The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909 1910)

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

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With the interest of an eavesdropper she lay still, listening, and heard
no good of herself.

"How long is it to Christmas?" she presently heard her grandchild ask,
and beg her mother for the "party"--still denied her.

"Grandma spoils everything!" said the clear childish voice, and the
mother's gentle one urged love and patience.

It was some time before the suddenly awakened old lady, in the dark,
realized the source of these voices--and then she could not locate it.

"It's some joke of that young man's" she said grimly--but the joke went
on.

It was Mrs. Grey's sister now, condoling with her about this
mother-in-law.

"Why do you have to put up with it Louise? Won't any of her daughters
have her?"

"I'm afraid they don't want her," said Louise's gentle voice. "But Joe
is her son, and of course he feels that his home is his mother's. I
think he is quite right. She is old, and alone--she doesn't _mean_ to
be disagreeable."

"Well, she achieves it without effort, then! A more disagreeable old
lady I never saw, Louise, and I'd like nothing better than to tell her
so!"

The old lady was angry, but impressed. There is a fascination in
learning how others see us, even if the lesson is unpleasant. She heard
the two neighbors who talked together before Mama came down, and their
talk was of her--and of how they pitied young Mrs. Grey.

"If I was in her shoes," said the older of the two, "I'd pick up and
travel! She's only sixty-five--and sound as a nut."

"Has she money enough?" asked the other.

"My, yes! Money to burn! She has her annuity that her father left her,
and a big insurance--and house rents. She must have all of three
thousand a year."

"And doesn't she pay board here?"

"Pay board! Not she. She wouldn't pay anything so long as she has a
relative to live on. She's saved all her life. But nobody'll get any
good of it till she's dead."

This talk stopped when their hostess entered, changing to more general
themes; but the interest revived when men's voices took up the tale.

"Yes--wants her will made again. Always making and unmaking and
remaking. Harmless amusement, I suppose."

"She wastes good money on both of us--and I tell her so. But one can't
be expected to absolutely refuse a patient."

"Or a client!"

"No. I suppose not."

"She's not really ill then?"

"Bless you, Ruthven, I don't know a sounder old woman anywhere. All she
needs is a change--and to think of something besides herself! I tell
her that, too--and she says I'm so eccentric."

"Why in all decency don't her son do her doctoring?"

"I suppose he's too frank--and not quite able to speak his mind. He's a
fine fellow. That paper of his will be a great feature of our
convention. Shame he can't go."

"Why can't he? Can't afford it?"

"That's just it. You see the old lady don't put up--not a cent--and he
has all he can do to keep the boys in college." And their conversation
stopped, and Grandma heard her own voice--inviting the doctor up to her
room--and making another appointment for the lawyer.

Then it was the young minister, a cheerful, brawny youth, whom she had
once described as a "Godless upstart!"

He appeared to be comforting young Mrs. Grey, and commending her. "You
are doing wonders," he said, as their voices came into hearing, "and not
letting your right hand know it, either."

"You make far too much of it, Mr. Eagerson," the soft voice answered, "I
am so happy in my children--my home--my husband. This is the _only_
trouble--I do not complain."

"I know you don't complain, Mrs. Grey, but I want you to know that
you're appreciated! 'It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop,
than with a woman in a wide house'--especially if she's your
mother-in-law."

"I won't allow you to speak so--if you are my minister!" said young Mrs.
Grey with spirit; and the talk changed to church matters, where the
little lady offered to help with time and service, and regretted that
she had no money to give.

There was a silence, save for small confused noises of a day time
household; distant sounds of doors and dishes; and then in a sad,
confidential voice--"Why is Grandma so horrid? And why do I have to
love her? How can you love people you don't, Lady Isobel?"

Grandma was really fond of quiet little Josephine, even if she did
sometimes snub her as a matter of principle. She lay and listened to
these strictly private remarks, and meditated upon them after they had
ceased. It was a large dose, an omnibus dose, and took some time to
assimilate; but the old lady had really a mind of her own, though much
of it was uninhabited, and this generous burst of light set it to
working.

She said nothing to anyone, but seemed to use her eyes and ears with
more attention than previously, and allowed her grand-daughter's small
efforts toward affection with new receptiveness. She had one talk with
her daughter-in-law which left that little woman wet-eyed and smiling
with pleasure, though she could not tell about it--that was requisite.

