Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  The talk was on “The Principles of Socialism,” which, properly presented, reach almost every one. One of the members, sitting by me during the refreshment and discussion period afterward, told me, “I came prepared to deny everything that was said, but you haven’t said anything but what is true.”

  Friday, March 18, 1897. “Poems out.”

  By March 20th: “I find I am really very low — don’t feel up to a walk, even.” Twenty-first: “Feel very weak and low — unable to work. Down to the crying stage.” And so on for a while.

  My kind little stepmother, who had far more sense of hospitality and generous affection than of business, now became a Christian Scientist. Varied teachers of that faith enjoyed her excellent rooms, and paid their board by giving absent treatment to my poor slowly dying father, which was of no advantage to his health or her business.

  One of these healers had a room next mine, with only a casual board-and-paper partition between; mine was the “hall-room” thus made. There was a door in this partition, securely fastened, against which stood my narrow couch, on which it was my custom to take a nap, or try to, after lunch. Each of us could hear everything which went on in the other’s room, and as his treatments were oral, I got a fair idea of the method.

  Rather brisk and brief with poor persons, he was; much more prolonged with the richer. There was one deaf old lady who came often from quite a distance. To her he read from his precious book, in a loud, penetrating voice, assuring her that she could hear perfectly. “I can hear you,” she plaintively admitted, “but I can’t hear any one else.” One day there called on him a lesser light in the same field to consult him on points of practice. This visitor admitted that he had a “claim” of pain in his chest, when coming from Boston on the boat. Being unable to “demonstrate” its unreality, he had summoned a steward and besought a mustard plaster — with beneficial results. This my neighbor gravely commended as wise under the circumstances.

  Then the caller opened his heart to him. “When I — pass over” he seemed to minimize the event— “There is no death! Nothing real dies! All that is real is in the mind — I take it with me — am I right?” He was assured he was perfectly right. “I do not lose my wife nor my children. There is no matter, there is only mind. They only exist in mind — I take them with me in my mind!” This conclusion was also fully agreed to as correct. “Then,” cried he in logical triumph, “why should I keep up that life insurance?”

  It did seem a reasonable question, but his host was equal to the occasion. He was a practical man, as his method of paying board-bills showed. “Wait,” said he. “Does your wife share in your views? Would she see it as you do?” The man admitted that his wife and children would very likely not feel that they had gone with him in his mind, but would probably insist that they were alive on earth. “Then,” said the teacher, firmly, “you had better keep up that insurance.”

  March 30th was a happy day. The married twin was in town. “Stay in and tend Margie’s baby, from 8 to 10.30 or so.... A delight to be mama a little.”

  By April I had the pleasure of receiving six copies of In This Our World from the publishers. One copy they had bound in soft dark blue kid for me. I literally wore it out, carrying it about to read from when lecturing. April 15th: “Letter from English publisher asking for manuscripts, to examine.” That pleased me, too. In this petty and personal account of daily happenings I step aside on April 21st to remark, “War with Spain becomes a fact.”

  My purpose in diary-keeping, since girlhood, was not at all to make revelations of feeling, though, or of incidents not readable by other people. As I go over it now, for the first time since it was written, I am surprised by its fullness of small detail, and amused by its paucity of material which might be eagerly looked for by — well, by a newspaper-minded person.

  There were three lectures in April, $10.00, $5.00, and $10.00, and, twenty-eighth: “Mr. Small sends the advance I asked for, $25.00.” Next day, some one “opportunely returns the $20.00 I lent him last summer.” Thus enriched, I went forth and added to my wardrobe: “Buy a little black hat. $1.98, and dark blue Danish cloth, 11 yds. $1.44.”

  It was fortunate that I could “compose in cloth” and loved to sew. How I ever managed to travel and lecture far and wide, and present a decent appearance, on so little, is astonishing. Those debts of mine, from California days, were being steadily reduced, by bits, but my earnings were ridiculously small.

  May 30th I was off again: “Good-bye to New York and my family-by-marriage.” First a little visit with Claire Beecher near Baltimore. May 2nd: “They want me to stay, but I don’t — the Grandmother is ill, an aunt arrives — I take the 5.30 by Bay Line, SS. Georgia, to Norfolk.” So to Goldsboro, North Carolina, where I had a pleasant stay with Mrs. Clara Royall, who had boarded with us in New York. She was a tall, beautiful woman, graceful and charming. One of the admiring young-men boarders told her one windy day, “You were the only woman on the avenue whose skirts blew right!”

