical. A few changes were made among the men also.

By the time the family moved down to Santa Ulrica, there was quite a new spirit in the household. Mrs. Weatherstone fully approved of the Girls’ Club Diantha had started at Mrs. Porne’s; and it went on merrily in the larger quarters of the great “cottage” on the cliff.

“I’m very glad I came to you, Mrs. Weatherstone,” said the girl. “You were quite right about the experience; I did need it–and I’m getting it!”

She was getting some of which she made no mention.

As she won and held the confidence of her subordinates, and the growing list of club members, she learned their personal stories; what had befallen them in other families, and what they liked and disliked in their present places.

“The men are not so bad,” explained Catharine Kelly, at a club meeting, meaning the men servants; “they respect an honest girl if she respects herself; but it’s the young masters–and sometimes the old ones!”

“It’s all nonsense,” protested Mrs. James, widowed cook of long standing. “I’ve worked out for twenty-five years, and I never met no such goings on!”

Little Ilda looked at Mrs. James’ severe face and giggled.

“I’ve heard of it,” said Molly Connors, “I’ve a cousin that’s workin’ in New York; and she’s had to leave two good places on account of their misbehavin’ theirselves. She’s a fine girl, but too good-lookin’.”

Diantha studied types, questioned them, drew them out, adjusted facts to theories and theories to facts. She found the weakness of the whole position to lie in the utter ignorance and helplessness of the individual servant. “If they were only organized,” she thought–“and knew their own power!–Well; there’s plenty of time.”

As her acquaintance increased, and as Mrs. Weatherstone’s interest in her plans increased also, she started the small summer experiment she had planned, for furnishing labor by the day. Mrs. James was an excellent cook, though most unpleasant to work with. She was quite able to see that getting up frequent lunches at three dollars, and dinners at five dollars, made a better income than ten dollars a week even with several days unoccupied.

A group of younger women, under Diantha’s sympathetic encouragement, agreed to take a small cottage together, with Mrs. James as a species of chaperone; and to go out in twos and threes as chambermaids and waitresses at 25 cents an hour. Two of them could set in perfect order one of the small beach cottage in an hour’s time; and the occupants, already crowded for room, were quite willing to pay a little more in cash “not to have a servant around.” Most of them took their meals out in any case.

It was a modest attempt, elastic and easily alterable and based on the special conditions of a shore resort: Mrs. Weatherstone’s known interest gave it social backing; and many ladies who heartily disapproved of Diantha’s theories found themselves quite willing to profit by this very practical local solution of the “servant question.”

The “club girls” became very popular. Across the deep hot sand they ploughed, and clattered along the warping boardwalks, in merry pairs and groups, finding the work far more varied and amusing than the endless repetition in one household. They had pleasant evenings too, with plenty of callers, albeit somewhat checked and chilled by rigorous Mrs. James.

“It is both foolish and wicked!” said Madam Weatherstone to her daughter-in-law, “Exposing a group of silly girls to such danger and temptations! I understand there is singing and laughing going on at that house until half-past ten at night.”

“Yes, there is,” Viva admitted. “Mrs. James insists that they shall all be in bed at eleven–which is very wise. I’m glad they have good times–there’s safety in numbers, you know.”

“There will be a scandal in this community before long!” said the old lady solemnly. “And it grieves me to think that this household will be responsible for it!”

Diantha heard all this from the linen room while Madam Weatherstone buttonholed her daughter-in-law in the hall; and in truth the old lady meant that she should hear what she said.

“She’s right, I’m afraid!” said Diantha to herself–“there will be a scandal if I’m not mighty careful and this household will be responsible for it!”

Even as she spoke she caught Ilda’s childish giggle in the lower hall, and looking over the railing saw her airily dusting the big Chinese vases and coquetting with young Mr. Mathew.

Later on, Diantha tried seriously to rouse her conscience and her common sense. “Don’t you see, child, that it can’t do you anything but harm? You can’t carry on with a man like that as you can with one of your own friends. He is not to be trusted. One nice girl I had here simply left the place–he annoyed her so.”

Ilda was a little sulky. She had been quite a queen in the small Norwegian village she was born in. Young men were young men–and they might even–perhaps! This severe young housekeeper didn’t know everything. Maybe she was jealous!

So Ilda was rather unconvinced, though apparently submissive, and Diantha kept a careful eye upon her. She saw to it that Ilda’s room had a bolt as well as key in the door, and kept the room next to it empty; frequently using it herself, unknown to anyone. “I hate to turn the child off,” she said to herself, conscientiously revolving the matter. “She isn’t doing a thing more than most girls do–she’s only a little fool. And he’s not doing anything I can complain of–yet.”

