The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909 1910)

C >> Charlotte Perkins Gilman >> The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909 1910)

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"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?"