Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  I lectured for the Photorene Club in Brooklyn, for $10.00; for the Manhattan Liberal Club, $10.00; for The Single Tax Club — for nothing but abuse. I have a real respect for the Single Tax as a useful fiscal reform, though overrated in its hoped-for results; and I have known many good and noble souls who were devoted to it; but I have noticed that the more narrowly specific is a proposed reform, the more narrowly intense become its advocates. This was well shown in the limited ardor of Dr. Mary Walker, who became quite monomaniac on her one profound conviction — that women should wear trousers. She was a competent physician, I understand, and a brave, good woman, but no human intellect can maintain its balance on so small a topic as the redistribution of trousers.

  With Single Tax Clubs I had many experiences. Their method was to invite a speaker to address them, gratuitously, on whatever subject was dearest to him or her, and then to use that subject and that speaker as a stamping ground whereon to exploit their own doctrine. In Chicago, in 1896, February 14th I wrote: “Speak for Single Tax Club. Don’t ever want to see a Single Taxer again.” But I did, many of them, some were among my best friends, so I accepted this New York invitation to address their club, on “Why We Work.” The record says: “They are horrid as usual, but Wm. Dean Howells comes to hear me! was introduced — says he is coming to see me! A very jolly and exciting discussion.”

  He did call, the next day, and brought his daughter Mildred, a lovely girl. The day after that came an Englishman, also impressed by that lecture, to ask me about the social movement in California; also “A big Swede, Axel Gustafson, calls to express admiration, interest, and rage at the Single Taxers the other night.”

  In the boarding-house parlors one evening we had a little private exhibition of hypnotism, which was as funny as could be desired. The performer selected four subjects from among us; a boy of about fourteen, a young girl, a young man, and a not-so-young maiden lady. The boy proved obdurate, no impression was made on his mind. The girl became quite obedient, tried to eat a napkin when told it was a peach; the other lady tottered, but did not succumb. “You can not tell me your name,” he asserted. “I c-c-can!” she declared. “No, you do not know your own name,” insisted the hypnotizer. But she did, and with great difficulty got it out at last.

  The young man proved the best subject. He was told he could not jump over a walking-stick laid before him on the floor, and nearly fell on his face trying to do it. His arm was stroked down stiffly, with the statement that he could not bend it — nor could any one else. He tried, other men tried, it would not bend. Then he was laid out on his back as stiff as a log, head resting on one chair and heels on another, told that he was unbendable — and that fourteen-year-old boy was set on his body! The hypnotist worked hard over all these stunts and now prepared a glorious finale.

  “I will go out in the hall,” he said, “and call you to me. You must come. There will be three men trying to hold you back — they cannot stop you.” So he placed one man in front of his subject and one on each side, withdrawing into the hall. I was standing where I could see him on the stairs, “concentrating,” making compelling gestures; but also I could see the man who must come, and his forbidders.

  Unhappily for the exhibitor, the man he had placed in front of his victim happened to have hypnotic power himself, and he was not tired. The gentleman on the stairs was “pulling” with all his might. He beckoned and clawed the air, emitting his silent command, “You Must come!” But the gentleman in front of the subject made pushing passes, and even more violently emitted, “You Must Not go!” The first hypnotizer strove and sweated, the unfortunate young man wavered back and forth like a lily in a breeze, but the second hypnotizer triumphed — and the first one was not pleased. All the rest of us were, however.

  With a pleasant home, kind friends, congenial work and a rising reputation, I began to thrive. March 30th: “My health is certainly better. I have been really working for two weeks and feel no worse for it.” The friendship of the Howells family was a special pleasure; with them I met Oliver Herford, he too is a friend of thirty years’ standing. “Mr. Herford walks home with me, buys two books, wants to make a design for cover, very cordial.”

  By the twelfth of April I was off on another lecture trip; Wilmington, Delaware, Chester, Pennsylvania, — I think it was here that a worthy Quaker gentleman took exception to my playing solitaire, cards being evil. I agreed with him that gambling, even the smallest, was evil, but maintained that cards in themselves were no harm. But he insisted that they were “the Devil’s instruments,” that they were used for betting and gambling and therefore should not be used for any purpose.

  “Do you feel that way about horses?” I gently inquired, and the conversation lapsed.

