The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909 1910)

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AS TO CONTENTS:

The main feature of the first year is a new book on a new subject with a
new name:--

_"Our Androcentric Culture."_ this is a study of the historic effect on
normal human development of a too exclusively masculine civilization.
It shows what man, the male, has done to the world: and what woman, the
more human, may do to change it.

_"What Diantha Did."_ This is a serial novel. It shows the course of
true love running very crookedly--as it so often does--among the
obstructions and difficulties of the housekeeping problem--and solves
that problem. (NOT by co-operation.)

Among the short articles will appear:

"Private Morality and Public Immorality."
"The Beauty Women Have Lost"
"Our Overworked Instincts."
"The Nun in the Kitchen."
"Genius: Domestic and Maternal."
"A Small God and a Large Goddess."
"Animals in Cities."
"How We Waste Three-Fourths Of Our Money."
"Prize Children"
"Kitchen-Mindedness"
"Parlor-Mindedness"
"Nursery-Mindedness"

There will be short stories and other entertaining matter in each issue.
The department of "Personal Problems" does not discuss etiquette,
fashions or the removal of freckles. Foolish questions will not be
answered, unless at peril of the asker.

AS TO VALUE:

If you take this magazine one year you will have:

One complete novel . . . By C. P. Gilman
One new book . . . By C. P. Gilman
Twelve short stories . . . By C. P. Gilman
Twelve-and-more short articles . . . By C. P. Gilman
Twelve-and-more new poems . . . By C. P. Gilman
Twelve Short Sermons . . . By C. P. Gilman
Besides "Comment and Review" . . . By C. P. Gilman
"Personal Problems" . . . By C. P. Gilman
And many other things . . . By C. P. Gilman

DON'T YOU THINK IT'S WORTH A DOLLAR?

THE FORERUNNER
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN'S MAGAZINE
CHARLTON CO., 67 WALL ST., NEW YORK

_____ 19__

Please find enclosed $_____ as subscription to "The Forerunner" from
_____ 19___ to _____ 19___

__________

__________

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THE FORERUNNER

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE

BY

CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN
OWNER AND PUBLISHER

1.00 A YEAR
.10 A COPY

Volume 1. No. 2
DECEMBER, 1909
The Charlton Company, 67 Wall Street, New York
Copyright for 1909, C. P. Gilman

LOVE

Not the child-god of our most childish past,
Nor sympathy, nor worship, passionless;
Nor gratitude, nor tenderest caress:
Nor the post-mortal glamor priests have cast
With "This to hope! Surrender what thou hast!"
These are but parts and can but partly bless;
We in our new-born common consciousness
Are learning Law and Life and Love at last.

The age-old secret of the sphinx's holding,
Incarnate triumph, infinitely strong;
The mother's majesty, grown wide and long,
In the full power and fire of life's unfolding;
The conscious splendor and ripe joy thereof--
Glad world-wide, life-long service--this is Love!

ACCORDING TO SOLOMON

"'He that rebuketh a man afterwards shall find more favor than he that
flattereth with his tongue,'" said Mr. Solomon Bankside to his wife
Mary.

"Its the other way with a woman, I think;" she answered him, "you might
put that in."

"Tut, tut, Molly," said he; "'Add not unto his words,'--do not speak
lightly of the wisdom of the great king."

"I don't mean to, dear, but--when you hear it all the time"--

"'He that turneth away his ear from the law, even his prayer shall be an
abomination,'" answered Mr. Bankside.

"I believe you know every one of those old Proverbs by heart," said his
wife with some heat. "Now that's not disrespectful!--they _are_
old!--and I do wish you'd forget some of them!"

He smiled at her quizzically, tossing back his heavy silver-gray hair
with the gesture she had always loved. His eyes were deep blue and
bright under their bushy brows; and the mouth was kind--in its iron way.
"I can think of at least three to squelch you with, Molly," said he,
"but I won't."

"O I know the one you want! 'A continual dropping in a very rainy day
and a contentions woman are alike!' I'm _not_ contentious, Solomon!"

"No, you are not," he frankly admitted. "What I really had in mind was
this--'A prudent wife is from the Lord,' and 'He that findeth a wife
findeth a good thing; and obtaineth favor of the Lord.'"