  While there I attended the most amazing “entertainment,” a concert given by a neighboring lunatic asylum — colored. The performance was by the least crazy ones, those next crazy sat around us, and in the guarded background howled the most violent. I was told that insanity had increased greatly among the Negroes since they were freed, probably owing to the strain of having to look out for themselves in a civilization far beyond them.

  There were lectures, four; given in the court-house, total receipts $37.50. Goldsboro was a pleasant little town, the people kind and friendly. I have spoken in every one of the Southern States, and was struck from the first by the vigor and efficiency of the women, as well as by their progressiveness. Naturally I met that kind, but they were a good percentage.

  May 21st: “Advance sheets of book at last! Letter from Grace and one from Katharine. Very happy day.” One Sunday I was taken to the Presbyterian church, where I heard a “Mission Day” sermon. The man, wishing to rouse us to generous contribution, enlarged on the terrors of damnation, and then gave the exact numbers of those so doomed! His calculation was simple: take the population of the earth, subtract the number of Christian Protestant church members — and all the remainder were damned! I did think he might have given the Roman Catholics a chance — they are certainly Christians — but no, his Heaven was most exclusive. How that kind of Christian can worship a Deity who plays such a poor second to the devil I cannot see.

  Another sermon there made an impression. This was Easter Sunday, and the preacher told us that the miraculous conception of Jesus, his virgin birth, his wonderful life, his divine teachings, his martyrdom itself — all together were of no avail without the resurrection! Good fundamentalists, these.

  May 23rd I wrote a poem, “Up and Down,” quite the highest and farthest I ever reached.

  By June 1st off northward again, to Mrs. Blankenburgh in Philadelphia. Her husband was a German, a good one, afterward mayor; her mother, Dr. Longshore, was the first woman physician in the city. The old lady told me how when she began to practise the prejudice against women physicians was such that druggists refused to handle her prescriptions, or put them up incorrectly to bring discredit upon her. She was treating one sick woman, whose daughter was entertaining a suitor, and the young man told the girl that he would withdraw his suit if her mother employed a woman physician!

  It is easy to forget, to-day, the contemptible tactics employed by our natural protectors to keep women out of the professions. In medicine, where one might have expected decency, those who taught in medical colleges deliberately employed obscenity in their lectures to deter women students. One of these records that she fairly starved herself that she “might not have blood enough to blush with.”

  Mrs. Blankenburgh and I went to Longwood, that old-established meeting of progressive friends who have encouraged all manner of daring reforms from days when Abolition was new. I lectured on the Principles of Socialism so convincingly that they passed a resolution in favor of those principles and the
ir gradual adoption. It is a very great pity for our true economic progress that this legitimate policy in business administration should have been so misunderstood by Marx, and made so repulsive to the American mind by its alien protagonists.

  Preached in Longwood Sunday the fifth, was back in New York next day, Wednesday, June 8th, having accumulated $85.61, I sent off $40.00 on debts. On the twelfth I set forth for Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, where I was to spend the summer. “Letters from Grace and Katharine, they may be here any day.” And the very next Houghton brought my daughter out to me. “Katharine is tall and lovely, sweet-mannered and strong. It is good to see her!”

  Such a happy time! Katharine was delighted with the pond across the road. I taught her to swim, which she greatly enjoyed. She could float like a cork, but found it difficult to dive, being so light. It must have been large lung capacity, she was thin enough. I have seen her stand vertically, one arm held straight up above her head, and go down quite a way, but the arm remained up — she could not sink to the bottom. There was an ancient boat, in which we used to go hunting for turtles. We were in bathing suits, Katharine at the bow watching for her prey while I rowed — youth at the prow and pleasure at the helm as it were. If the turtle dived so did Katharine, we accumulated quite a pile of them. Then, having enjoyed the pleasure of the chase, we tossed them all back in the water. Turtles do not seem to be nervous beasts, and we did not hurt them any.

  “She is so good to be with!” says the diary.

  Nevertheless, I was “down” again, though writing the best I could. The Biological Station at the Harbor brought us a new boarder, Francis B. Sumner, another lasting friend. He was a most pleasing addition to our party. Henry Linville, another biologist and still older friend, was the one who had first told me of the place.

  Monday the eleventh: “Owe to-day two weeks for Katharine, one for self” — the last cash entry, on June 27th, being: “In hand $3.26.” This is not surprising. Through the month it is still “Miserable” and “Very miserable, no work,” till the twenty-fifth. “Feel much better,” and also “Paid up to-day” — perhaps that was the reason. On the twenty-eighth a kind friend of whom I asked a loan of fifty dollars sent me a hundred, so I felt quite wealthy again.