  Then Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, Wilmington again, and home for a few days. While there there is one triumphal record of a brilliant Easter Sunday, a walk in Central Park with one of the boarders— “Walk six miles, and row half an hour. Feel fine — not tired a bit. I really am well.” Stayed feeling well for a while, and was off again by April 21st. A suffrage address in the Legislative chambers at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, then, twenty-third: “Take 11.30 train for Detroit. Hot day. Fine scenery. Feel well. Write rondeau.” During these wander years very much of my writing, both prose and verse, was done on trains.

  In Detroit I spoke for the Protective Alliance for Women and Children on “Society and the Child.” “Very successful. Mrs. G. says I spoke seventy-five per cent better than last year. Also that she had never thought me beautiful before.” As to being beautiful, some thought I was, others didn’t. I didn’t. My ideas of beauty were so exalted, and I was so vividly conscious of my various shortcomings, that I never got much satisfaction out of my looks. Amusingly enough I am vainer at sixty-six than I was at sixteen — think I make a better-looking old lady than I did a young one.

  To Chicago next day. “Feel well and clear-headed. Write ‘Ballade of Relatives’ and a lot of letters. Arrive at 9.10. Met by Mr. White — bless him!” A pleasant visit with dear Mrs. Dow, and next day, “Nice day. Feel fine. Get lot of letters including invitation to chair in Kansas Agricultural College — $1400.00 a year!”

  This looked to me an immeasurable sum. As I had not been to college I was naturally complimented by being asked to teach in one. But I knew too well that I could not hold out in steady work, had no right to undertake it. So I declined, and as in the case of the Settlement proposition, I suggested Mrs. Campbell as much fitter for the place than I. She accepted the position and filled it well. But I have always rather gloated over the invitation.

  April 29th gives another proof of improved health: “Quiet evening reading. So good to be able to enjoy reading again.” The thirtieth was a busy day: “Press blue dress after its wetting. Write eight letters and five cards. Pack. Lunch. Stop to get watch, take cab at Court House, .50, catch train just barely. Go to Savanna, Ill. Lovely trip. Write two letters and two poems, sestina on ‘Homes’ and ‘How very nice,’ in four hours and didn’t feel like one. Lovely place in Savanna, Mrs. Depin’s, I think, right on the Mississippi — very beautiful. Speak in evening on ‘What We Need To Know To-day.’ Pretty tired. $15.00.”

  The Mississippi at this point is blue, not muddy at all, the Missouri brings the mud in. Just a clean bright river, and the long grassy garden down to the brink, a pleasant memory.

  May 1st: “Glorious day. Set forth at 9.30 for Rock Island. Arrive at 11.30, three and a half hours to wait. Take car ride over the river to Davenport. Lunch in connection with a gramophone, parrot and tame squirrel” (A lively restaurant, that). “Another car ride to Moline. Wait twenty minutes. Then to Burlington; wait three hours less five minutes. Keokuk at 11.20. Mr. Bennet meets me. Nice little home. Lovely wife and baby.”

  I preached and addressed a Young People’s meeting next day, and on Monday went back to Chicago, writing triolets on the way. Still with kind Mrs. Dow, and on Sunday the 9th a visit to Henry Demorest Lloyd at Winnetka. There next morning, on a ple
asant piazza: “Read, loaf, talk with Mr. Lloyd, and write three poems — Exiles, Our East, and Immortality.” These are all in the book, and do very well for one morning’s work.

  Wednesday, May 12th: “Write fiercely, enraged by ‘Margaret Ogilvie,’ on what life is for — best one ‘Give Way.’ “ If I owe that poem to Margaret Ogilvie I’m much obliged to her, it is a good one. Thirteenth, “Am feeling rather dull. Read a lot of poems to Mrs. Dow while she sews. I guess I have twenty or thirty good ones for my next edition, twenty or so brand new.” Fourteenth, “Finish ‘The Commonplace.’ Write ‘To My Baby’ thing. Write ‘Their Grass’ and laugh much over it.”

  Sunday, May 15th, I went to Milwaukee to preach on “Heroes We Need Now,” and on the train wrote “Heroism,” which is one of the best, and “They Wandered Forth.” But I was running down. May 19th: “Am feeling very dismal again.” Twentieth, “Very bad day. Can’t even sew well. Squeeze out one rondeau, ‘A Man Must Live.’ “ That’s a good one, too, bad day or not.