She ran around the table in the impulsive way years did not alter, and
kissed him warmly.

"I'm not scolding you, my dear," he continued: "but if you had all the
money you'd like to give away--there wouldn't be much left!"

"But look at what you spend on me!" she urged.

"That's a wise investment--as well as a deserved reward," her husband
answered calmly. "'There is that scattereth and yet increaseth,' you
know, my dear; 'And there is that withholdeth more than is meet--and it
tendeth to poverty!' Take all you get my dear--its none too good for
you."

He gave her his goodby kiss with special fondness, put on his heavy
satin-lined overcoat and went to the office.

Mr. Solomon Bankside was not a Jew; though his last name suggested and
his first seemed to prove it; also his proficiency in the Old Testament
gave color to the idea. No, he came from Vermont; of generations of
unbroken New England and old English Puritan ancestry, where the
Solomons and Isaacs and Zedekiahs were only mitigated by the Standfasts
and Praise-the-Lords. Pious, persistent pigheaded folk were they, down
all the line.

His wife had no such simple pedigree. A streak of Huguenot blood she
had (some of the best in France, though neither of them knew that), a
grandmother from Albany with a Van to her name; a great grandmother with
a Mac; and another with an O'; even a German cross came in somewhere.
Mr. Bankside was devoted to genealogy, and had been at some pains to dig
up these facts--the more he found the worse he felt, and the lower ran
his opinion of Mrs. Bankside's ancestry.

She had been a fascinating girl; pretty, with the dash and piquancy of
an oriole in a May apple-tree; clever and efficient in everything her
swift hands touched; quite a spectacular housekeeper; and the sober,
long-faced young downeasterner had married her with a sudden decision
that he often wondered about in later years. So did she.

What he had not sufficiently weighed at the time, was her spirit of
incorrigible independence, and a light-mindedness which, on maturer
judgment, he could almost term irreligious. His conduct was based on
principle, all of it; built firmly into habit and buttressed by
scriptural quotations. Hers seemed to him as inconsequent as the flight
of a moth. Studying it, in his solemn conscientious way, in the light
of his genealogical researches, he felt that all her uncertainties were
accounted for, and that the error was his--in having married too many
kinds of people at once.

They had been, and were, very happy together none the less: though
sometimes their happiness was a little tottery. This was one of the
times. It was the day after Christmas, and Mrs. Bankside entered the
big drawing room, redolent of popcorn and evergreen, and walked slowly
to the corner where the fruits of yesterday were lovingly arranged; so
few that she had been able to give--so many that she had received.

There were the numerous pretty interchangeable things given her by her
many friends; "presents," suitable to any lady. There were the few
perfectly selected ones given by the few who knew her best. There was
the rather perplexing gift of Mrs. MacAvelly. There was her brother's
stiff white envelope enclosing a check. There were the loving gifts of
children and grand-children.

Finally there was Solomon's.

It was his custom to bestow upon her one solemn and expensive object, a
boon as it were, carefully selected, after much thought and balancing of
merits; but the consideration was spent on the nature of the gift---not
on the desires of the recipient. There was the piano she could not
play, the statue she did not admire, the set of Dante she never read,
the heavy gold bracelet, the stiff diamond brooch--and all the others.
This time it was a set of sables, costing even more than she imagined.

Christmas after Christmas had these things come to her; and she stood
there now, thinking of that procession of unvalued valuables, with an
expression so mixed and changeful it resembled a kaleidoscope. Love for
Solomon, pride in Solomon, respect for Solomon's judgment and power to
pay, gratitude for his unfailing kindness and generosity, impatience
with his always giving her this one big valuable permanent thing, when
he knew so well that she much preferred small renewable cheap ones; her
personal dislike of furs, the painful conviction that brown was not
becoming to her--all these and more filled the little woman with what
used to be called "conflicting emotions."

She smoothed out her brother's check, wishing as she always did that it
had come before Christmas, so that she might buy more presents for her
beloved people. Solomon liked to spend money on her--in his own way;
but he did not like to have her spend money on him--or on anyone for
that matter. She had asked her brother once, if he would mind sending
her his Christmas present beforehand.