But the family in general heard nothing of any change of heart till
breakfast time on Christmas morning. They sat enjoying that pleasant
meal, in the usual respite before the old lady appeared, when Sarah came
in with a bunch of notes and laid one at each plate, with an air of
great importance.

"She said I was to leave 'em till you was all here--and here they are!"
said Sarah, smiling mysteriously, "and that I was to say nothing--and I
haven't!" And the red-cheeked girl folded her arms and waited--as
interested as anybody.

Uncle Harry opened his first. "I bet it's a tract!" said he. But he
blushed to the roots of his thick brown hair as he took out, not a
tract, but a check.

"A Christmas present to my son-in-law-by-marriage; to be spent on the
improvement of talking machines--if that is necessary!"

"Why bless her heart!" said he, "I call that pretty handsome, and I'll
tell her so!"

Papa opened his.

"For your Convention trip, dear son," said this one, "and for a new
dress suit--and a new suit case, and a new overcoat--a nice one. With
Mother's love."

It was a large check, this one. Papa sat quite silent and looked at his
wife. She went around the table and hugged him--she had to.

"You've got one, too, Louise," said he--and she opened it.

"For my dear daughter Louise; this--to be spent on other people; and
_this_" (_this_ was much bigger) "to be inexorably spent on
herself--every cent of it! On her own special needs and pleasures--if
she can think of any!"

Louise was simply crying--and little Josephine ran to comfort her.

"Hold on Kiddie--you haven't opened yours," said Uncle Harry; and they
all eagerly waited while the child carefully opened her envelope with a
clean knife, and read out solemnly and slowly, "For my darling
Grand-child Josephine, to be spent by herself, for herself, with Mama's
advice and assistance; and in particular to provide for her party!"

She turned over the stiff little piece of paper--hardly understanding.

"It's a check, dear," said Papa. "It's the same as money. Parties cost
money, and Grandma has made you a Christmas present of your party."

The little girl's eyes grew big with joy.

"Can I?--Is there really--a party?"

"There is really a party--for my little daughter, this afternoon at
four!"

"O where is Grandma!" cried the child--"I want to hug her!"

They all rose up hurriedly, but Sarah came forward from her scant
pretense of retirement, with another note for Dr. Grey.

"I was to give you this last of all," she said, with an air of one
fulfilling grave diplomatic responsibility.

"My dear ones," ran the note, "I have gathered from my family and
friends, and from professional and spiritual advisers the idea that
change is often beneficial. With this in mind I have given myself a
Christmas present of a Cook's Tour around the world--and am gone. A
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all!"

She was gone.

Sarah admitted complicity.

"Sure she would have no one know a thing--not a word!" said Sarah. "And
she gave us something handsome to help her! And she's got that young
widder Johnson for a companion--and they went off last night on the
sleeper for New York!"

The gratitude of the family had to be spent in loving letters, and in
great plans of what they would do to make Grandma happy when she came
back.

No one felt more grateful than little loving Josephine, whose dearest
wishes were all fulfilled. When she remembered it she went very
quietly, when all were busy somewhere else, climbed up on the step
ladder, and took down the forgotten phonograph from the top of the
wardrobe.

"Dear Grandma!" she said. "I do hope she liked it!"

CHRISTMAS LOVE

When the Writer or the Preacher or one who chances to be both considers
a Christmas sermon, a Christmas story, what is the idea that comes
uppermost?

Love, of course. Not sex-love: that's for every day. Not Mother-love:
that's always and always. Not any of the minor brands of admiring
devotion, gratitude, sympathy, friendship, attraction of any sort. No.
When we say "Love" at Christmas time we mean Love, the Spirit of Life.

About once a year we give thought to it. About once a year we seek to
express it; and, pitiful and limited though that expression be, its
forms are right.

These main forms of Christmas expressions are two-fold: the Spirit of
Joy, of Celebration, of High Festival--the highest of all; and the
Spirit of Giving. These are found wherever Christmas is kept, and make
it, as it should be, the glory of the year. In joy and in giving we are
most absolutely in line with the mainspring of the Universe: unmeasured
happiness--happiness that cannot be quenched--cannot be kept to
ourselves. What must run over and pour forth on other people: that is
real Love, Christmas Love--and that, of course, finds physical
expression in gay festivities and showering gifts.