  May 25th off to Dowagaic, Michigan, where I spoke twice, and learned something of the exceeding beauty of that state, with its clean hardwood forests and plentiful waters. An excursion was made to Sister Lakes, and to Magician Lake, with its island cottages. “Lovely day and very pleasant time. A beautiful world and lots of nice people in it.” Then to Battle Creek where I gave an address in the famous Sanitarium, and preached also; with a ride to Lake Gognac— “Another pretty resort— ‘the woods are full of ‘em.’”

  May 31st in Charlotte, Michigan, where I visited some cousins, the Perry family. “Speak in evening on Our Brains etc. Speak well. $5.00. Back to Battle Creek, where the Sanitarium gave me a “Complimentary Bath,” which I shall never forget. A friend who was there, scanning the menu as it were, picked out the order of exercises. “Footbath, hot water to drink, electric light, shampoo, salt glow, needle shower, massage. Feel fine.” The electric part made an indelible impression. Laid out on a stretcher, with only a towel for bedclothes, I was slid under a curtain into a long glittering oven, and even the towel plucked away. My head was outside, but moved by a natural curiosity I parted that little curtain and looked in. Circumambient electric lights, innumerably multiplied by a lining of mirrors — the scene was like that upon which enters a devout Mussulman newly slain in battle!

  That night I spoke in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in the People’s Church, at a Woman’s Club Anniversary, on “Duties, Domestic and Other.” “Pretty good. Enthusiastic reception. $15.00.” On this occasion I encountered one of the most amusing contretemps of a lifetime’s lecturing.

  I was in full career in my address when the chairwoman, who had been growing more and more nervous, handed me a bit of paper which bore the astonishing request that I stop for a while and give place to a lady who was to sing a memorial hymn to her mother. “Why,” I whispered, “did she not come before the lecture?” There was some reason — perhaps she had to wait for the accompanyist. “Why does she not wait till I have finished?” She had another engagement. So I told the audience that there was to be an intermission, that they were to have something they would doubtless enjoy more than my talk, and sat down.

  Nothing happened. The audience fidgeted. The poor chairwoman was increasingly distressed. Said I softly, “Would you like me to recite something while you wait?” “Oh, if you would — !” So I rose again, with suitable explanation, and gave them some of my verses. Finally the lady with the hymn arrived and sang it, and departed. Then, quite unperturbed, I took up the thread of my discourse, and finished it.

  This lecturing of mine, after I ceased to write papers, consists in fresh thinking on some topic in which I am vitally interested. Once in Chicago I repeated an address at the instance of a friend who had heard it once, and who was anxious that I should do as well the second time. I invited her to attend, and when I asked if it was as good as the first time she said it was just as good— “But you didn’t say one word you did before!”

  Being used to straight, logical thinking it is no trouble to be clear and connected, an interruption does not annoy me, nor does a sudden change in the theme I had intended to discuss. Three times I have had to take up an unexpected topic, with practically no notice, once as suddenly as this: — Seated on the platform at a Woman’s Club meeting ready to speak on “Our Brains and What Ails Them,” I listened to a very smoothly worded introduction, with the usual compliments, which wound up with— “who will now address you on ‘Men, Women and People.’ “ So between my chair and the front I had to change my subject, and did not mind it in the least.

  In Kalamazoo I stayed with the Rev. Caroline Bartlett Crane, the able and beloved minister of the Peoples church, a woman both strong and charming. Back to Mrs. Dowie again and writing. Saturday, June 5th. “Feel some better. Finish Servant Question article and fix yesterday’s poems. Lester F. Ward sends me ‘Collective Telesis’ with reference to Similar Cases in it. Read and enjoy it.” Next day: “Send off fourteen poems and Servant Question article.

  “Mrs. Dow’s daughter, Jennie Harvey, here with two chicks. Lovely children,” and next day, “Cry some apropos of Mrs. Harvey’s babies.” In time I learned not to suffer at sight of mothers with their children by deliberately putting myself in the mother’s place, thinking of her pleasure and not of my pain.

  Similarly I learned to bear the smell of tobacco, at least with complacence, on top of a London bus. I was there to get fresh air, but the eleven other seats were occupied by men smoking. Said I to myself, “Eleven pleasures are greater than one displeasure,” and focused on their enjoyment rather than my discomfort. I do not mind it so keenly now, except in a low-ceiled room or crowded place. When people are all jammed in the narrow alley of a Pullman car, ready to get off, and a man cannot wait to dismount before lighting his cigar; or when in a thick-packed crowd before the ticket gate, in a railway station, men smoke, it shows gross selfishness.