"Not on your life, Polly!" he said. "You'd never see a cent of it! You
can't buy 'em many things right on top of Christmas, and it'll be gone
long before the next one."

She put the check away and turned to examine her queerest gift. Upon
which scrutiny presently entered the donor.

"I'm ever so much obliged, Benigna," said Mrs. Bankside. "You know how
I love to do things. It's a loom, isn't it? Can you show me how it
works?"

"Of course I can, my dear; that's just what I ran in for--I was afraid
you wouldn't know. But you are so clever with your hands that I'm sure
you'll enjoy it. I do."

Whereat Mrs. MacAvelly taught Mrs. Bankside the time-honored art of
weaving. And Mrs. Bankside enjoyed it more than any previous handicraft
she had essayed.

She did it well, beginning with rather coarse and simple weaves; and
gradually learning the finer grades of work. Despising as she did the
more modern woolens, she bought real wool yarn of a lovely red--and made
some light warm flannelly stuff in which she proceeded to rapturously
enclose her little grandchildren.

Mr. Bankside warmly approved, murmuring affectionately, "'She seeketh
wool and flax--she worketh willingly with her hands.'"

He watched little Bob and Polly strenuously "helping" the furnace man to
clear the sidewalk, hopping about like red-birds in their new caps and
coats; and his face beamed with the appositeness of his quotation, as he
remarked, "She is not afraid of the snow for her household, for all her
household are clothed with scarlet!" and he proffered an extra, wholly
spontaneous kiss, which pleased her mightily.

"You dear man!" she said with a hug; "I believe you'd rather find a
proverb to fit than a gold mine!"

To which he triumphantly responded: "'Wisdom is better than rubies; and
all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it.'"

She laughed sweetly at him. "And do you think wisdom stopped with that
string of proverbs?"

"You can't get much beyond it," he answered calmly. "If we lived up to
all there is in that list we shouldn't be far out, my dear!"

Whereat she laughed again smoothed his gray mane, and kissed him in the
back of his neck. "You _dear_ thing!" said Mrs. Bankside.

She kept herself busy with the new plaything as he called it. Hands
that had been rather empty were now smoothly full. Her health was
better, and any hint of occasional querulousness disappeared entirely;
so that her husband was moved to fresh admiration of her sunny temper,
and quoted for the hundredth time, "'She openeth her mouth with wisdom,
and in her tongue is the law of kindness.'"

Mrs. MacAvelly taught her to make towels. But Mrs. Bankside's skill
outstripped hers; she showed inventive genius and designed patterns of
her own. The fineness and quality of the work increased; and she
joyfully replenished her linen chest with her own handiwork.

"I tell you, my dear," said Mrs. MacAvelly, "if you'd be willing to sell
them you could get almost any price for those towels. With the initials
woven in. I know I could get you orders--through the Woman's Exchange,
you know!"

Mrs. Bankside was delighted. "What fun!" she said. "And I needn't
appear at all?"

"No, you needn't appear at all--do let me try."

So Mrs. Bankside made towels of price, soft, fine, and splendid, till
she was weary of them; and in the opulence of constructive genius fell
to devising woven belts of elaborate design.

These were admired excessively. All her women friends wanted one, or
more; the Exchange got hold of it, there was a distinct demand; and
finally Mrs. MacAvelly came in one day with a very important air and a
special order.

"I don't know what you'll think, my dear," she said, "but I happen to
know the Percy's very well--the big store people, you know; and Mr.
Percy was talking about those belts of yours to me;--of course he didn't
know they are yours; but he said (the Exchange people told him I knew,
you see) he said, 'If you can place an order with that woman, I can take
all she'll make and pay her full price for them. Is she poor?' he
asked. 'Is she dependent on her work?' And I told him, 'Not
altogether.' And I think he thinks it an interesting case! Anyhow,
there's the order. Will you do it?'

Mrs. Bankside was much excited. She wanted to very much, but dreaded
offending her husband. So far she had not told him of her quiet trade
in towels; but hid and saved this precious money--the first she had ever
earned.

The two friends discussed the pros and cons at considerable length; and
finally with some perturbation, she decided to accept the order.

