Question:—What can one do with a bore? I am not over strong, and very sensitive to people. When some people come to see me—and stay—and they always do stay—it makes me ill—I cannot work well next day.
—Sufferer.
Answer:—My dear Sufferer. Your problem is a serious one. Bores are disagreeable to all and dangerous to some. They cannot be arrested or imprisoned; and kerosene does not lessen their numbers. They commit no active offence—it is not by doing that they affect us so painfully, but simply by being. Especially by being there.
Sub-question:—Can a bore be a bore when no one else is present.
Sub-answer:—We suspect they can. It is because he bores himself when alone that he seeks continually to bore others.
Yet some of them are well-intentioned persons who would be grieved to know they were injurious. Even the dull and thick-skinned are open to offence if it is forced upon them.
We suspect that the only real cure is courage on the part of the victim. If the suffering host or hostess frankly said, "My dear Sir—or Madam—you are making me very tired. I wish you would go away," the result would leave nothing to be desired. "But," says the sufferer in alarm, "they would never come to see us again!"
Well. Do you want them to?
"But—sometimes I like to see them." Or, "I cannot afford to quarrel with So and So!"
Ah! We will now quote Emerson. "It you want anything, pay for it and take it, says God."
Question:—"I have a sick parent. What is my whole duty in the case?"
—Filial Devotee.
Answer:—It depends on your sex. If you are a man, your duty is to provide a home for the patient, a servant, a nurse, a physician, food, medicine, and two short calls a day. You will be called "A Devoted Son."
If you are a woman, you need provide none of these things; but must wait upon the patient with your own hands as nurse and servant; regardless of your special ability. If you do at does a devoted son you will be called "An Unnatural Daughter."
Question:—"Why do the shapes of shoes change from year to year? Surely the shapes of our feet do not.
Answer:—This is one of the inscrutable minor problems of Fashion and The Market. The desire for novelty; the lack of a real feeling for beauty; a savage indifference to physical comfort, the pressure of necessity or greediness urging the manufacturer to sell more shoes than people need; the brow-beaten submissiveness of most purchasers and the persuasive—or insolent—compulsion of salesmen; all these combine to make our feet ugly and painful.
I became an advocate of full suffrage for women as soon as I was old enough to understand the value of democratic government, to see that a true democracy requires the intelligent participation of all the people, and that women are people. With further knowledge I advocate woman suffrage on two grounds: first because a dependent and servile womanhood is an immovable obstacle to race development; second because the major defects of our civilization are clearly traceable to the degradation of the female and the unbalanced predominance of the male, which unnatural relation is responsible for the social evil, for the predatory and combative elements in our economic processes, and for that colossal mingling of folly, waste, and horror, that wholly masculine phenomenon—war.
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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.
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.
The main feature of the first year is a new book on a new subject with a new name:—
"Our Androcentric Culture."this is a study of the historic effect on normal human development of a too exclusively masculine civilization. It shows what man, the male, has done to the world: and what woman, the more human, may do to change it.
"What Diantha Did."This is a serial novel. It shows the course of true love running very crookedly—as it so often does—among the obstructions and difficulties of the housekeeping problem—and solves that problem. (NOT by co-operation.)
Among the short articles will appear:
"Private Morality and Public Immorality.""The Beauty Women Have Lost""Our Overworked Instincts.""The Nun in the Kitchen.""Genius: Domestic and Maternal.""A Small God and a Large Goddess.""Animals in Cities.""How We Waste Three-Fourths Of Our Money.""Prize Children""Kitchen-Mindedness""Parlor-Mindedness""Nursery-Mindedness"
There will be short stories and other entertaining matter in each issue. The department of "Personal Problems" does not discuss etiquette, fashions or the removal of freckles. Foolish questions will not be answered, unless at peril of the asker.
If you take this magazine one year you will have:
One complete novel . . . By C. P. GilmanOne new book . . . By C. P. GilmanTwelve short stories . . . By C. P. GilmanTwelve-and-more short articles . . . By C. P. GilmanTwelve-and-more new poems . . . By C. P. GilmanTwelve Short Sermons . . . By C. P. GilmanBesides "Comment and Review" . . . By C. P. Gilman"Personal Problems" . . . By C. P. GilmanAnd many other things . . . By C. P. Gilman
_____ 19__
Please find enclosed $_____ as subscription to "The Forerunner" from _____ 19___ to _____ 19___
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A Summer Cottage on Lake Champlain Near the Adirondacks
This is a six-room two-story cottage, natural wood finish, unplastered, on two and a half acres of land, 600 feet on the lake, with an old apple orchard and many other trees. It has on two sides covered piazzas, outside blinds, open fireplaces in two rooms; and new white enameled open plumbing, with hot and cold water. It is about a mile and a half from Essex Village, and about one-quarter of a mile from the post office, at the Crater Club, an exclusive summer colony. Access by boat and train.
I have not seen this cottage, but I've seen plans, elevations and photographs of it, and of views from it. It stands on a bluff, close to the lake, the Green Mountains far in the east, and the Adirondacks some twelve miles to the west. The people who own it will answer further questions and state facts fully on request, both advantages and disadvantages.
