The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909 1910)

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"Why," said Solomon John, "I have nothing to say!"

(I quote from memory, not having the classics at hand.)

There was great disappointment in the Peterkin family, and the project
was given up. But why so? Solomon John need not have been so easily
discouraged. He was in the exact position to produce literature--pure,
high, legitimate literature--the Novel Without a Purpose.

In the effort to preserve the purity of the Pierian Springs, those
guardians of this noble art, who arbitrate in the "standard magazines,"
condemn and exclude what they define as "controversial literature."

Suppose someone comes along with a story advocating euthanasia, showing
with all the force of the art of fiction the slow, hideous suffering of
some helpless cancer patient or the like, the blessed release that might
be humanly given; showing it so as to make an indelible impression--this
story is refused as "controversial," as being written with a purpose.

Yet the same magazine will print a story no better written, showing the
magnificent heroism of the man who slowly dies in year-long torment,
helpless himself and steady drain on everyone about him, virtuously
refusing to shorten his torments--and theirs.

What is a controversy? A discussion, surely. It has two sides.

Why isn't a story upholding one side of a controversy as controversial
as a story upholding the other side?

Is it only a coincidence that magazines of large circulation and
established reputation so consistently maintain that side of the
controversy already popularly held as right?

Time passes. Minds develop. New knowledge comes. People's ideas and
feelings change--some people's. These new ideas and feelings seek
expression ion the natural forms--speech and literature, as is
legitimate and right.

But the canons of taste and judgement say No.

The ideas and feelings of the peoples of past times found expression in
this way, and are preserved in literature. But our ideas and feelings,
so seeking expression, do not make literature.

It is not the first time that the canons were wrong. Straight down the
road of historic progress, from the dim old days we can hardly see, into
the increasing glare of the calcium-lighted present, there have always
stood the Priesthood of the Past, making human progress into an obstacle
race.

PERSONAL PROBLEMS

QUERY: "I am a woman of about forty; my children are pretty well grown
up; my home does not take all my time. I could do some work in the
world, but I do not know what to do. Can you advise me?"

QUERY: "I appreciate the need of women's working, and am free to do so,
but cannot make up my mind what work to undertake. It is very easy for
you people with 'a mission' and talents, but what is an ordinary woman
to do?"

ANSWER: These two questions belong together, and may be answered
together. Neither of the questioners seem to be driven by necessity,
which simplifies matters a good deal.

Work has to be done for two real reasons. One is the service of
humanity, of society, which cannot exist without our functional
activity. Work is social service.

The other is personal development. One cannot be fully human without
this functional social activity.

In choosing work, there are two governing factors always, and generally
the third one of pressing necessity. Of the two, one is personal
fitness--the instinctive choice of those who are highly specialized in
some one line. This makes decision easy, but does not always make it
easy to get the work. You may be divinely ordained to fiddle--but if no
one wants to hear you, you are badly off. The other is far more
general; it is the social demand--the call of the work that _needs
doing._

If you are able to work, free to work, and not hampered by a rigid
personal bent, just look about and see what other people need. Study
your country, town, village, your environment, near or distant; and take
hold of some social need, whether it is a better school board or the
preservation of our forests. So long as the earth or the people on it
need service, there is work for all of us.

PLAY-TIME

A WALK WALK WALK

I.

I once went out for a walk, walk, walk,
For a walk beside the sea;
And all I carried for to eat, eat, eat,
Was a jar of ginger snaps so sweet,
And a jug of ginger tea.

For I am fond of cinnamon pie,
And peppermint pudding, too;
And I dearly love to bake, bake, bake,
A mighty mass of mustard cake,
And nutmeg beer to brew.

II.

And all I carried for drink, drink, drink,
That long and weary way,
Was a dozen little glasses
Of boiled molasses
On a Cochin China tray.

For I am fond of the sugar of the grape,
And the sugar of the maple tree;
But I always eat
The sugar of the beet
When I'm in company.

III.

And all I carried for to read, read, read,
For a half an hour or so,
Was Milman's Rome, and Grote on Greece,
And the works of Dumas, pere et fils,
And the poems of Longfellow.

For I am fond of the Hunting of the Snark,
And the Romaunt of the Rose;
And I never go to bed
Without Webster at my head
And Worcester at my toes.

ODE TO A FOOL

"Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his
folly."--Prov. 17th, 12th.