But she worried over it a good deal, and Mrs. Weatherstone noticed it.

“Doesn’t your pet club house go well, ‘Miss Bell?’ You seem troubled about something.”

“I am,” Diantha admitted. “I believe I’ll have to tell you about it–but I hate to. Perhaps if you’ll come and look I shan’t have to say much.”

She led her to a window that looked on the garden, the rich, vivid, flower-crowded garden of Southern California by the sea. Little Ilda, in a fresh black frock and snowy, frilly cap and apron, ran out to get a rose; and while she sniffed and dallied they saw Mr. Mathew saunter out and join her.

The girl was not as severe with him as she ought to have been–that was evident; but it was also evident that she was frightened and furious when he suddenly held her fast and kissed her with much satisfaction. As soon as her arms were free she gave him a slap that sounded smartly even at that distance; and ran crying into the house.

“She’s foolish, I admit,” said Diantha,–“but she doesn’t realize her danger at all. I’ve tried to make her. And now I’m more worried than ever. It seems rather hard to discharge her–she needs care.”

“I’ll speak to that young man myself,” said Mrs. Weatherstone. “I’ll speak to his grandmother too!”

“O–would you?” urged Diantha. “She wouldn’t believe anything except that the girl ‘led him on’–you know that. But I have an idea that we could convince her–if you’re willing to do something rather melodramatic–and I think we’d better do it to-night!”

“What’s that?” asked her employer; and Diantha explained. It was melodramatic, but promised to be extremely convincing.

“Do you think he’d dare! under my roof?” hotly demanded Madam Weatherstone.

“I’m very much afraid it wouldn’t be the first time,” Diantha reluctantly assured her. “It’s no use being horrified. But if we could only make _sure_–“

“If we could only make his grandmother sure!” cried Madam Weatherstone. “That would save me a deal of trouble and misunderstanding. See here–I think I can manage it–what makes you think it’s to-night?”

“I can’t be absolutely certain–” Diantha explained; and told her the reasons she had.

“It does look so,” her employer admitted. “We’ll try it at any rate.”

Urging her mother-in-law’s presence on the ground of needing her experienced advice, Mrs. Weatherstone brought the august lady to the room next to Ilda’s late that evening, the housekeeper in attendance.

“We mustn’t wake the servants,” she said in an elaborate whisper. “They need sleep, poor things! But I want to consult you about these communicating doors and the locksmith is coming in the morning.–you see this opens from this side.” She turned the oiled key softly in the lock. “Now Miss Bell thinks they ought to be left so–so that the girls can visit one another if they like–what do you think?”

“I think you are absurd to bring me to the top floor, at this time of night, for a thing like this!” said the old lady. “They should be permanently locked, to my mind! There’s no question about it.”

Viva, still in low tones, discussed this point further; introduced the subject of wall-paper or hard finish; pointed out from the window a tall eucalyptus which she thought needed heading; did what she could to keep her mother-in-law on the spot; and presently her efforts were rewarded.

A sound of muffled speech came from the next room–a man’s voice dimly heard. Madam Weatherstone raised her head like a warhorse.

“What’s this! What’s this!” she said in a fierce whisper.

Viva laid a hand on her arm. “Sh!” said she. “Let us make sure!” and she softly unlatched the door.

A brilliant moon flooded the small chamber. They could see little Ilda, huddled in the bedclothes, staring at her door from which the key had fallen. Another key was being inserted–turned–but the bolt held.

“Come and open it, young lady!” said a careful voice outside.

“Go away! Go away!” begged the girl, low and breathlessly. “Oh how _can_ you! Go away quick!”

“Indeed, I won’t!” said the voice. “You come and open it.”

“Go away,” she cried, in a soft but frantic voice. “I–I’ll scream!”

“Scream away!” he answered. “I’ll just say I came up to see what the screaming’s about, that’s all. You open the door–if you don’t want anybody to know I’m here! I won’t hurt you any–I just want to talk to you a minute.”

Madam Weatherstone was speechless with horror, her daughter-in-law listened with set lips. Diantha looked from one to the other, and at the frightened child before them who was now close to the terrible door.

“O please!–_please!_ go away!” she cried in desperation. “O what shall I do! What shall I do!”

“You can’t do anything,” he answered cheerfully. “And I’m coming in anyhow. You’d better keep still about this for your own sake. Stand from under!” Madam Weatherstone marched into the room. Ilda, with a little cry, fled out of it to Diantha.