The list of furnishings is accurate and circumstantial, as follows:
Mahogany sofa, small mahogany tableMarble-topped table and "Crowning of Esther"4 rosewood chairs, steamer chairWhatnot, wall-bracket, books, basketMahogany table, small round 3-leggedLong mantel mirror, gilt frame3 oil paintings, 3 engravingsRustic seat (filled with wood)Old-fashioned heating stove, cratedCandle-lantern, 2 Japanese traysDoor-scraper, woodbasketTongs-holder, hearth brushChild's garden tools2 sofa cushionsVarious small ornaments
Ironing Table, stand, wax, bosom board Tin pail, dipper, basin 1 new broom, 1 old broom Tool box, tools, nails, saw, hatchet Hammock, barrel hammock, tie ropes Soap rack, dustpan, scrap basket Folding hat rack, ladder Carving set, 6 knives (very old) Coffee pot, toaster, egg whip, egg beater 5 large white china plates 5 medium and 6 small ditto 6 demi tasse and saucers, same 2 tea cups, 6 saucers, same 2 egg stands, green; 2 sugar bowls 1 butterfly cup and saucer 6 glasses, 1 lemon squeezer 1 mechanical red-glass lamp 2 reading lamps, 3 small hand lamps 3 small bracket lamps, 1 shade White shades at all windows
Green bedstead (three-quarter)2 mattresses, 2 pillows, madras coverGreen bureau; green washstandGreen table; green rocking chairOak chair; 2 pictures; 1 chamber
Oak bedstead (double) Oak bureau, oak washstand 2 mattresses, 2 feather beds, 1 bolster 2 pillows, madras spread 1 box cot, 1 mattress, straw pillow 2 chairs, 2 towel racks Bureau cover, pen cushion, etc. 3 pictures
SOUTHWEST BEDROOMBlack walnut single bedstead1 hair mattress and bolster1 pillow, 1 feather bed, 1 madras spreadBureau (mirror broken), 2 towel racksMahogany washstand, mirrorSmall 3-legged table3 rosewood chairsBureau cover, pin cushion, etc.Shoebag on wallOil painting, on copperBrass stair rods, in closet
2 mahogany bureaus, empty trunk Portable bath-tub, clothes basket On shelves: 7 sheets, 7 pillow cases 3 table cloths, 10 doilies 4 towels, dish cloths and towels Bureau and tray cloths Curtains, enough for doors Curtains for some windows
Apply to "Summer Cottage," care of The Forerunner or to John B. Burnham,Agent, Essex, N.Y.
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMANAUTHOR, OWNER & PUBLISHER
Clothing is for five purposes: Decoration, Protection, Warmth, Modesty, and Symbolism. Can you explain yours?
"Where is God?" I cried. "Let me hear!""I long for the voice of God!"And I smote and trodOn all things clamoring near;Small voices dear,That wept and murmured and sungTill my heart was wrung;That shrieked, shrieked loud and clear,As I with hammer and swordSlew them in the name of the Lord.Where is God?" I cried. "Let me hear!"But my ears were ringing yetWith cries I could not forget;The blood was flowing still,From the thing I could not kill;A smothered sobbing cryFilled all the red, wet earth, the cold, hard sky—God came not near.
Then long I lived alone,On the desolate land; a stoneOn the thing I could not kill.I bent to my hardened willAll things that lived below;I strove to climb above,To the land of living loveI had dreamed of long ago,But I could not see—not know."O God!" I cried, "Come near!Speak! Let thy servant hear!Have I not utterly slainWith tears of blood, with sweat of pain,In this base heart of mineAll voices old and dear—to hear but Thine!And if there struggleth stillThe thing I could not kill,Have I not put a stoneOn its head? O Thou aloneWhom I would follow and fear—Speak! Let Thy servant hear!"
Silent I lay, and weak;Then did the darkness speak;"Child of the World! My loveIs beneath as well as above!Thou art not always ledBy a light that shines ahead!But pushed by an impulse blind—A mighty Power behind!Lifted, as all things grow,By forces from below!Fear not for thy long mistake—Listen! And there shall wakeThe voice that has found the wayFrom the beginning, upward ever, into the light of day!Lo! I am with thee still—The thing thou couldst not kill!
"There won't be any litigation and chicanery to help you out, young man. I've fixed that. Here are the title deeds of your precious country-place; you can sit in that hand-made hut of yours and make poetry and crazy inventions the rest of your life! The water's good—and I guess you can live on the chestnuts!"
"Yes, sir," said Arnold Blake, rubbing his long chin dubiously. "I guess I can."
His father surveyed him with entire disgust. "If you had wit enough you might rebuild that old saw-mill and make a living off it!"
"Yes, sir," said Arnold again. "I had thought of that."
"You had, had you?" sneered his father. "Thought of it because it rhymed, I bet you! Hill and mill, eh? Hut and nut, trees and breeze, waterfall—beat-'em-all? I'm something of a poet myself, you see! Well,—there's your property. And with what your Mother left you will buy books and writing paper! As for my property—that's going to Jack. I've got the papers for that too. Not being an idiot I've saved out enough for myself—no Lear business for mine! Well, boy—I'm sorry you're a fool. But you've got what you seem to like best."
"Yes, sir," said Arnold once more. "I have, and I'm really much obliged to you, Father, for not trying to make me take the business."
Then young John Blake, pattern and image of his father, came into possession of large assets and began to use them in the only correct way; to increase and multiply without end.
Then old John Blake, gazing with pride on his younger son, whose acumen almost compensated him for the bitter disappointment of being father to a poet; set forth for a season of rest and change.
"I'm going to see the world! I never had time before!" quoth he; and started off for Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Then Arnold Blake, whose eyes were the eyes of a poet, but whose mouth had a touch of resemblance to his father's, betook himself to his Hill.
But the night before they separated, he and his brother both proposed to Ella Sutherland. John because he had made up his mind that it was the proper time for him to marry, and this was the proper woman; and Arnold because he couldn't help it.
John got to work first. He was really very fond of Ella, and made hot love to her. It was a painful surprise to him to be refused. He argued with her. He told her how much he loved her.
"There are others!" said Miss Ella.
He told her how rich he was.
"That isn't the point," said Ella.
He told her how rich he was going to be.
"I'm not for sale!" said Ella, "even on futures!"
Then he got angry and criticised her judgement.