Light, color, music--all that is sweet and gay and comforting; games,
dances and performances that show the happy heart; and always the
overflow--giving, giving, giving. That is the Spirit of Life.

It is the children's festival because children are more in line with the
Life Spirit than weazened old folk: the child has the passionate thirst
for joy which marks his high parentage.

Whatever else is true about the Central Power of the Universe, this is
true: it _is_ power. And it pours forth in Radiant Energy. All
"inanimate nature," so called, expresses this Power, each form after its
kind; and all animate nature, crowned with consciousness, not only
expresses it, but _feels_ it,--which is called "Living."

We human beings are the highest, finest, subtlest instrument on this
planet to receive and to transmit these waves of pouring Power. When we
feel it most we call it Happiness. In two ways it reaches our
consciousness, as it comes in and as it goes out, via the sensory and
motor nerves. The joy of receiving power is great: "stimulus" we call
it. It comes to us along the avenues of sense and thrills us with
increased well being. But this kind of pleasure is sadly limited by
those sense nerves of ours. We are but a little tea-cup: we cannot hold
much. The Music of the Spheres might pour round us; the light of a
thousand suns, the sweetness of piled banks of flowers, and all honey
and sugar and rich food: every sense can be fed to its little limit
only--and there the Happiness stops.

We can only feel so much--coming in. But there seems to be no limit to
the joy we feel when Power goes out through us. It seems so
self-evident, so needless, to say "It is more blessed to give than to
receive." Why _of course_ it is: any child even knows that.

True, a child, having a fresh, unsated sensorium, can receive with more
vivid pleasure than an adult--for a while. But it is easily over-tired,
easily over-fed with sensation, easily bored and weary with receiving.

Not with giving! Every child delights to let out the Power which is in
him--in her; delights to make and delights to give. Therefore, to
children is this their festival: the busy weeks of happiness in making
gifts, the swelling, glowing pride of giving them!

It's all right as far as it goes, but why, when such a thing is such
transcendent splendid blessedness, why only once a year? Why should
this beautiful experience in which we not only remember the birth of the
man who taught the world most of love but even try to practise what He
preached--why should it be limited to a mere memorial of His birthday,
plastered over the remnants of ancient festivals of the return of the
Sun God--the Goodness of the Earth Mother?

If Christmas is good, why not more of it? Then we smile, wryly, and
say, "Why, of course, we couldn't. The rest of life isn't like
that--and we have to live, you see."

Ah, that is where we are wrong--utterly wrong. The rest of life _is_
like that. That is _life_--Loving and Giving.

"Tut! Tut!" says the Practical Man. "That's emotional nonsense. That's
womanish." Two-thirds right, my practical friend. It is not nonsense,
but it is "emotional" and it is "womanish."

Emotion is _consciousness under pressure._ When we feel Power, we call
it emotion. Emotions vary: some are helpful and some hateful, according
to the nature of the instrument; but not to be emotional at all is not
to be alive. Those who spend their lives lit by a blaze of emotion,
warmed by a deep, slow-burning fire of emotion, pouring forth that
emotion in great works--we call Geniuses. Genius is simply more Power.

As to being womanish: that word is no longer a term of reproach or
belittlement. To be womanish is to be human, and we may now turn round
and pitifully dismiss much old world folly and passion as merely
"mannish." To be womanish--and practical--let us repeat, Life _is_
Loving and Giving. When we realize this, intelligently and completely,
we shall have a "continuous performance" of Christmases and a higher
level of happiness the year round, varied by greater heights. At
present the natural flood of Life Force, pouring through us in unbounded
creative energy, resulting in the myriad forms of human achievement and
manufacture, is sadly thwarted in its output by lingering remains of our
old period.

For a long time we lived by getting: to hunt, to catch, to kill, to eat
was all we knew: no loving or giving there save as the mother fulfilled
the law. But since our Humaness began, since all our thousand powers
and talents grew for mutual service, since we learned to do things for
each other--to make things for each other, to give things to each
other--then grew in us that rising tide of Power which lives out in
expression.

In spite of our old world perverseness, that Power pours on. Though we
scorn the gifts of those who make the comforts of life for us, though we
despise their service and so cruelly use them as to greatly thwart their
love--still we are fed and housed and clothed and carried by the love
and service of our kind, the daily, hourly gifts of those who work.