Singular insect! Here I watch thee spin
Upon my pin;
And know that thou hast not the least idea
I have thee here.
Strange is thy nature! For thou mayst be slain
Once and again;
Dismembered, tortured, torn with tortures hot--
Yet know it not!
As well pour hate and scorn upon the dead
As on thy head.
While I discuss thee here I plainly see
Thee sneer at me.

Marvellous creature! What mysterious power
In idle hour
Arranged the mighty elements whence came
Thy iron frame!
In every item of thy outward plan
So like a man!
But men are mortal, dying every day,
And thou dost stay.
The nations rise and die with passing rule,
But thou, O Fool!
Livedst when drunken Noah asleeping lay,
Livest to-day.

Invulnerable Fool! Thy mind
Is deaf and blind;
Impervious to sense of taste and smell
And touch as well.
Thought from without may vainly seek to press
Thy consciousness;
Man's hard-won knowledge which the ages pile
But makes thee smile;
Thy vast sagacity and blatant din
Come from within;
Thy voice doth fill the world from year to year,
Helpless we hear.

Wisdom and wit 'gainst thee have no avail;
O Fool--All Hail!

THE FORERUNNER

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE

BY

CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN
AUTHOR, OWNER & PUBLISHER

1.00 A YEAR
.10 A COPY

Volume 1. No. 5
MARCH, 1910
Copyright for 1910
C. P. Gilman

How many a useless stone we find
Swallowed in that capacious, blind,
Faith-swollen gullet, our ancestral mind!

THE SANDS

It runs--it runs--the hourglass turning;
Dark sands glooming, bright sands burning;
I turn--and turn--with heavy or hopeful hands;
So must I turn as long as the Voice commands;
But I lose all count of the hours for watching the sliding sands.

Or fast--or slow--it ceases turning;
Ceases the flow, or bright or burning--
"What have you done with the hours?" the Voice demands.
What can I say of eager or careless hands?--
I had forgotten the hours in watching the sliding sands.

A MIDDLE-SIZED ARTIST

When Rosamond's brown eyes seemed almost too big for her brilliant
little face, and her brown curls danced on her shoulders, she had a
passionate enthusiasm for picture books. She loved "the reading," but
when the picture made what her young mind was trying to grasp suddenly
real before her, the stimulus reaching the brain from two directions at
once, she used to laugh with delight and hug the book.

The vague new words describing things she never saw suggested "castle,"
a thing of gloom and beauty; and then upon the page came The Castle
itself, looming dim and huge before her, with drooping heavy banners
against the sunset calm.

How she had regretted it, scarce knowing why, when the pictures were
less real than the description; when the princess, whose beauty made her
the Rose of the World (her name was Rosamond, too!), appeared in visible
form no prettier, no, not as pretty, as The Fair One with The Golden
Locks in the other book! And what an outcry she made to her indifferent
family when first confronted by the unbelievable blasphemy of an
illustration that differed from the text!

"But, Mother--see!" she cried. "It says, 'Her beauty was crowned by
rich braids of golden hair, wound thrice around her shapely head,' and
this girl has black hair--in curls! Did the man forget what he just
said?"

Her mother didn't seem to care at all. "They often get them wrong," she
said. "Perhaps it was an old plate. Run away, dear, Mama is very
busy."

But Rosamond cared.

She asked her father more particularly about this mysterious "old
plate," and he, being a publisher, was able to give her much information
thereanent. She learned that these wonderful reinforcements of her
adored stories did not emanate direct from the brain of the beneficent
author, but were a supplementary product by some draughtsman, who cared
far less for what was in the author's mind than for what was in his own;
who was sometimes lazy, sometimes arrogant, sometimes incompetent;
sometimes all three. That to find a real artist, who could make
pictures and was willing to make them like the picture the author saw,
was very unusual.

"You see, little girl," said Papa, "the big artists are too big to do
it--they'd rather make their own pictures; and the little artists are
too little--they can't make real ones of their own ideas, nor yet of
another's."

"Aren't there any middle-sized artists?" asked the child.

"Sometimes," said her father; and then he showed her some of the perfect
illustrations which leave nothing to be desired, as the familiar ones by
Teniel and Henry Holiday, which make Alice's Adventures and the Hunting
of the Snark so doubly dear, Dore and Retsch and Tony Johannot and
others.