"It's a pity, isn't it," she said, "for me to have such poor judgment—and for you to have to abide by it!"
"I won't take your decision," said John. "You're only a child yet. In two years' time you'll be wiser. I'll ask you again then."
"All right," said Ella. "I'll answer you again then."
John went away, angry, but determined.
Arnold was less categorical.
"I've no right to say a word," he began, and then said it. Mostly he dilated on her beauty and goodness and his overmastering affection for her.
"Are you offering marriage?" she inquired, rather quizzically.
"Why yes—of course!" said he, "only—only I've nothing to offer."
"There's you!" said Ella.
"But that's so little!" said Arnold. "O! if you will wait for me!—I will work!—"
"What will you work at?" said Ella.
Arnold laughed. Ella laughed. "I love to camp out!" said she.
"Will you wait for me a year?" said Arnold.
"Ye-es," said Ella. I'll even wait two—if I have to. But no longer!"
"What will you do then?" asked Arnold miserably.
"Marry you," said Ella.
So Arnold went off to his Hill.
What was one hill among so many? There they arose about him, far green, farther blue, farthest purple, rolling away to the real peaks of the Catskills. This one had been part of his mother's father's land; a big stretch, coming down to them from an old Dutch grant. It ran out like a promontory into the winding valley below; the valley that had been a real river when the Catskills were real mountains. There was some river there yet, a little sulky stream, fretting most of the year in its sunken stony bed, and losing its temper altogether when the spring floods came.
Arnold did not care much for the river—he had a brook of his own; an ideal brook, beginning with an over-flowing spring; and giving him three waterfalls and a lake on his own land. It was a very little lake and handmade. In one place his brook ran through a narrow valley or valleyette—so small it was; and a few weeks of sturdy work had damned the exit and made a lovely pool. Arnold did that years ago, when he was a great hulking brooding boy, and used to come up there with his mother in summer; while his father stuck to the office and John went to Bar Harbor with his chums. Arnold could work hard even if he was a poet.
He quarried stone from his hill—as everyone did in those regions; and built a small solid house, adding to it from year to year; that was a growing joy as long as the dear mother lived.
This was high up, near the dark, clear pool of the spring; he had piped the water into the house—for his mother's comfort. It stood on a level terrace, fronting south-westward; and every season he did more to make it lovely. There was a fine smooth lawn there now and flowering vines and bushes; every pretty wild thing that would grow and bloom of itself in that region, he collected about him.
That dear mother had delighted in all the plants and trees; she studied about them and made observations, while he enjoyed them—and made poems. The chestnuts were their common pride. This hill stood out among all the others in the flowering time, like a great pompon, and the odor of it was by no means attractive—unless you happened to like it, as they did.
The chestnut crop was tremendous; and when Arnold found that not only neighboring boys, but business expeditions from the city made a practice of rifling his mountain garden, he raged for one season and acted the next. When the first frost dropped the great burrs, he was on hand, with a posse of strong young fellows from the farms about. They beat and shook and harvested, and sack upon sack of glossy brown nuts were piled on wagons and sent to market by the owner instead of the depredator.
Then he and his mother made great plans, the eager boy full of ambition. He studied forestry and arboriculture; and grafted the big fat foreign chestnut on his sturdy native stocks, while his father sneered and scolded because he would not go into the office.
Now he was left to himself with his plans and hopes. The dear mother was gone, but the hill was there—and Ella might come some day; there was a chance.
"What do you think of it?" he said to Patsy. Patsy was not Irish. He was an Italian from Tuscany; a farmer and forester by birth and breeding, a soldier by compulsion, an American citizen by choice.
"Fine!" said Patsy. "Fine. Ver' good. You do well."
They went over the ground together. "Could you build a little house here?" said Arnold. "Could you bring your wife? Could she attend to my house up there?—and could you keep hens and a cow and raise vegetables on this patch here—enough for all of us?—you to own the house and land—only you cannot sell it except to me?"
Then Patsy thanked his long neglected saints, imported his wife and little ones, took his eldest daughter out of the box factory, and his eldest son out of the printing office; and by the end of the summer they were comfortably established and ready to attend to the chestnut crop.
Arnold worked as hard as his man. Temporarily he hired other sturdy Italians, mechanics of experience; and spent his little store of capital in a way that would have made his father swear and his brother jeer at him.
When the year was over he had not much money left, but he had by his second waterfall a small electrical plant, with a printing office attached; and by the third a solid little mill, its turbine wheel running merrily in the ceaseless pour. Millstones cost more money than he thought, but there they were—brought up by night from the Hudson River—that his neighbors might not laugh too soon. Over the mill were large light rooms, pleasant to work in; with the shade of mighty trees upon the roof; and the sound of falling water in the sun.
By next summer this work was done, and the extra workmen gone. Whereat our poet refreshed himself with a visit to his Ella, putting in some lazy weeks with her at Gloucester, happy and hopeful, but silent.
"How's the chestnut crop?" she asked him.
"Fine. Ver' good," he answered. "That's what Patsy says—and Patsy knows."
She pursued her inquiries. "Who cooks for you? Who keeps your camp in order? Who washes your clothes?"
"Mrs. Patsy," said he. "She's as good a cook as anybody need want."
"And how is the prospect?" asked Ella.
Arnold turned lazily over, where he lay on the sand at her feet, and looked at her long and hungrily. "The prospect," said he, "is divine."
Ella blushed and laughed and said he was a goose; but he kept on looking.
He wouldn't tell her much, though. "Don't, dear," he said when she urged for information. "It's too serious. If I should fail—"
"You won't fail!" she protested. "You can't fail! And if you do—why—as I told you before, I like to camp out!"
But when he tried to take some natural advantage of her friendliness she teased him—said he was growing to look just like his father! Which made them both laugh.