There was a jump, a scramble, two knuckly hands appeared, a long leg was put through the transom, two legs wildly wriggling, a descending body, and there stood before them, flushed, dishevelled, his coat up to his ears–Mat Weatherstone.

He did not notice the stern rigidity of the figure which stood between him and the moonlight, but clasped it warmly to his heart.–“Now I’ve got you, Ducky!” cried he, pressing all too affectionate kisses upon the face of his grandmother.

Young Mrs. Weatherstone turned on the light.

It was an embarrassing position for the gentleman.

He had expected to find a helpless cowering girl; afraid to cry out because her case would be lost if she did; begging piteously that he would leave her; wholly at his mercy.

What he did find was so inexplicable as to reduce him to gibbering astonishment. There stood his imposing grandmother, so overwhelmed with amazement that her trenchant sentences failed her completely; his stepmother, wearing an expression that almost suggested delight in his discomfiture; and Diantha, as grim as Rhadamanthus.

Poor little Ilda burst into wild sobs and choking explanations, clinging to Diantha’s hand. “If I’d only listened to you!” she said. “You told me he was bad! I never thought he’d do such an awful thing!”

Young Mathew fumbled at the door. He had locked it outside in his efforts with the pass-key. He was red, red to his ears–very red, but there was no escape. He faced them–there was no good in facing the door.

They all stood aside and let him pass–a wordless gauntlet.

Diantha took the weeping Ilda to her room for the night. Madam Weatherstone and Mrs. Weatherstone went down together.

“She must have encouraged him!” the older lady finally burst forth.

“She did not encourage him to enter her room, as you saw and heard,” said Viva with repressed intensity.

“He’s only a boy!” said his grandmother.

“She is only a child, a helpless child, a foreigner, away from home, untaught, unprotected,” Viva answered swiftly; adding with quiet sarcasm–“Save for the shelter of the home!”

They parted in silence.

WE EAT AT HOME

RONDEAU

We eat at home; we do not care
Of what insanitary fare;
So long as Mother makes the pie,
Content we live, content we die,
And proudly our dyspepsia bear.

Straight from our furred forefather’s lair The instinct comes of feeding there;
And still unmoved by progress high We eat at home.

In wasteful ignorance we buy
Alone; alone our food we fry;
What though a tenfold cost we bear, The doctor’s bill, the dentist’s chair? Still without ever asking why
We eat at home.

OUR ANDROCENTRIC CULTURE; or, THE MAN-MADE WORLD

IX.

“SOCIETY” AND “FASHION”

Among our many naive misbeliefs is the current fallacy that “society” is made by women; and that women are responsible for that peculiar social manifestation called “fashion.”

Men and women alike accept this notion; the serious essayist and philosopher, as well as the novelist and paragrapher, reflect it in their pages. The force of inertia acts in the domain of psychics as well as physics; any idea pushed into the popular mind with considerable force will keep on going until some opposing force–or the slow resistance of friction–stops it at last.

“Society” consists mostly of women. Women carry on most of its processes, therefore women are its makers and masters, they are responsible for it, that is the general belief.

We might as well hold women responsible for harems–or prisoners for jails. To be helplessly confined to a given place or condition does not prove that one has chosen it; much less made it.

No; in an androcentric culture “society,” like every other social relation, is dominated by the male and arranged for his convenience. There are, of course, modifications due to the presence of the other sex; where there are more women than men there are inevitable results of their influence; but the character and conditions of the whole performance are dictated by men.

Social intercourse is the prime condition of human life. To meet, to mingle, to know one another, to exchange, not only definite ideas, facts, and feelings, but to experience that vague general stimulus and enlarged power that comes of contact–all this is essential to our happiness as well as to our progress.

This grand desideratum has always been monopolized by men as far as possible. What intercourse was allowed to women has been rigidly hemmed its by man-made conventions. Women accept these conventions, repeat them, enforce them upon their daughters; but they originate with men.

The feet of the little Chinese girl are bound by her mother and her nurse–but it is not for woman’s pleasure that this crippling torture was invented. The Oriental veil is worn by women, but it is not for any need of theirs that veils were decreed them.

When we look at society in its earlier form we find that the public house has always been with us. It is as old almost as the private house; the need for association is as human as the need for privacy. But the public house was–and is–for men only. The woman was kept as far as possible at home. Her female nature was supposed to delimit her life satisfactorily, and her human stature was completely ignored.

Under the pressure of that human nature she has always rebelled at the social restrictions which surrounded her; and from the women of older lands gathered at the well, or in the market place, to our own women on the church steps or in the sewing circle, they have ceaselessly struggled for the social intercourse which was as much a law of their being as of man’s.