"They are not gifts," cries the Practical Man. "They are paid
for--every bit of 'em." Yes, Brother. And how paid for? Paid how
much? What scant reward, what meagre living, what miserable houses,
what stinted food, what limited education, and what poisoned pleasures
do we pay to those who make every necessity, comfort, convenience and
luxury for us!

Pay indeed! If a man "saves your life" once, and you give him twenty
cents an hour for his exertions in your behalf--have you paid him? By
the life-long labor of the human race--all those dead workers who built
up the structure of our present world, all those living workers who keep
the wheels revolving now--by these labors we live, all of us, all the
time.

Pay? Pay for daily--hourly--maintenance, protection, food, shelter,
safety, comfort? Pay for being kept alive?

Life is giving--Loving and Giving. You can't pay for it. You don't pay
for it. But this you do: you hinder it, by your paying. This pitiful
trickle of measurement, this ticking and pricing and holding back the
world's flood of outpouring energy by our wretched turnstiles--this is
what keeps us poor!

We need to let loose the Power that is in us. We need to Love more and
Give more--a plain truth, Jesus taught some centuries ago, largely in
vain. We have but to let out the love that is in us: there is no limit
to its flood.

To so love every child that is born on earth as to provide that child
with all that it needs for richest growth, for full appreciation of the
splendor of human life--of conscious citizenship! Children so reared
will have a thousandfold more to give, and a thousandfold greater joy in
giving. Then life will roll out through our glad hearts and willing
hands as the sun's light pours abroad--only that we are conscious, we
feel this light, this heat, this radiant energy. We call it--_love._

WHAT DIANTHA DID

CHAPTER XIV.

AND HEAVEN BESIDE.

They were married while the flowers were knee-deep over the sunny slopes
and mesas, and the canyons gulfs of color and fragrance, and went for
their first moon together to a far high mountain valley hidden among
wooded peaks, with a clear lake for its central jewel.

A month of heaven; while wave on wave of perfect rest and
world-forgetting oblivion rolled over both their hearts.

They swam together in the dawn-flushed lake, seeing the morning mists
float up from the silver surface, breaking the still reflection of thick
trees and rosy clouds, rejoicing in the level shafts of forest filtered
sunlight. They played and ran like children, rejoiced over their picnic
meals; lay flat among the crowding flowers and slept under the tender
starlight.

"I don't see," said her lover, "but that my strenuous Amazon is just as
much a woman as--as any woman!"

"Who ever said I wasn't?" quoth Diantha demurely.

A month of perfect happiness. It was so short it seemed but a moment;
so long in its rich perfection that they both agreed if life brought no
further joy this was Enough.

Then they came down from the mountains and began living.

*

Day service is not so easily arranged on a ranch some miles from town.
They tried it for a while, the new runabout car bringing out a girl in
the morning early, and taking Diantha in to her office.

But motor cars are not infallible; and if it met with any accident there
was delay at both ends, and more or less friction.

Then Diantha engaged a first-class Oriental gentleman, well recommended
by the "vegetable Chinaman," on their own place. This was extremely
satisfactory; he did the work well, and was in all ways reliable; but
there arose in the town a current of malicious criticism and
protest--that she "did not live up to her principles."

To this she paid no attention; her work was now too well planted, too
increasingly prosperous to be weakened by small sneers.

Her mother, growing plumper now, thriving continuously in her new lines
of work, kept the hotel under her immediate management, and did
bookkeeping for the whole concern. New Union Home ran itself, and
articles were written about it in magazines; so that here and there in
other cities similar clubs were started, with varying success. The
restaurant was increasingly popular; Diantha's cooks were highly skilled
and handsomely paid, and from the cheap lunch to the expensive banquet
they gave satisfaction.

But the "c. f. d." was the darling of her heart, and it prospered
exceedingly. "There is no advertisement like a pleased customer," and
her pleased customers grew in numbers and in enthusiasm. Family after
family learned to prize the cleanliness and quiet, the odorlessness and
flylessness of a home without a kitchen, and their questioning guests
were converted by the excellent of the meals.

Critical women learned at last that a competent cook can really produce
better food than an incompetent one; albeit without the sanctity of the
home.

"Sanctity of your bootstraps!" protested one irascible gentleman. "Such
talk is all nonsense! I don't want _sacred_ meals--I want good
ones--and I'm getting them, at last!"