Arnold returned and settled down to business. He purchased stores of pasteboard, of paper, of printers ink, and a little machine to fold cartons. Thus equipped he retired to his fastness, and set dark-eyed Caterlina to work in a little box factory of his own; while clever Guiseppe ran the printing press, and Mafalda pasted. Cartons, piled flat, do not take up much room, even in thousands.
Then Arnold loafed deliberately.
"Why not your Mr. Blake work no more?" inquired Mrs. Patsy of her spouse.
"O he work—he work hard," replied Patsy. "You women—you not understand work!"
Mrs. Patsy tossed her head and answered in fluent Italian, so that her husband presently preferred out of doors occupation; but in truth Arnold Blake did not seem to do much that summer. He loafed under his great trees, regarding them lovingly; he loafed by his lonely upper waterfall, with happy dreaming eyes; he loafed in his little blue lake—floating face to the sky, care free and happy as a child. And if he scribbled a great deal—at any sudden moment when the fit seized him, why that was only his weakness as a poet.
Toward the end of September, he invited an old college friend up to see him; now a newspaper man—in the advertising department. These two seemed to have merry times together. They fished and walked and climbed, they talked much; and at night were heard roaring with laughter by their hickory fire.
"Have you got any money left?" demanded his friend.
"About a thou—" said Arnold. "And that's got to last me till next spring, you know."
"Blow it in—blow in every cent—it'll pay you. You can live through the winter somehow. How about transportation?"
"Got a nice electric dray—light and strong. Runs down hill with the load to tidewater, you see, and there's the old motorboat to take it down. Brings back supplies."
"Great!—It's simply great! Now, you save enough to eat till spring and give me the rest. Send me your stuff, all of it! and as soon as you get in a cent above expenses—send me that—I'll 'tend to the advertising!"
He did. He had only $800 to begin with. When the first profits began to come in he used them better; and as they rolled up he still spent them. Arnold began to feel anxious, to want to save money; but his friend replied: "You furnish the meal—I'll furnish the market!" And he did.
He began it in the subway in New York; that place of misery where eyes, ears, nose, and common self-respect are all offended, and even an advertisement is some relief.
"Hill" said the first hundred dollars, on a big blank space for a week."Mill" said the second. "Hill Mill Meal," said the third.
The fourth was more explicit.
"When tired of every cerealTry our new material—Hill Mill Meal."
The fifth—
"Ask your grocer if you feelAn interest in Hill Mill Meal.Samples free."
The sixth—"A paradox! Surprising! True!Made of chestnuts but brand new!Hill Mill Meal."
And the seventh—
"Solomon said it couldn't be done,There wasn't a new thing under the sun—He never ate Hill Mill Meal!"
Seven hundred dollars went in this one method only; and meanwhile diligent young men in automobiles were making arrangements and leaving circulars and samples with the grocer. Anybody will take free samples and everybody likes chestnuts. Are they not the crown of luxury in turkey stuffing? The gem of the confection asmarron glaces? The sure profit of the corner-merchant with his little charcoal stove, even when they are half scorched and half cold? Do we not all love them, roast, or boiled—only they are so messy to peel.
Arnold's only secret was his process; but his permanent advantage was in the fine quality of his nuts, and his exquisite care in manufacture. In dainty, neat, easily opened cartons (easily shut too, so they were not left gaping to gather dust), he put upon the market a sort of samp, chestnuts perfectly shelled and husked, roasted and ground, both coarse and fine. Good? You stood and ate half a package out of your hand, just tasting of it. Then you sat down and ate the other half.
He made pocket-size cartons, filled with whole ones, crafty man! And they became "The Business Man's Lunch" forthwith. A pocketful of roast chestnuts—and no mess nor trouble! And when they were boiled—well, we all know how good boiled chestnuts are. As to the meal, a new variety of mush appeared, and gems, muffins, and pancakes that made old epicures feel young again in the joys of a fresh taste, and gave America new standing in the eyes of France.
The orders rolled in and the poetry rolled out. The market for a new food is as wide as the world; and Jim Chamberlin was mad to conquer it, but Arnold explained to him that his total output was only so many bushels a year.
"Nonsense!" said Jim. "You're a—a—well, apoet! Come! Use your imagination! Look at these hills about you—they could grow chestnuts to the horizon! Look at this valley, that rattling river, a bunch of mills could run here! You can support a fine population—a whole village of people—there's no end to it, I tell you!"
"And where would my privacy be then and the beauty of the place?" asked Arnold, "I love this green island of chestnut trees, and the winding empty valley, just freckled with a few farms. I'd hate to support a village!"
"But you can be a Millionaire!" said Jim.
"I don't want to be a Millionaire," Arnold cheerfully replied.
Jim gazed at him, opening and shutting his mouth in silence."You—confounded old—poet!" he burst forth at last.
"I can't help that," said Arnold.
"You'd better ask Miss Sutherland about it, I think," his friend drily suggested.
"To be sure! I had forgotten that—I will," the poet replied.
Then he invited her to come up and visit his Hill, met her at the train with the smooth, swift, noiseless, smell-less electric car, and held her hand in blissful silence as they rolled up the valley road. They wound more slowly up his graded avenue, green-arched by chestnut boughs.
He showed her the bit of meadowy inlet where the mill stood, by the heavy lower fall; the broad bright packing rooms above, where the busy Italian boys and girls chattered gaily as they worked. He showed her the second fall, with his little low-humming electric plant; a bluestone building, vine-covered, lovely, a tiny temple to the flower-god.
"It does our printing," said Arnold, "gives us light, heat and telephones. And runs the cars."
Then he showed her the shaded reaches of his lake, still, starred with lilies, lying dark under the curving boughs of water maples, doubling the sheer height of flower-crowned cliffs.