When we come to the modern special field that we call “society,” we find it to consist of a carefully arranged set of processes and places wherein women may meet one another and meet men. These vary, of course, with race, country, class, and period; from the clean licence of our western customs to the strict chaperonage of older lands; but free as it is in America, even here there are bounds.

Men associate without any limit but that of inclination and financial capacity. Even class distinction only works one way–the low-class man may not mingle with high-class women; but the high-class man may–and does–mingle with low-class women. It is his society–may not a man do what he will with his own?

Caste distinctions, as have been ably shown by Prof. Lester F. Ward, are relics of race distinction; the subordinate caste was once a subordinate race; and while mating, upward, was always forbidden to the subject race; mating, downward, was always practiced by the master race.

The elaborate shading of “the color line” in slavery days, from pure black up through mulatto, quadroon, octoroon, quinteroon, griffada, mustafee, mustee, and sang d’or–to white again; was not through white mothers–but white fathers; never too exclusive in their tastes. Even in slavery, the worst horrors were strictly androcentric.

“Society” is strictly guarded–that is its women are. As always, the main tabu is on the woman. Consider carefully the relation between “society” and the growing girl. She must, of course, marry; and her education, manners, character, must of course be pleasing to the prospective wooer. That which is desirable in young girls means, naturally, that which is desirable to men. Of all cultivated accomplishments the first is “innocence.” Beauty may or may not be forthcoming; but “innocence” is “the chief charm of girlhood.”

Why? What good does it do _her?_ Her whole life’s success is made to depend on her marrying; her health and happiness depends on her marrying the right man. The more “innocent” she is, the less she knows, the easier it is for the wrong man to get her.

As is so feelingly described in “The Sorrows of Amelia,” in “The Ladies’ Literary Cabinet,” a magazine taken by my grandmother; “The only foible which the delicate Amelia possessed was an unsuspecting breast to lavish esteem. Unversed in the secret villanies of a base degenerate world, she ever imagined all mankind to be as spotless as herself. Alas for Amelia! This fatal credulity was the source of all her misfortunes.” It was. It is yet.

Just face the facts with new eyes–look at it as if you had never seen “society” before; and observe the position of its “Queen.”

Here is Woman. Let us grant that Motherhood is her chief purpose. (As a female it is. As a human being she has others!) Marriage is our way of safeguarding motherhood; of ensuring “support” and “protection” to the wife and children.

“Society” is very largely used as a means to bring together young people, to promote marriage. If “society” is made and governed by women we should naturally look to see its restrictions and encouragements such as would put a premium on successful maternity and protect women–and their children–from the evils of ill-regulated fatherhood.

Do we find this? By no means.

“Society” allows the man all liberty–all privilege–all license. There are certain offences which would exclude him; such as not paying gambling debts, or being poor; but offences against womanhood–against motherhood–do not exclude him.

How about the reverse?

If “society” is made by women, for women, surely a misstep by a helplessly “innocent” girl, will not injure her standing!

But it does. She is no longer “innocent.” She knows now. She has lost her market value and is thrown out of the shop. Why not? It is his shop–not hers. What women may and may not be, what they must and must not do, all is measured from the masculine standard.

A really feminine “society” based on the needs and pleasures of women, both as females and as human beings, would in the first place accord them freedom and knowledge; the knowledge which is power. It would not show us “the queen of the ballroom” in the position of a wall-flower unless favored by masculine invitation; unable to eat unless he brings her something; unable to cross the floor without his arm. Of all blind stultified “royal sluggards” she is the archetype. No, a feminine society would grant _at least_ equality to women in this, their so-called special field.

Its attitude toward men, however, would be rigidly critical.

Fancy a real Mrs. Grundy (up to date it has been a Mr., his whiskers hid in capstrings) saying, “No, no, young man. You won’t do. You’ve been drinking. The habit’s growing on you. You’ll make a bad husband.”

Or still more severely, “Out with you, sir! You’ve forfeited your right to marry! Go into retirement for seven years, and when you come back bring a doctor’s certificate with you.”

That sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it–for “Society” to say? It is ridiculous, in a man’s “society.”

The required dress and decoration of “society”; the everlasting eating and drinking of “society,” the preferred amusements of “society,” the absolute requirements and absolute exclusions of “society,” are of men, by men, for men,–to paraphrase a threadbare quotation. And then, upon all that vast edifice of masculine influence, they turn upon women as Adam did; and blame _them_ for severity with their fallen sisters! “Women are so hard upon women!”