  By Tuesday, June 8th, I was off on another Kansas trip; was delayed two hours and a half in Mankato by a washout: “Sit serenely in station and work on novel — arranging chapters, etc.” Saturday the twelfth, in Topeka, “Feel very weak and goodfornothing — can’t write.” Mr. Wyman comes to arrange for my preaching for him.” Sunday, “Goodfornothing yet. But manage to give a good sermon on The Heroes We Need Now. Mr. Wyman gives me five dollars that he gets for preaching to the lunatics this P.M.”

  In Eureka I visited Mrs. Hardy, a dear woman. “Hot, can’t work these days.” “Talk with Mr. Hardy and learn much about the cattle trade.” I also learned what Kansas heat was like; the wind was hot, we had to avoid the breeze instead of courting it, it blew from the southwest as from an oven, and the long corn leaves crisped and curled.

  In Mankato I acquired $25.00, in Topeka the lunatics’ five, Eureka on the seventeenth, $10.00, and on the twenty-seventh: “Speak in evening at Cong. Church on Social Settlements. Was presented with the collection, $3.96.” Twenty-sixth: “feel very weak and tired.” Twenty-ninth, “Feel weak. Get letter from Mr. Howells about books.” July 1st: “Still weak but fall to work in sheer despair on article on economic basis of woman question. Get hold of a new branch of my theory on above subject. Now I can write the book.”

  Thirtieth: “Send letter and some new poems to Ripley Hitchcock, reader for Appleton’s, at Mr. Howell’s suggestion.” July 3rd: “The Addisons present me with a five dollar bill for a birthday present.” Fifth, “Get mail — Katharine’s birthday present — a beautiful silk waist made with her own hands! The dear child!” It was enterprising of her, for she was only twelve, and it warmed my heart.

  The hot weather continued. “At 4 A.M. it was 80, some one tells me.” On the ninth I spoke in Augusta, Kansas, remarking: “Gloomy prospect for lecture. Very Hot, Hall very hot. Ten people come, two pay. I sit down and talk to ‘em. Pretty hard work.”

  From Kansas back to Chicago for a day or two, and then a visit with Mrs. Coonley — now Coonley-Ward, at her lovely place in Wyoming, New York. Mrs. Ward was quite the lady of
the manor thereabouts, and had arranged for me to preach in the village church on Sunday, but the minister, a young man, did not like it at all. He listened, disapprovingly, but as I came out he shook hands and made this cordial concession— “You did not make a single grammatical mistake!”

  Jane Addams was a fellow-visitor, to my delight. “She is really impressed by the new big idea. To have her see it is a great help.” I highly enjoyed the garden, “Pick raspberries, they have ’em black, red and white, and great currants of the same three colors.” “Pick colored raspberries in the sunset light.”

  From there to Rochester, New York, on the twenty-fifth, where I preached in Dr. Gannett’s church. “Dr. Gannett left me five dollars but I wouldn’t take it. Miss Mary Anthony tried to make it two, but I wouldn’t. Mrs. C-Ward gave me the trip ticket — no loss.”

  After Wyoming I set forth, July 30, for “Summer Brook Farm,” Miss Prestonia Mann’s unique establishment in the Adirondacks. Miss Mann I had come to know and like in New York. She was a Fabian Socialist, running a little paper called the American Fabian, for which I wrote. Her parents had been progressives in the days of the Abolitionists, and were interested in the original Brook Farm experiment.

  So Miss Mann, having plenty of money, had built a “camp” at the head of Keene Valley, of huge logs with the bark on, broad porches, a sunken fireplace where we all sat on the low steps approaching it, and an enormous long west window with a cushioned seat, some fifteen feet long it was. For further accommodation of guests she added a sort of chalet as a dormitory, in later years another yet.

  To this agreeable place she invited numbers of interesting people of a progressive tendency; among them was a Mrs. McDaniels, a sister of Mr. Dana of the New York Sun, and a member or visitor of the original Brook Farm Group. Miss Mann brought two competent maids with her, who did the cooking, and kept her house in order, but all the rest of the work was done by the guests. We paid for our food materials, in careful division of expense, and then “coöperated,” taking turns in our allotted tasks, the men doing the heavier work.