She held his hand tighter as they wound upward, circling the crown of the hill that she might see the splendid range of outlook; and swinging smoothly down a little and out on the green stretch before the house.
Ella gasped with delight. Gray, rough and harmonious, hung with woodbine and wildgrape, broad-porched and wide-windowed, it faced the setting sun. She stood looking, looking, over the green miles of tumbling hills, to the blue billowy far-off peaks swimming in soft light.
"There's the house," said Arnold, "furnished—there's a view room built on—for you, dear; I did it myself. There's the hill—and the little lake and one waterfall all for us! And the spring, and the garden, and some very nice Italians. And it will earn—my Hill and Mill, about three or four thousand dollars a year—aboveallexpenses!"
"How perfectly splendid!" said Ella. "But there's one thing you've left out!"
"What's that?" he asked, a little dashed.
"You!" she answered. "Arnold Blake! My Poet!"
"Oh, I forgot," he added, after some long still moments. "I ought to ask you about this first. Jim Chamberlain says I can cover all these hills with chestnuts, fill this valley with people, string that little river with a row of mills, make breakfast for all the world—and be a Millionaire. Shall I?"
"For goodness sake—No!" said Ella. "Millionaire, indeed? And spoil the most perfect piece of living I ever saw or heard of!"
Then there was a period of bliss, indeed there was enough to last indefinitely.
But one pleasure they missed. They never saw even the astonished face, much less the highly irritated mind, of old John Blake, when he first returned from his two years of travel. The worst of it was he had eaten the stuff all the way home-and liked it! They told him it was Chestnut Meal—but that meant nothing to him. Then he began to find the jingling advertisements in every magazine; things that ran in his head and annoyed him.
"When corn or rice no more are nice,When oatmeal seems to pall,When cream of wheat's no longer sweetAnd you abhor them all—"
"I do abhor them all!" the old man would vow, and take up a newspaper, only to read:
"Better than any food that growsUpon or in the ground,Strong, pure and sweetAnd good to eatOur tree-born nuts are found."
"Bah!" said Mr. Blake, and tried another, which only showed him:
"Good for mother, good for brother,Good for child;As for father—well, rather!He's just wild."
He was. But the truth never dawned upon him till he came to this one:
"About my hutThere grew a nutNutritious;I could but feel'Twould make a mealDelicious.
I had a Hill,I built a MillUpon it.And hour by hourI sought for powerTo run it.
To burn my treesOr try the breezeSeemed crazy;To use my armHad little charm—I'm lazy!
The nuts are here,But coal!—Quite dearWe find it!We have the stuff.Where's power enoughTo grind it?
What force to findMy nuts to grind?I've found it!The Water-fallCould beat 'em all—And ground it!
"Confound your impudence!" he wrote to his son. "And confound your poetic stupidity in not making a Big Business now you've got a start! But I understand you do make a living, and I'm thankful for that."
*
Arnold and Ella, watching the sunset from their hammock, laughed softly together, and lived.
This is a sermon.
Its purpose is to point out the need of a clearer conception of right and wrong, based on knowledge.
Its text is from Ecclesiastes I, 13, "And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven; this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith."
(Let me remark here that I had my sermon in mind before I looked for the text; but a more expressive and beautifully apposite one I never saw!)
The Preacher of old is right; this sore travail was laid upon us, a most useful exercise; but we have lazily evaded it and taken other people's judgment as to our duties.
That would-be Empire Builder, Moses, legislated for his people with an unlimited explicitness that reflects small credit on their power to search out by wisdom.
His cut and dried rules went down to most delicate selection of ovine vicera for the sacrifice—"the fat and the rump, and the fat that covereth the inwards and the caul above the liver, and the two kidneys"; and into careful dietetics, which would cut out from our food list the hare and rabbit, the lobster, the crab, the turtle, the clam, oyster and scallop, indeed all shellfish.
The "fowls that creep, going upon all four," whatever they may be, are also considered an abomination; but locusts, bald locusts, and grasshoppers are recommended by name. Even in clothing we are carefully forbidden to use a garment of linen and woolen, yet among our pious Puritan ancestors "linsey-woolsey" was a very common and useful cloth.
All these secondary Mosaic directions have long since been relegated to their place in archaeology; at least by the Christian churches, but the ten commandments are still held as coming direct from God; and form the main basis of our ethics. Yet while tacitly accepted they are not studied, and few people have remarked how the pressure of social development has changed their weight and relative value.
At first they stood, imposing and alike, an even row, to break anyone of which was held an equal sin. Few persons now would hold disrespect to a patently disrespectable parent as wrong as murder; or a failure to "remember the Sabbath" as great a sin as adultery. Experience has taught us something, and those who have undertaken that sore travail—to seek and search out by wisdom—have found that some things are much more wrong than others—and why.
I met once a very pious man; dark, gloomy, violently virtuous. He looked like one of Cromwell's deacons; but was in fact a southerner and an Episcopalian. Mention was made of an enlightened jury, somewhere in the west, who had acquitted a man who stole bread for his starving children.
"Good!" said I; "good! we are at last learning to discriminate in our judgment of right and wrong."
He glowered at me forbiddingly. "There is no room for judgment," he said; as if he were Fate itself. "There is a Commandment which says, 'Thou shalt not steal!'"
"Do you mean that all the Commandments stand equally?" I inquired. "That we must hold all of the same importance, without qualification, and to break any is an equal sin?"
"I do!" he said, with solemn assurance.
I meditated a little, and then asked, "Did you not say to me the other day that if the negroes ever tried to assert social equality, you would be among the first to shoulder your gun and put them in their place?"
"I would!" he admitted proudly.
"But," said I, "is there not a commandment which says, 'Thou shalt not kill?'"