They have to be. What man would “allow” his wife, his daughters, to visit and associate with “the fallen”? His esteem would be forfeited, they would lose their “social position,” the girl’s chance of marrying would be gone.

Men are not so stern. They may visit the unfortunate women, to bring them help, sympathy, re-establishment–or for other reasons; and it does not forfeit their social position. Why should it? They make the regulation.

Women are to-day, far more conspicuously than men, the exponents and victims of that mysterious power we call “Fashion.” As shown in mere helpless imitation of one another’s idea, customs, methods, there is not much difference; in patient acquiescence with prescribed models of architecture, furniture, literature, or anything else; there is not much difference; but in personal decoration there is a most conspicuous difference. Women do to-day submit to more grotesque ugliness and absurdity than men; and there are plenty of good reasons for it. Confining our brief study of fashion to fashion in dress, let us observe why it is that women wear these fine clothes at all; and why they change them as they do.

First, and very clearly, the human female carries the weight of sex decoration, solely because of her economic dependence on the male. She alone in nature adds to the burdens of maternity, which she was meant for, this unnatural burden of ornament, which she was not meant for. Every other female in the world is sufficiently attractive to the male without trimmings. He carries the trimmings, sparing no expense of spreading antlers or trailing plumes; no monstrosity of crest and wattles, to win her favor.

She is only temporarily interested in him. The rest of the time she is getting her own living, and caring for her own young. But our women get their bread from their husbands, and every other social need. The woman depends on the man for her position in life, as well as the necessities of existence. For herself and for her children she must win and hold him who is the source of all supplies. Therefore she is forced to add to her own natural attractions this “dance of the seven veils,” of the seventeen gowns, of the seventy-seven hats of gay delirium.

There are many who think in one syllable, who say, “women don’t dress to please men–they dress to please themselves–and to outshine other women.” To these I would suggest a visit to some summer shore resort during the week and extending over Saturday night. The women have all the week to please themselves and outshine one another; but their array on Saturday seems to indicate the approach of some new force or attraction.

If all this does not satisfy I would then call their attention to the well-known fact that the young damsel previous to marriage spends far more time and ingenuity in decoration than she does afterward. This has long been observed and deprecated by those who write Advice to Wives, on the ground that this difference is displeasing to the husband–that she loses her influence over him; which is true. But since his own “society,” knowing his weakness, has tied him to her by law; why should she keep up what is after all an unnatural exertion?

That excellent magazine “Good Housekeeping” has been running for some months a rhymed and illustrated story of “Miss Melissa Clarissa McRae,” an extremely dainty and well-dressed stenographer, who captured and married a fastidious young man, her employer, by the force of her artificial attractions–and then lost his love after marriage by a sudden unaccountable slovenliness–the same old story.

If this in not enough, let me instance further the attitude toward “Fashion” of that class of women who live most openly and directly upon the favor of men. These know their business. To continually attract the vagrant fancy of the male, nature’s born “variant,” they must not only pile on artificial charms, but change them constantly. They do. From the leaders of this profession comes a steady stream of changing fashions; the more extreme and bizarre, the more successful–and because they are successful they are imitated.

If men did not like changes in fashion be assured these professional men-pleasers would not change them, but since Nature’s Variant tires of any face in favor of a new one, the lady who would hold her sway and cannot change her face (except in color) must needs change her hat and gown.

But the Arbiter, the Ruling Cause, he who not only by choice demands, but as a business manufactures and supplies this amazing stream of fashions; again like Adam blames the woman–for accepting what he both demands and supplies.

A further proof, if more were needed, is shown in this; that in exact proportion as women grow independent, educated, wise and free, do they become less submissive to men-made fashions. Was this improvement hailed with sympathy and admiration–crowned with masculine favor?

The attitude of men toward those women who have so far presumed to “unsex themselves” is known to all. They like women to be foolish, changeable, always newly attractive; and while women must “attract” for a living–why they do, that’s all.

It is a pity. It is humiliating to any far-seeing woman to have to recognize this glaring proof of the dependent, degraded position of her sex; and it ought to be humiliating to men to see the results of their mastery. These crazily decorated little creatures do not represent womanhood.

When the artist uses the woman as the type of every highest ideal; as Justice, Liberty, Charity, Truth–he does not represent her trimmed. In any part of the world where women are even in part economically independent there we find less of the absurdities of fashion. Women who work cannot be utterly absurd.

But the idle woman, the Queen of Society, who must please men within their prescribed bounds; and those of the half-world, who must please them at any cost–these are the vehicles of fashion.