"You'll never tell, Benigna!" she urged. "Solomon would never forgive
me, I'm afraid."

"Why of course I won't--you needn't have a moment's fear of it. You
give them to me--I'll stop with the carriage you see; and I take them to
the Exchange--and he gets them from there."

"It seems like smuggling!" said Mrs. Bankside delightedly. "I always
did love to smuggle!"

"They say women have no conscience about laws, don't they?" Mrs.
MacAvelly suggested.

"Why should we?" answered her friend. "We don't make 'em--nor God--nor
nature. Why on earth should we respect a set of silly rules made by
some men one day and changed by some more the next?"

"Bless us, Polly! Do you talk to Mr. Bankside like that?"

"Indeed I don't!" answered her hostess, holding out a particularly
beautiful star-patterned belt to show to advantage. "There are lots of
things I don't say to Mr. Bankside--'A man of understanding holdeth his
peace' you know--or a woman."

She was a pretty creature, her hair like that of a powdered marchioness,
her rosy checks and firm slight figure suggesting a charmer in Dresden
china.

Mrs. MacAvelly regarded her admiringly. "'Where there is no wood the
fire goeth out; so where there is no tale bearer the strife ceaseth,'"
she proudly offered, "I can quote that much myself."

But Mrs. Bankside had many misgivings as she pursued her audacious way;
the busy hours flying away from her, and the always astonishing checks
flying toward her in gratifying accumulation. She came down to her
well-planned dinners gracious and sweet; always effectively dressed;
spent the cosy quiet evenings with her husband, or went out with him,
with a manner of such increased tenderness and charm that his heart
warmed anew to the wife of his youth; and he even relented a little
toward her miscellaneous ancestors.

As the days shortened and darkened she sparkled more and more; with
little snatches of song now and then; gay ineffectual strumming on the
big piano; sudden affectionate darts at him, with quaintly distributed
caresses.

"Molly!" said he, "I don't believe you're a day over twenty! What makes
you act so?"

"Don't you like it, So?" she asked him. That was the nearest she ever
would approximate to his name.

He did like it, naturally, and even gave her an extra ten dollars to buy
Christmas presents with; while he meditated giving her an electric
runabout;--to her!--who was afraid of a wheelbarrow!

When the day arrived and the family were gathered together, Mrs.
Bankside, wearing the diamond brooch, the gold bracelet, the point lace
handkerchief--everything she could carry of his accumulated
generosity--and such an air of triumphant mystery that the tree itself
was dim beside her; handed out to her astonished relatives such an
assortment of desirable articles that they found no words to express
their gratitude.

"Why, _Mother!"_ said Jessie, whose husband was a minister and salaried
as such, "Why, _Mother_--how did you know we wanted just that kind of a
rug!--and a sewing-machine _too!_ And this lovely suit--and--and--why
_Mother!"_

But her son-in-law took her aside and kissed her solemnly. He had
wanted that particular set of sociological books for years--and never
hoped to get them; or that bunch of magazines either.

Nellie had "married rich;" she was less ostentatiously favored; but she
had shown her thankfulness a week ago--when her mother had handed her a
check.

"Sh, sh! my dear!" her mother had said, "Not one word. I know! What
pleasant weather we're having."

This son-in-law was agreeably surprised, too; and the other relatives,
married and single; while the children rioted among their tools and
toys, taking this Christmas like any other, as a season of unmitigated
joy.

Mr. Solomon Bankside looked on with growing amazement, making
computations in his practiced mind; saying nothing whatever. Should he
criticize his wife before others?

But when his turn came--when gifts upon gifts were offered to him--sets
of silken handkerchiefs (he couldn't bear the touch of a silk
handkerchief!), a cabinet of cards and chips and counters of all sorts
(he never played cards), an inlaid chess-table and ivory men (the game
was unknown to him), a gorgeous scarf-pin (he abominated jewelery), a
five pound box of candy (he never ate it), his feelings so mounted
within him, that since he would not express, and could not repress them,
he summarily went up stairs to his room.

She found him there later, coming in blushing, smiling, crying a little
too--like a naughty but charming child.

He swallowed hard as he looked at her; and his voice was a little
strained.