He was silent. He was much annoyed, and saw no way out of his morass of contradiction. Then I offered what looked like a plank, a stepping-stone to safety. "Surely," said I, "there is some room for judgment. The later and smaller laws and regulations give many directions for killing. All through ancient Hebraic history it was frequently a special mandate, the people being distinctly commanded to slay and destroy, sometimes even to kill women, children and the unborn. And to-day—even a Christian man, in the exercise of legal justice, in defence of his life, his family, his country,—surely he has a right to kill! Do you not think there are times when it is right to kill?"
With a long breath of relief he agreed.
"Then why may it not be sometimes right to commit adultery?"
The conversation lapsed. He knew the two offenses were not in the same category. He knew that the reasons adultery is wrong, and killing is wrong are older than Hebrew history, and rest on observed facts. It would be a hardy thinker who would defend adultery; but we all know—to quote Ecclesiastes again that "There is a time to kill and a time to heal."
It may be that that set of ten applied with beautiful precision to the special vices of that people and that time; but there is room for many more needed ones to-day. There is no commandment against gambling, for instance; one of the most universal and indefensible evils. Gambling does no one good; the winner of unearned money is corrupted and the loser both corrupted and deprived. Gambling undermines all habits of industry and thrift; it unsettles our reliance on care, patience, thoroughness, ability, and tempts us to rely on chance. It is an unmitigated social evil, but goes unforbidden by the Mosaic code, which was so careful about which kind of fat to sacrifice and how much uncleaner a girl baby was than a boy.
Speaking of social evil,thesocial evil is not referred to. Adultery is an offence to be sure, dangerous and destructive to family and social life; but prostitution is a greater evil; far more common—and goes unmentioned; unless in the original it meant the same thing.
Lying is not referred to. Of course some say that bearing false witness means lying; but surely malicious perjury is a special crime, distinctly described, and not the same thing as mere misrepresentation.
Another of the blackest sins known to man, always so recognized and punished, goes without notice in this list:—treason. To betray one's country—what could be worse! Is it not visibly wickeder than to play ball on Sunday?
On the positive side our whole code of ethics, Hebrew and Christian, fails to mention the main duty of life—to do your best work. This is the one constant social service; and its reverse is a constant social injury.
The old ethics is wholly personal, the new ethics (still unwritten) is social first—personal later. In the old list we find, on a par with adultery, theft and murder, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." Does this mean common swearing? Is it as wrong to say 'damn' as to commit murder?
No, we do know better than that. We know that in those days, when lying was so universal a habit that no one thought of prohibiting it, the two most evil extremes were flat perjury with intent to harm, and the solemn invocation of God's name to bind a bargain or seal a vow, afterward broken. Both these were carefully forbidden. No one thought of believing anything unless it was sworn to—and if they broke their oath there was no reliance anywhere. To compel a slippery people to keep faith—that was good ethics; and then most necessary.
We do not run our business that way now; we do greater evil in new ways—and there is no commandment to forbid us. If that one read, "Thou shalt not break faith nor cheat," it would have applied equally well now.
The very first one is a curious proof of the then belief in many gods. Jehovah does not say, "I am the only God," He says, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." That there were others is admitted, but it is forbidden to run after them.
Nowadays we do not care enough even for our own idea of God—to say nothing of other people's! And look at all that careful objection to images and likenesses, and idol worship generally. The Jews forebore painting and sculpture for many centuries because of that prohibition. Now everyone with a kodak breaks it. The growth of true religious feeling, as well as scientific thought, makes it impossible for civilized peoples to make images and worship them, as did those ingenious old Moabites and Midianites, Jebuzites and Perrizites, Hittites and Haggathites.
The rigorous prohibition of coveting has always puzzled me—to covet is such a private feeling. And if you keep it to yourself, what harm does it do? You may spend your life wishing you had your neighbor's large red automobile; but he is none the poorer. Of course if one sits up nights to covet; or does it daytimes, by the hour, to the exclusion of other business; it would interfere with industry and injure the health. Can it be that the ancient Hebrews were that covetous?
Now suppose we do in good earnest give our hearts to seek and search out all things that are done under heaven, to classify and study them, to find which are most injurious and which are most beneficial, and base thereon a farther code of ethics—by no means excluding the old.
The two great Christian laws will stand solidly. The absolute and all absorbing love of God and the love of the neighbor which is much the same thing—are good general directions. But in daily living; in confronting that ceaseless array of "all things that are done under heaven," the average person cannot stop to think out just how this game of bridge or that horse-race interferes with love of God or man. We need good hard honest scientific study; sore travail, which God hath given to the sons of men, to be exercised therewith; and a further code of ethics, not claimed as directly handed down from Heaven, but proven by plain facts of common experience. We do not need to imitate or parody the authoritative utterance of any priesthood; we want an exposition which a bright child can understand and a practical man respect.
We have succeeded before now in establishing elaborate codes of conduct—yes and enforcing them, without any better sanction than habit, prejudice, tradition. A schoolboy has his notion of right behavior, not traceable to Hebrew or Christian ethics; so has the grown man, putting his quaint ideas of "honor" and "sportsmanship" far beyond any religious teaching. Our scorn of the tell-tale and the coward is not based on the Bible, but on experience; our inhuman cruelty to "the woman who has sinned" is based on mere ignorance and falsehood.
Take that fatuous "unwritten law" which allows a man to murder another man and the wife who has offended what he calls "his honor." There is nothing about that honor of his in old or new testament. It is a notion of his own, which overrides, "Thou shalt not kill," as easily as "lying like a gentleman" overrides, "Thou shalt not bear false witness."
Since we have shown such simple capacity to invent and enforce codes of ethics, of questionable value, why not exercise our ingenuity in making some better ones? We know more now.