"When I grow up," said Rosamond decidedly, "I'm going to be a
middle-sized artist!"

Fortunately for her aspirations the line of study required was in no way
different at first from that of general education. Her parents
explained that a good illustrator ought to know pretty much everything.
So she obediently went through school and college, and when the time
came for real work at her drawing there was no objection to that.

"It is pretty work," said her mother, "a beautiful accomplishment. It
will always be a resource for her."

"A girl is better off to have an interest," said her father, "and not
marry the first fool that asks her. When she does fall in love this
won't stand in the way; it never does; with a woman. Besides--she may
need it sometime."

So her father helped and her mother did not hinder, and when the brown
eyes were less disproportionate and the brown curls wreathed high upon
her small fine head, she found herself at twenty-one more determined to
be a middle-sized artist than she was at ten.

Then love came; in the person of one of her father's readers; a
strenuous new-fledged college graduate; big, handsome, domineering,
opinionative; who was accepting a salary of four dollars a week for the
privilege of working in a publishing house, because he loved books and
meant to write them some day.

They saw a good deal of each other, and were pleasantly congenial. She
sympathized with his criticisms of modem fiction; he sympathized with
her criticisms of modern illustration; and her young imagination began
to stir with sweet memories of poetry and romance; and sweet hopes of
beautiful reality.

There are cases where the longest way round is the shortest way home;
but Mr. Allen G. Goddard chose differently. He had read much about
women and about love, beginning with a full foundation from the
ancients; but lacked an understanding of the modern woman, such as he
had to deal with.

Therefore, finding her evidently favorable, his theories and
inclinations suiting, he made hot love to her, breathing, "My Wife!"
into her ear before she had scarce dared to think "my darling!" and
suddenly wrapping her in his arms with hot kisses, while she was still
musing on "The Hugenot Lovers" and the kisses she dared dream of came in
slow gradation as in the Sonnets From the Portuguese.

He was in desperate earnest. "O you are so beautiful!" he cried. "So
unbelievably beautiful! Come to me, my Sweet!" for she had sprung away
and stood panting and looking at him, half reproachful, half angry.

"You love me, Dearest! You cannot deny it!" he cried. "And I love
you--Ah! You shall know!"

He was single-hearted, sincere; stirred by a very genuine overwhelming
emotion. She on the contrary was moved by many emotions at once;--a
pleasure she was half ashamed of; a disappointment she could not clearly
define; as if some one had told her the whole plot of a promising new
novel; a sense of fear of the new hopes she had been holding, and of
startled loyalty to her long-held purposes.

"Stop!" she said--for he evidently mistook her agitation, and thought
her silence was consent. "I suppose I do--love you--a little; but
you've no right to kiss me like that!"

His eyes shone. "You Darling! _My_ Darling!" he said. "You will give
me the right, won't you? Now, Dearest--see! I am waiting!" And he held
out his arms to her.

But Rosamond was more and more displeased. "You will have to wait. I'm
sorry; but I'm not ready to be engaged, yet! You know my plans. Why
I'm going to Paris this year! I'm going to work! It will be ever so
long before I'm ready to--to settle down."

"As to that," he said more calmly, "I cannot of course offer immediate
marriage, but we can wait for that--together! You surely will not leave
me--if you love me!"

"I think I love you," she said conscientiously, "at least I did think
so. You've upset it all, somehow--you hurry me so!--no--I can't bind
myself yet."

"Do you tell me to wait for you?" he asked; his deep voice still strong
to touch her heart. "How long, Dearest?"

"I'm not asking you to wait for me--I don't want to promise
anything--nor to have you. But when I have made a place--am really
doing something--perhaps then--"

He laughed harshly. "Do not deceive yourself, child, nor me! If you
loved me there would be none of this poor wish for freedom--for a
career. You don't love me--that's all!"

He waited for her to deny this. She said nothing. He did not know how
hard it was for her to keep from crying--and from running to his arms.

"Very well," said he. "Goodby!"--And he was gone.

All that happened three years ago.

Allen Goddard took it very hard; and added to his earlier ideas about
women another, that "the new woman" was a selfish heartless creature,
indifferent to her own true nature.

He had to stay where he was and work, owing to the pressure of
circumstances, which made it harder; so he became something of a
mysogynyst; which is not a bad thing when a young man has to live on
very little and build a place for himself.