"We don't brag about 'home brewing' any more," said another, "or 'home
tailoring,' or 'home shoemaking.' Why all this talk about 'home
cooking'?"

What pleased the men most was not only the good food, but its clock-work
regularity; and not only the reduced bills but the increased health and
happiness of their wives. Domestic bliss increased in Orchardina, and
the doctors were more rigidly confined to the patronage of tourists.

Ross Warden did his best. Under the merciless friendliness of Mr.
Thaddler he had been brought to see that Diantha had a right to do this
if she would, and that he had no right to prevent her; but he did not
like it any the better.

When she rolled away in her little car in the bright, sweet mornings, a
light went out of the day for him. He wanted her there, in the
home--his home--his wife--even when he was not in it himself. And in
this particular case it was harder than for most men, because he was in
the house a good deal, in his study, with no better company than a
polite Chinaman some distance off.

It was by no means easy for Diantha, either. To leave him tugged at her
heart-strings, as it did at his; and if he had to struggle with
inherited feelings and acquired traditions, still more was she beset
with an unexpected uprising of sentiments and desires she had never
dreamed of feeling.

With marriage, love, happiness came an overwhelming instinct of
service--personal service. She wanted to wait on him, loved to do it;
regarded Wang Fu with positive jealousy when he brought in the coffee
and Ross praised it. She had a sense of treason, of neglected duty, as
she left the flower-crowned cottage, day by day.

But she left it, she plunged into her work, she schooled herself
religiously.

"Shame on you!" she berated herself. "Now--_now_ that you've got
everything on earth--to weaken! You could stand unhappiness; can't you
stand happiness?" And she strove with herself; and kept on with her
work.

After all, the happiness was presently diluted by the pressure of this
blank wall between them. She came home, eager, loving, delighted to be
with him again. He received her with no complaint or criticism, but
always an unspoken, perhaps imagined, sense of protest. She was full of
loving enthusiasm about his work, and he would dilate upon his harassed
guinea-pigs and their development with high satisfaction.

But he never could bring himself to ask about her labors with any
genuine approval; she was keenly sensitive to his dislike for the
subject, and so it was ignored between them, or treated by him in a vein
of humor with which he strove to cover his real feeling.

When, before many months were over, the crowning triumph of her effort
revealed itself, her joy and pride held this bitter drop--he did not
sympathize--did not approve. Still, it was a great glory.

The New York Company announced the completion of their work and the
_Hotel del las Casas_ was opened to public inspection. "House of the
Houses! That's a fine name!" said some disparagingly; but, at any rate,
it seemed appropriate. The big estate was one rich garden, more
picturesque, more dreamily beautiful, than the American commercial mind
was usually able to compass, even when possessed of millions. The hotel
of itself was a pleasure palace--wholly unostentatious, full of gaiety
and charm, offering lovely chambers for guests and residents, and every
opportunity for healthful amusement. There was the rare luxury of a big
swimming-pool; there were billiard rooms, card rooms, reading rooms,
lounging rooms and dancing rooms of satisfying extent.

Outside there were tennis-courts, badminton, roque, even croquet; and
the wide roof was a garden of Babylon, a Court of the Stars, with views
of purple mountains, fair, wide valley and far-flashing rim of sea.
Around it, each in its own hedged garden, nestled "Las Casas"--the
Houses--twenty in number, with winding shaded paths, groups of rare
trees, a wilderness of flowers, between and about them. In one corner
was a playground for children--a wall around this, that they might shout
in freedom; and the nursery thereby gave every provision for the
happiness and safety of the little ones.

The people poured along the winding walls, entered the pretty cottages,
were much impressed by a little flock of well-floored tents in another
corner, but came back with Ohs! and Ahs! of delight to the large
building in the Avenue.

Diantha went all over the place, inch by inch, her eyes widening with
admiration; Mr. and Mrs. Porne and Mrs. Weatherstone with her. She
enjoyed the serene, well-planned beauty of the whole; approved heartily
of the cottages, each one a little different, each charming in its quiet
privacy, admired the plentiful arrangements for pleasure and gay
association; but her professional soul blazed with enthusiasm over the
great kitchens, clean as a hospital, glittering in glass and copper and
cool tiling, with the swift, sure electric stove.