ONLY AN HOUR

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,” said the Second Hand, and then he lost count. “One, two, three, four, five–” It was no use.

“There is no end to it,” said he, under his breath. “Hundreds of times I do it! Thousands! Millions! A positive eternity–in constant action. What a thing Life is!”

The Minute Hand was very patient with him. “My dear little Busybody,” he said. “Look at me and learn some dignity. See, you have to make those little jumps sixty times before I move! Sixty times!” And the Minute Hand took a short step. “There–now you begin again, while I wait. Watch me, take courage! If you can count up to sixty you will understand Life!” And he took another short step.

The Hour Hand smiled. He was too proud to talk with the Minute Hand–considering him to have a Limited Intellect. As for the Second Hand, he did not acknowledge his existence. “I am no microscopist!” he would say if you pointed out that there was a Second Hand.

No, the Hour Hand did not converse, he Mused. He mused much upon life, as was natural. “Twelve of them!” he thought to himself–“twelve of these long long waits, these slow terrible advances. And then twelve more–before Life is over. I can count. I have an intellect. I am not afraid. I can think around Life.” And he kept on thinking.

*

The man pulled out his watch and looked at it; yawned, took an easier position on the car seat. “Bah!” he said. “Only an hour gone!–And I can’t get there till the day after to-morrow!”

COMMENT AND REVIEW

The first thing that struck me in reading this novel was the style. Not often, in a first publication, is this the main impression.

There is a delicate finished personal touch in Mrs. Schoonmaker’s work, that would indicate years of application. Next I slowly gathered interest in the story; not at once–it grew gradually–but later on, when the characters were well placed and a grave danger threatened the lives of several.

The flat, peaceful, limited life of rural Kentucky and its contented inhabitants is drawn in soft assured touches–the reader feels the sweetness and peace as well as the deadly dulness.

The picture of life among the studios of Paris hints at more than is said, much more; indicating a philosophic judgment; yet withholding it. There is a restraint, an economy of expression throughout; even where the writer feels most strongly.

As to the heroine–her young life-struggle is part and parcel of that universal stir and uprising among the women of to-day; so much of it blind and undirected; so much wasted and lost in reaction; so much in lines of true long-needed social evolution. This girl’s share in it will be differently judged by different readers. Many of our young college women will sympathize with it most, I fancy.

THE ETERNAL FIRES
By Nancy Musselman Schoonmaker,
Broadway Pub. Co., N. Y.

*

Dr. Stanton Coit, prominent in ethical and social advance in England, is a valuable supporter of the woman’s movement. His booklet, “Women in Church and State,” is a concise and impressive presentation of her position in those great social bodies. He treats of the militant movement in England, its wise period of quiescence, and offers reasonable suggestions as to further policy.

The attitude of the church toward women, from the miserable past up through the changing present to the hopeful future, is given succinctly, and the unfortunate reaction of a servile womanhood upon the church is shown.

It is a clear presentation of the relation of woman to the state, in politics, education, marriage and the home.

This booklet is for sale, in England, as one of the Ethical Message Series, at 6d. net; and may be rebound for American circulation, at 15c.

WOMAN IN CHURCH AND STATE
By Stanton Coit, Ph.D.,
West London Ethical Society,
Queen’s Road, Bayswater, England.

*

The ethical movement of the last twenty years is a strong proof of humanity’s natural bent toward the study and practice of that first of sciences, the science of conduct.

How to behave, and Why, are universal questions; decided first by conditions, then by instinct, then by custom and tradition, then by religion, then by reason. We are rapidly reaching the reasoning stage; hence the popularity of ethics, and of such papers as The Ethical World.

We have ethical publications in this country, good ones, but it is inspiring to get from other lands the vivid sense of that common movement which so marks the uniting of the world.

Mere verbal language was necessary to the faintest human development; written language, in the permanent form of books, established the long roots of our historic life, with its sense of continuity; today the multiplication of periodic literature, widely specialized, speaks our social consciousness. We no longer have to think alone, but the smallest cult has its exponent, giving to each member the strength of all.

In the issue of March 15th of this paper, Dr. Stanton Coit has an article on “The Group Spirit,” which treats sympathetically that marvel of social dynamics, “the interpenetrating Third,” appearing where two or three are gathered together.

I should like to have discussed with Sir James Mackintosh, however, his contention that moral principles are stationary. They are not, but vary from age to age in accordance with conditions.

PERSONAL PROBLEMS

A friend and subscriber writes me thus:

“There are one or two questions I want to ask–not because I disagree, but because I want to be able to meet objections.