In spite of this cynicism he could not remove from his mind those softly
brilliant dark eyes; the earnest thoughtful lines of the pure young
face; and the changing lights and shadows in that silky hair. Also, in
the course of his work, he was continually reminded of her; for her
characteristic drawings appeared more and frequently in the magazines,
and grew better, stronger, more convincing from year to year.

Stories of adventure she illustrated admirably; children's stories to
perfection; fairy stories--she was the delight of thousands of children,
who never once thought that the tiny quaint rose in a circle that was to
be found in all those charming pictures meant a name. But he noticed
that she never illustrated love stories; and smiled bitterly, to
himself.

And Rosamond?

There were moments when she was inclined to forfeit her passage money
and throw herself unreservedly into those strong arms which had held her
so tightly for a little while. But a bud picked open does not bloom
naturally; and her tumultuous feelings were thoroughly dissipated by a
long strong attack of _mal de mer._ She derived two advantages from her
experience: one a period of safe indifference to all advances from eager
fellow students and more cautious older admirers; the other a facility
she had not before aspired to in the making of pictures of love and
lovers.

She made pictures of him from memory--so good, so moving, that she put
them religiously away in a portfolio by themselves; and only took them
out--sometimes. She illustrated, solely for her own enjoyment some of
her girlhood's best loved poems and stories. "The Rhyme of the Duchess
May," "The Letter L," "In a Balcony," "In a Gondola." And hid them from
herself even--they rather frightened her.

After three years of work abroad she came home with an established
reputation, plenty of orders, and an interest that would not be stifled
in the present state of mind of Mr. Allen Goddard.

She found him still at work, promoted to fifteen dollars a week by this
time, and adding to his income by writing political and statistical
articles for the magazines. He talked, when they met, of this work,
with little enthusiasm, and asked her politely about hers.

"Anybody can see mine!" she told him lightly. "And judge it easily."

"Mine too," he answered. "It to-day is--and to-morrow is cast into the
waste-basket. He who runs may read--if he runs fast enough."

He told himself he was glad he was not bound to this hard, bright
creature, so unnaturally self-sufficient, and successful.

She told herself that he had never cared for her, really, that was
evident.

Then an English publisher who liked her work sent her a new novel by a
new writer, "A. Gage." "I know this is out of your usual line," he
said, "but I want a woman to do it, and I want you to be the woman, if
possible. Read it and see what you think. Any terms you like."

The novel was called "Two and One;" and she began it with languid
interest, because she liked that publisher and wished to give full
reasons for refusing. It opened with two young people who were much in
love with one another; the girl a talented young sculptor with a vivid
desire for fame; and another girl, a cousin of the man, ordinary enough,
but pretty and sweet, and with no desires save those of romance and
domesticity. The first couple broke off a happy engagement because she
insisted on studying in Paris, and her lover, who could neither go with
her, nor immediately marry her, naturally objected.

Rosamond sat up in bed; pulled a shawl round her, swung the electric
light nearer, and went on.

The man was broken-hearted; he suffered tortures of loneliness,
disappointment, doubt, self-depreciation. He waited, held at his work
by a dependent widowed mother; hoping against hope that his lost one
would come back. The girl meanwhile made good in her art work; she was
not a great sculptor but a popular portraitist and maker of little genre
groups. She had other offers, but refused them, being hardened in her
ambitions, and, possibly, still withheld by her early love.

The man after two or three years of empty misery and hard grinding work,
falls desperately ill; the pretty cousin helps the mother nurse him, and
shows her own affection. He offers the broken remnants of his heart,
which she eagerly undertakes to patch up; and they become tolerably
happy, at least she is.

But the young sculptor in Paris! Rosamond hurried through the pages to
the last chapter. There was the haughty and triumphant heroine in her
studio. She had been given a medal--she had plenty of orders--she had
just refused a Count. Everyone had gone, and she sat alone in her fine
studio, self-satisfied and triumphant.

Then she picks up an old American paper which was lying about; reads it
idly as she smokes her cigarette--and then both paper and cigarette drop
to the floor, and she sits staring.

Then she starts up--her arms out--vainly. "Wait! O Wait!" she
cries--"I was coining back,"--and drops into her chair again. The fire
is out. She is alone.

Rosamond shut the book and leaned back upon her pillow. Her eyes were
shut tight; but a little gleaming line showed on either cheek under the
near light. She put the light out and lay quite still.