As a matter of fact we do not want commands, we want instructions; we want to know why things are wrong, which are the most wrong, and what are their respective consequences. But if a distinct set of prohibitions is preferred it is quite possible to make some that would fit our present day conditions more closely than the Hebraic list.
It would be an interesting thing to have earnest people give their minds to this and seek and search out for themselves a new light on everyday ethics. As a starter here is a tentative list to think about; open to alteration and addition by anyone.
And on what authority are these presented? some will ask. Not on "authority" at all; but on law, natural law, the right and wrong indicated being long since known to us. And are these set presumptuously in the place of the Divine Command? will be tremblingly inquired. By no means. The Ten stand as before—these are auxiliary and merely suggestive of study.
1. Thou shalt learn that human love is a natural law and obey it as the main condition of life: the service of man is the worship of God.
2. Thou shalt learn that the first duty of human life is to find thy work and do it; for by labor ye live and grow and in it is worship, pride and joy.
3. Thou shalt keep an open mind and use it, welcoming new knowledge and new truth and giving them to all.
4. Thou shalt maintain liberty and justice for everyone.
5. Thou shalt maintain thy health and thy chastity. Temperance and purity are required of all men.
6. Thou shalt not lie, break faith or cheat.
7. Thou shalt not gamble, nor live idly on the labor of others, nor by any usury.
8. Thou shalt not steal; nor take from one another save in fair exchange or as a free gift.
9. Thou shalt not do unnecessary hurt to any living thing.
10. Thou shalt not worship the past nor be content with the present, for growth is the law of life.
Exempt! She "does not have to work!"So might one talkDefending long, bedridden ease,Weak yielding ankles, flaccid knees,With, "I don't have to walk!"
Not have to work. Why not? Who gaveFree pass to you?You're housed and fed and taught and dressedBy age-long labor of the rest—Work other people do!
What do you give in honest payFor clothes and food?Then as a shield, defence, excuse,She offers her exclusive use—Her function—Motherhood!
Is motherhood a trade you makeA living by?And does the wealth you so may use,Squander, accumulate, abuse,Show motherhood as high?
Or does the motherhood of thoseWhose toil endures,The farmers' and mechanics' wives,Hard working servants all their lives—Deserve less price than yours?
We're not exempt! Man's world runs on,Motherless, wild;Our servitude and long duress,Our shameless, harem idleness,Both fail to serve the child.
Most of us believe the human race to be the highest form of life—so far. Not all of us know why. Because we do not properly realize the causes of our superiority and swift advance, we do not take advantage of them as we should.
Among various causes of human supremacy, none counts more than our social gift of genius, the special power that is given to some more than others, as part of social specialization. In social life, which is organic, we do not find each one doing the same work, but some, especially fitted for one thing, doing that thing for the service of the others. No creature approaches us in the degree of our specialization, and the crowning power of individual genius.
Because of this power we, as a whole, have benefited by the "genius for mechanics," for invention, for discovery, for administration, and all the commoner lines of work, as well as in the fine arts and professions. The great surgeon is a genius as well as the great painter or poet, and the world profits by the mighty works of these specialized servants.
For the development of genius we must allow it to specialize, of course. The genius of Beethoven would have done us little good if he had passed his life as a bookkeeper or dealer in ironware. The greatest of poets could produce little poetry if he worked twelve hours a day in a rolling mill. Genius may overcome some forms of opposition, but it must be allowed to do the work it has a genius for—or none will be manifested.
We can easily see what a loss it would have been to the world if all forms of genius had been checked and smothered; if we had no better poetry than the average man writes when he is in love, no better surgery than each of us could perform if he had to, no better music than the tunes we make up to amuse ourselves, no better machinery than each of us is capable of inventing. We know full well the limitation of the average mind.
Now, suppose we had no better guide than that, no specialization at all, no great financiers, no great administrators, no great astronomers or architects, no great anything—simply the average mind, doing everything for itself without any help from others. A nice, flat, low-grade world we would have! Think of the houses, each of them "the house that Jack built," and not a building on earth bigger or better than Jack alone could make! No sciences, no arts, no skilled trades (one cannot develop much special skill while doing everything for oneself); no teachers and leaders of any sort—just the strength and ingenuity of each one of us, trying to meet his own needs by his own efforts.
This would be stark savagery, not civilization.
All this is as true of women as it is of men; women also are human beings, and members of society. Women have capacity for specialization, for strong preference and high ability in certain kinds of work. But since a man's world has viewed women only as females, since their feminine functions were practically uniform, and since everything they did was considered a feminine function, therefore women have not been allowed to specialize and develop genius. All women were required to do the same work (a) "keep house"; (b) "rear children."
These things we have at no time viewed as arts, trades, sciences or professions; they were considered as feminine functions, and to be performed by "instinct." Instinct is hereditary habit. It is developed by the repeated action of identical conditions. It is a fine thing, for animals, who have nothing else.
In humanity, instinct disappears in proportion as reason develops. Our conditions vary, even more and rapidly, and we have to have something much more rapid and alterable than instinct. No great man runs a business by instinct; he learns how. For the performance of any social service of importance, three powers are required. First, special ability or genius; second, education; third, experience. When we are served by special ability, education and experience, we are well served. Any human business left without these is left at the bottom of the ladder.
That is where we find the two great branches of human service left to women, the domestic and the maternal. These universal services, of most vital importance not only to our individual lives but to our social development, are left to be performed by the average mind, by the average woman, by instinct.
Our shoemaking is done by a shoemaker, our blacksmithing by a blacksmith, our doctoring by a doctor; but our cooking is done not by a cook, but by the woman a man happens to marry. She may, by rare chance, have some genius for cooking; but even if she does, there is no education and experience, save such as she may get from a cook book and a lifetime of catering to one family. Quite aside from cooking, the management of our daily living is a form of social service which should be given by genius, education, and experience; and, like the cooking, it is performed by any pretty girl a man secures in marriage.