“Those who believe in restricting “Woman’s Sphere” to its present–no, its former narrow boundaries may say,–“Yes, man is the only species which keeps the female–or tries to–in the home and restricts her to the strictly female functions and duties. But it is just because man is higher than the other animals, and because the period of infancy is so much longer for human babies. The animal mother bears her young, nourishes them a short time, and is no longer needed. The human mother is something more than an agent of reproduction and a source of nourishment. By just so much as her motherhood is more and higher than that of the ewe, it must take more of her time, her strength, her life. How can a woman who is giving birth to a child every two or three years for a period of ten years, for example, and “mothering,” in the fullest sense of the word, those children, find time or strength for anything else?

“Then, too, what you call “Androcentric Culture” has existed by your own statement practically ever since our historic period began–that is, since man first advanced from savagery to human intelligence and civilization. Is it not fair to assume that a condition of affairs non-existent among lower animals, but co-existent with the development of the intelligence and civilization of mankind is a higher condition than that found among the animals?”

Here we have five premises:

1. Man is the only species which segregates the female to maternal functions and duties.

2. Man is higher than the other animals.

3. The human period of infancy is longer.

4. The human mother has to devote longer time to maternal cares.

5. The Androcentric Culture is coexistent with the period of progress.

On these premises,two questions are based: On the first four:

A. How can the human mother find time or strength for anything else?

On the fifth:

B. Is not the Androcentric Culture evidence and conditions of our superiority?

To clearly follow and answer this line of reasoning requires close attention; but it is well worth doing; for this inquirer fairly puts the general attitude of mind on this matter.

Premise one we may grant. It is true as applied to all higher species. There are some low ones where the female is a mere egg-layer; but with those creatures the male is not much either.

Premises two and three we grant freely.

Premises three and four require consideration.

Is the existence of human infancy accompanied by a similar extension of maternal cares?

Our Children are infants in the eyes of the law till they reach legal majority; and in the arts, professions, and more complex businesses, a boy of twenty-one is still an infant.

To bring a young animal up to the age where it can take care of itself is a simple process and can be accomplished by the mother alone; but to bring up a young human creature to the age where he or she can fitly serve society is a complex process and cannot be performed by the mother alone. Our prolongation of infancy is a result of social progress, and has to be met by social cares; is so met to some degree already.

The nurse and the teacher are social functionaries, performing the duties of social motherhood. The female savage can suckle her child and teach her to prepare food, tan hides, make baskets and clothing, and decorate them. The male savage can teach his child to hunt and trap game, to bear pain and privation, to put on warpaint and yell and dance, to fight and kill.

But the civilized mother and father cannot teach their children all that society requires of its citizens. When trades went from father to son they were so taught; and the level of progress in those trades was the level of personal experience. Our real progress has coincided with our educational processes, in which suitable persons are selected to teach children what society requires them to know, quite irrespective of their parent’s individual knowledge. Should the learning of the world, the discoveries and inventions, be limited to what each man can find out for himself and teach his son?

No one expects the father’s wisdom to be the limit of his son’s instruction; nor the mother’s either. She loves her child as much as ever; and for its own sake is willing to have it learn of music-teachers, dancing-teachers, and all the allied specialists of school and college.

In all higher and more special cases, it is clear that the mother is not required to parallel her attentions to our “period of infancy,” but perhaps it will still be contended that in the simpler and more universal tasks of earlier years she is indispensable; and that these years so overlap that she is practically confined to the home during her whole period of child-bearing.

The answer to this is, first; that the simpler and more universal the tasks the more there may be found capable of performing it. As a matter of fact we are so accustomed to take this view that we cheerfully entrust the most delicate personal services of our babies to hired persons of the lowest orders; as in our Southern States the proud white mother gives her baby often to be suckled and always to be tended by a black woman.

It is idle to talk of the indispensability of the mother’s care in the first years when any mother who can afford it is quite willing to share or delegate that care to women admittedly inferior. If the human race has got on as well as it has with the care of its lower class children solely ignorant mothers, and the care of its higher class children given mainly by ignorant servants; why should we dread to have the care of all children given mainly by high-class, skilled, educated, experienced persons, of equal or superior grade to the parents?