"I can take a joke as well as any man, Molly. I guess we're square on
that. But--my dear!--where did you get it?"

"Earned it," said she, looking down, and fingering her lace
handkerchief.

"Earned it! My wife, earning money! How--if I may ask?"

"By my weaving, dear--the towels and the belts--I sold 'em. Don't be
angry--nobody knows--my name didn't appear at all! Please don't be
angry!--It isn't wicked, and it was such fun!"

"No--it's not wicked, I suppose," said he rather grimly. "But it is
certainly a most mortifying and painful thing to me--most
unprecedented."

"Not so unprecedented, Dear," she urged, "Even the woman you think most
of did it! Don't you remember 'She maketh fine linen and selleth
it--and delivereth girdles unto the merchants!'"

Mr. Bankside came down handsomely.

He got used to it after a while, and then he became proud of it. If a
friend ventured to suggest a criticism, or to sympathize, he would
calmly respond, "'The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so
that he shall have no need of spoil. Give her of the fruit of her
hands, and let her own works praise her in the gates.'"

AN OBVIOUS BLESSING

We are told, on the authority of the Greatest Sociologist, that it is
more blessed to give than to receive.

So patent and commonplace a fact as this ought to meet with general
acceptance. Anyone can see that it is so, by a little study or by less
practice. To give implies having. You must be in possession before you
can give. To receive implies wanting, at its best--to receive what you
do not want is distinctly unpleasant. To have is more blessed than to
want. Of course it is.

To give gratifies several natural feelings; the mother-instinct of
supplying needs, the pride of superior power and the generosity; and, if
you are a sordid soul, the desire to "lay up treasure in heaven" or, as
the Buddhists frankly put it--to "acquire merit."

None of these pleasures pertain to receiving. There is a certain
humiliation about it always, a childish sense of dependence and
inferiority. Only children can continuously receive without
degradation; and as soon as they begin to realize life at all they
delight to give as we all do. "Let me help!" says the child, and plans
birthday presents for mama as eagerly as he hopes for them himself.

The instinct of giving is the pressure of the surplus; the natural outgo
of humanity, its fruit. We are not mere receptacles, we are productive
engines, of immense capacity; and, having produced, we must distribute
the product. To give, naturally, is to shed, to bear fruit; a healthy
and pleasurable process.

What has confused us so long on this subject? Why have we been so blind
to this glaring truth that we have stultified our giving instinct and
made of it an abnormal process called "Charity," or a much restricted
pleasure only used in families or at Christmas time?

Two things have combined to prevent our easy acceptance of this visible
truth; one the time-honored custom of "sacrifice," and the other our
ignorance of social economics.

Sacrificing is not giving. That black remnant of lowest savagery dates
back to the time when a pursuing beast was placated by the surrender of
something, or somebody; and a conqueror bought off by tribute. The
medicine man made play with this race habit, and gross idols were
soothed and placated by sacrifices--on which the medicine man lived.
Always the best and finest were taken naturally by the hungry beast; as
naturally by the greedy conqueror; and not unnaturally by the dependent
priesthood. Sacrificing is a forced surrender with personal hope as the
reason. It is not giving.

Our economic ignorance and confusion is partly based on this same old
period of cruelty and darkness. Labor was extorted as the price of
life; and the fruits of labor taken by force through warring centuries.
A guarded and grudging system of exchange gradually developed; the
robbing instinct slowly simmering down to legally limited extortion; but
each party surrendering his goods reluctantly, and only with the purpose
of gaining more than he lost. Here also is the basic spirit of
sacrifice--to get something now or in the far future--always the trading
spirit at the bottom. Selling is not giving.

The real basis of giving is motherhood; and that is merely the orderly
expression of life's progressive force. Living forms must
increase--spread--grow--improve. The biological channel for this force
is through mother-love; and, later, father-love. The sociological
channel is in the pouring flood of productive activity, which fills the
world with human fruit--the million things we make and do.

This ceaseless output is not dragged out of us as a sacrifice, it is not
produced by want and hunger and the grasping spirit of exchange. It is
the natural expression of social energy; blossoming in every form of
art, stirring the brain to ceaseless action, filling the world with the
rich fruit of human handiwork.