This vast field of comfort or discomfort, ease or disease, happiness or unhappiness, is cut off from the uplifting influence of specialization.
But it is in the tasks and cares we call "maternal" that our strange restriction of normal development does most damage. We have lumped under their large and generous term all the things done to the little child—by his mother. What his father does for him is not so limited.
A child needs a house to live in—but his father does not have to build it. A child needs shoes, hats, furniture, dishes, toys—his father does not have to make them. A child needs, above all things, instruction—his father does not have to give it.
No, the fathers, humanly specialized, developing great skill and making constant progress, give to the world's children human advantages. A partly civilized state, comparative peace, such and such religions and systems of education, such and such fruits of the industry, trade, commerce of the time, and the mighty works of genius; all these men give to children, not individually, as parents, but collectively, as human beings. The father who, as a savage, could give his children only a father's services, now gives them the services of carpenters and masons, farmers and graziers, doctors and lawyers, painters and glaziers, butchers and bakers, soldiers and sailors—all the multiplied abilities of modern specialization; while the mother is "only mother" still.
There are three exceptions: that most ancient division of labor which provided the nurse, the next oldest which gave the servant, and the very recent one which has lifted the world so wonderfully, the teacher. The first two are still unspecialized. As any woman is supposed to be a competent mother, so any woman is supposed to be a competent nursemaid or housemaid. The teacher, however, has to learn his business, is a skilled professional, and accomplishes much.
Teaching is a form of specialized motherhood. It gives "the mother love"—an attribute of all female animals toward their own young—a chance to grow to social form as a general love of children, and through specialization, training, experience, it makes this love far more useful. The teacher is to some degree a social mother, and the advantage of this social motherhood is so great that it would seem impossible to question it. Motherhood is common to all races of humanity, down to the Bushmen, as well as to beasts and birds. Education is found only with us; and in proportion to our stage of social progress. Where there is no education but the mother's—no progress. Where the teacher comes, and in proportion to the quantity and quality of teachers, so advances civilization. In Africa there are mothers, prolific and affectionate; in China, in India, everywhere. But the nations with the most and best education are those which lead the world.
Similarly in domestic service. Everywhere on earth, to the lowest savages, we find the individual woman serving the individual man. "Home cooking" varies with the home; from the oil-lamp of the Eskimo or brazier of the Oriental, up to the more elaborate stoves and ranges of to-day; but the art of cooking has grown through the men cooks, who made it a business, and gave to this valuable form of social service the advantages of genius, training and experience.
The whole people share in the development of architecture, of electric transportation and communication, of science and invention. But no such development is possible to the general public, in these basic necessities of child care and house care, for the obvious reason above stated, that these tasks are left to the unspecialized, untrained, unexperienced average woman.
The child should have from birth the advantages of civilization. The home should universally share in the progress of the age. To some extent this now takes place, as far as the advance in child-culture can spread and filter downward to the average mother, through the darkness of ignorance and the obstacles of prejudice, and as far as public statutes can enforce upon the private home the sanitary requirements of the age. But this is a slow and pitifully small advance; we need genius, for our children; genius to insure the health and happiness of our daily lives.
Motherhood pure and simple, the bearing, nursing, loving and providing for a child, is a feminine function, and should be common to all women. But that "providing" does not have to be done in person. The mother has long since deputed to the father the two main lines of child care—defence and maintenance. She has allowed her responsibility to shift in this matter on the ground that he could do it better than she could.
In instruction she has accepted the services of the school, and of the music-teacher, dancing-teacher, and other specialists; in case of illness, she relies on the doctor; in daily use, she is glad to patronize the shoemaker and hatter, seamstress and tailor. Yet in the position of nurse and teacher to the baby, she admits no assistance except a servant. But the first four or five years of a child's life are of preeminent importance. Here above all is where he needs the advantage of genius, training and experience, and is given but ignorant affection and hired labor.
Some, to-day, driven to the wall by glaring facts such as these, that babies die most of preventable diseases, and that their death rate is greatest while they are most absolutely in their mother's care, do admit the need of improvement. But they say, "The mother should engage this specialist to help her in the home," or, "The mother must be taught."
If all normal women are to be mothers, as they should, how are any specialists to be hired in private homes? A young nursemaid cannot reach the heights of training and experience needed. As to teaching the mother—who is to teach her?
Who understands this work? No one! And no one ever will until the natural genius for child culture of some women is improved by training, strengthened and deepened by experience, and recognized as social service. Such women should be mothers themselves, of course, They would be too few, by the laws of specialization, to be hired as private nurses, and too expensive, if they were not too few. The great Specialist in Child Culture should be as highly honored and paid as a college president—more so; no place on earth is more important.
The average mother is not, and never can be, an eminent specialist, any more than the average father can be. Averages do not attain genius. Our children need genius in their service. "Where are we to get it?" demand the carpers and doubters, clinging to their rocky fastnesses of tradition and habit like so many limpets.
It is here already.
Some women have a natural genius for the care and training of babies and little children. Some women have a natural genius for household management. All this wealth of genius is now lost to the world except in so far as it is advantageous to one family.
And here, by a paradox not surprising, it io often disadvantageous. A woman capable of smoothly administering a large hotel may be extremely wearing as a private housekeeper. Napoleon, as a drill sergeant, would have been hard to bear.
A woman with the real human love for children, the capacity for detail in their management, the profound interest in educational processes, which would make her a beneficent angel if she had the care of hundreds, may make her a positive danger if she has to focus all that capacity on two or three.
(To be concluded.)