*

Allen G. Goddard, in his capacity as "reader" was looking over some
popular English novels which his firm wished to arrange about publishing
in America. He left "Two and One" to the last. It was the second
edition, the illustrated one which he had not seen yet; the first he had
read before. He regarded it from time to time with a peculiar
expression.

"Well," he said to himself, "I suppose I can stand it if the others do."
And he opened the book.

The drawing was strong work certainly, in a style he did not know. They
were striking pictures, vivid, real, carrying out in last detail the
descriptions given, and the very spirit of the book, showing it more
perfectly than the words. There was the tender happiness of the lovers,
the courage, the firmness, the fixed purpose in the young sculptor
insisting on her freedom, and the gay pride of the successful artist in
her work.

There was beauty and charm in this character, yet the face was always
turned away, and there was a haunting suggestion of familiarity in the
figure. The other girl was beautiful, and docile in expression;
well-dressed and graceful; yet somehow unattractive, even at her best,
as nurse; and the man was extremely well drawn, both in his happy ardor
as a lover, and his grinding misery when rejected. He was very
good-looking; and here too was this strong sense of resemblance.

"Why he looks like _me_!" suddenly cried the reader--springing to his
feet. "Confound his impudence!" he cried. "How in thunder!" Then he
looked at the picture again, more carefully, a growing suspicion in his
face; and turned hurriedly to the title page,--seeing a name unknown to
him.

This subtle, powerful convincing work; this man who undeniably suggested
him; this girl whose eyes he could not see; he turned from one to
another and hurried to the back of the book.

"The fire was out--she was alone." And there, in the remorseless light
of a big lamp before her fireless hearth, the crumpled newspaper beside
her, and all hope gone from a limp, crouching little figure, sat--why,
he would know her among a thousand--even if her face was buried in her
hands, and sunk on the arm of the chair--it was Rosamond!

*

She was in her little downtown room and hard at work when he entered;
but she had time to conceal a new book quickly.

He came straight to her; he had a book in his hand, open--he held it
out.

"Did you do this?" he demanded. "Tell me--tell me!" His voice was very
unreliable.

She lifted her eyes slowly to his; large, soft, full of dancing lights,
and the rich color swept to the gold-lighted borders of her hair.

"Did you?" she asked.

He was taken aback. "I!" said he. "Why it's by--" he showed her the
title-page. "By A. Gage," he read.

"Yes," said she, "Go on," and he went on, 'Illustrated by A. N. Other.'"

"It's a splendid novel," she said seriously. "Real work--great work. I
always knew you'd do it, Allen. I'm so proud of you!" And she held out
her hand in the sincere intelligent appreciation of a fellow craftsman.

He took it, still bewildered.

"Thank you," he said. "I value your opinion--honestly I do! And--with
a sudden sweep of recognition. "And yours is great work! Superb! Why
you've put more into that story than I knew was there! You make the
thing live and breathe! You've put a shadow of remorse in that lonely
ruffian there that I was too proud to admit! And you've shown
the--unconvincingness of that Other Girl; marvellously. But see
here--no more fooling!"

He took her face between his hands, hands that quivered strongly, and
forced her to look at him. "Tell me about that last picture! Is
it--true?"

Her eyes met his, with the look he longed for. "It is true," she said.

*

After some time, really it was a long time, but they had not noticed it,
he suddenly burst forth. "But how did you _know_?"

She lifted a flushed and smiling face: and pointed to the title page
again.

"'A. Gage.'--You threw it down."

"And you--" He threw back his head and laughed delightedly. "You threw
down A-N-Other! O you witch! You immeasurably clever darling! How
well our work fits. By Jove! What good times we'll have!"

And they did.

THE MINOR BIRDS

Shall no bird sing except the nightingale?
Must all the lesser voices cease?
Lark, thrush and blackbird hold their peace?
The woods wait dumb
Until he come?

Must we forego the voices of the field?
The hedgebird's twitter and the soft dove's cooing,
All the small songs of nesting, pairing, wooing,
Where each reveals
What joy he feels?

Should we know how to praise the nightingale,
Master of music, ecstacy and pain,
If he alone sang in the springtime rain?
If no one heard
A minor bird?

PARLOR-MINDEDNESS

"Won't you step in?"

You step in.

"She will be down in a moment. Won't you sit down?"