The answer to this usually is the child needs the individual mother’s love and influence. This is quite true. The baby should be nourished by his own mother–if she is healthy–and nothing can excuse her from the loving cares of parentage. But just as an ordinary unskilled working woman loves and cares for her child–and yet does ten hours of housework, to which no one objects; or just as an ordinary rich woman loves and cares for her child–and yet does ten or twelve hours of dancing, dining, riding, golfing, and bridge playing (to which no one objects!)–so could a skilled working woman spend six or eight hours at an appropriate trade, and still love and care for her child. A normal motherhood does not prevent the mother from suitable industry. In other words: The prolongation of human infancy does not demand an equal prolongation of maternal services; but does demand specialized social services. When these services are properly given our children will be far better cared for than now.

The best answer of all is simply this. Almost all mothers do work, and work hard, at house service; and are healthier than idle wholly segregated women; yet there are many kinds of work far more compatible with motherhood than cooking, scrubbing, sweeping, washing and ironing.

The fifth premise, and its accompanying question also calls for study. It is true that our Androcentric Culture is co-existent with human history and modern progress, with these qualifications:

Practically all our savages are decadent, and grossly androcentric. Their language and customs prove an earlier and higher culture, in which we may trace the matriarchate. Among the less savage savages–as our Pueblos–the women are comparatively independent and honored.

Almost all races have a “golden age” myth; faint traditions of a period when things were better; which seems to coincide with this background of matriarchal rule. The farther back we go in our civilization the more traces we find of woman’s power and freedom, with goddesses, empresses, and woman-favoring laws.

Again in our present Age, the most progressive and dominant races are those whose women have most power and liberty; and in the feeblest and most backward races we find women most ill-treated and enslaved.

The Teutons and Scandinavian stocks seem never to have had that period of enslaved womanhood, that polygamous harem culture; their women never went through that debasement; and their men have succeeded in preserving the spirit of freedom which is inevitably lost by a race which has servile women. Thus while it is admitted that roughly speaking the period of Androcentric Culture corresponds with the period of progress, these considerations show that the coincidence is not perfect. Even if it were, there remains this satisfying rejoinder:

The lit space in our long life-story begins but a short time ago compared with the real existence of human life on earth. On the conditions preceding history we know little save that they were matriarchal as to culture and of an industrious, peaceful and friendly nature. Of the conditions brought about by the androcentric culture we know much, however.

We have developed some degree of peace and prosperity; marked progress in intelligence, learning, and specialized skill; immense material and scientific development and increased wealth.

But we have also developed an array of diseases, follies, vices, and crimes, which distinguish us from the other animals as markedly as does our androcentric culture.

Not all of these disadvantages con be clearly traced to its door; but these three are plainly due to it; prostitution, with all its devastation of its ensuing diseases; drug habits of all sorts, as alcohol, tobacco, opium–which are preponderantly masculine; and warfare; with its loss of life and wealth; its cruelty and waste; its foolish interference with true social processes.

If the matriarchal period can be shown to have produced worse evils than these then it was a blessing to lose it. If at all the splendid gains we have made under man’s rule can be traced to his separate influence then we might say even these world injuries may be borne for the sake of the benefits not otherwise obtainable. But if it can be shown that real progress is always paralleled by improvement in the conditions of women; that the most valuable human qualities are found in women as well as men; that these three worst evils of our present day are clearly of a masculine nature and removable by the extension of feminine influence–then our inquirer’s last question is easily answered; the existence of our androcentric culture during our period of modern progress distinctly does not prove that it is a necessary condition of that Progress.

*

A number of most interesting Personal Problems have come in this month, but the length of the above, postponed from June, prevents due answers in this issue. This one had to be long, its questions were so general.

The earnest friend who asks as to the right attitude of a mother toward her children, born and unborn, asks too much. No explicit “answers” can be given to such life-covering queries. One may reply epigrammatically (and unsatisfactorily) as this:

The first duty of a mother is to be a mother worth having.

The second duty of a mother is to select a father worth having.

The third duty of a mother is to bring up children worth having–and to have children worth bringing up!

Motherhood is a personal process, Child-culture is a social process.

A vigorous well-placed wisely working woman should take her child-bearing naturally, not make too much ado about it. But child-rearing–that is another matter.

We can advise as to one wanting a gardener, “Get a good one.”

If there are none–then it is not time we made some?

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“Women and Economics” $1.50

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._

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._

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._

“Concerning Children” $1.25

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.

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“In This Our World” (Poems) $1.25

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 poet of women and for women, a new and prophetic voice in the world. Montaigne would have rejoiced in her.–_Mexican Herald._

“The Yellow Wall Paper” $0.50

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._

“The Home” $1.00

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.

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.

“Human Work” $1.00

Charlotte Perkins Stetson 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._

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IN PREPARATION:

“What Diantha Did” (A Novel) $1.00

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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