  In August down again, far down. But sick or well I wrote, sometimes selling, more times not. “I row dismally on pond and dismally converse.” “All bad days and nothing in ‘em.” “Drag around generally.”

  By the end of August we returned to the city, and I took Katharine to her father and other mother, now on their way back to Pasadena. If I had any settled home, any settled income, any settled health, it would have been “my turn” now — how gladly my turn! — but I could hardly keep myself, even with many visits, much less keep two, so it was another good-by. September 1st: “See Katharine off.... Go home and collapse.”

  Saturday second: “Ride on 5th Ave. bus ... have to give up and come home.” This was the hottest week of that summer; there were sixty-seven deaths in New York. I returned to Cold Spring Harbor for a while, still far from well. “These are long heavy days, head thick and weak, body weak too.” On the twenty-fifth I went for a short visit to Miss Lillian Wald at the Nurses Settlement on Henry Street. She was called the “Jane Addams of New York.” Then I engaged a room at the 32nd Street house again.

  September 30th was my last visit to my father. “Carry grapes. Knew me for awhile. Probably cannot see him again.”...

  Another visit in Boston early in October. My publishers showed me the reviews of In This Our World— “very fine.” There was a pleasant little parlor talk in the house of a friend, now long grown dear, Mary Hutcheson Page. Just a few earnest women who were interested in my theory of domestic economics. They were “stirred and not frightened,” and under the new stimulus admitted things, feelings, they had never dared mention before, hardly acknowledge to themselves.

  Speaking of the supposed sanctity of family meals, one said, “Breakfast really isn’t so pleasant at our house. There are the children in a hurry to get off to school — there’s my husband in a hurry to get off to his business — there’s my husband’s mother, who is a little out of her mind, and her attendant—” And another owned that when she was left alone with her first baby there were times when she felt like saying, “Take it! Please take it for a little while — somebody, anybody!”

  Funds remained low, the record for October 15th is $1.15. There were some addresses but no fees set down, may have forgotten to do it. Was pretty well along here, yet so reduced one day as to remark, “Get very tired after dinner and can’t talk.” That was being tired, indeed. “Call at Small and Maynard’s and get $25.00. Still more due me — really mine!” So it appears the books were beginning to pay something.

  November 5th went to Wellesley College, with Dr. Ellen Hayes, and talked to the Agora Club girls. It was a very pleasant time, some of the professors were much impressed with my views on early education, and urged my writing on that topic. Sunday sixth, spoke in Newton and lunched with Mrs. Kate Gannett Wells. “They’ve read the book (W. & E.) and like it — she’s an anti, too.”

  November 11th off again westward, via Michigan Central, and saw Niagara Falls — no remarks. One of the best comments I remember on that great cataract is the Irishman’s, who quite refused to be impressed. “But look at that vast body of water pouring over there!” they cried, to which he only said, “And what’s to hinder it!”

  A pleasant little visit to Mrs. Corbett in Detroit, then to Battle Creek, with those good Turners who thought me a missionary. Dowagiac next, with Mrs. Lee, and addressed the Woman’s Club on Social Progress. Arrived in Chicago late one evening: “with woman and child, bags and birdcage on my hands. Good Mr. White meets me, with his friend Carl Linden, and sees to the woman.”

  That was the beginning of a long stay with dear Mrs. Dow, Mr. White coming daily to work with me — we were collaborating on a play.

  It was always a pleasure to be with that kind “mother,” in her large house standing in a good-sized lot of its own — with their own cow in it. There were plenty of old friends and new ones, Dr. McCracken thought I was doing well; at Hull House I met George Herron, Hamlin Garland, Keir Hardy, N. O. Nelson the profit-sharer and coöperator, and “Golden Rule Jones,” the most Christian Mayor of Toledo. A lecture in that town; a little trip to Grinnell, Iowa, with several talks. For this last there was a gift of fifty dollars from Mrs. Rand, whose daughter Mr. Herron afterward married. “So I clear $28.00 — surprising and pleasant.”

  By December 20th we had finished our play, first draft, of which achievement nothing ever came. Mrs. Dow went to her daughter’s in Geneva, for Christmas, but arranged to have her excellent servants prepare dinner for Mr. White and me. So there we sat, two homeless wanderers, eating a Christmas dinner in a house where we had no connection but friendship. He had the grippe, and couldn’t eat. I was having a “low” time and couldn’t eat, either — it was a funny meal.

  That year wound up creditably — December 31st: “Finish all the letters I had to do, 12, and 9 postcards.” Must have been feeling stronger. The New Year opened, as so often, with a sort of “confession of faith.” As these represent a definite attempt to state and restate my belief and purpose I quote this one:

  To live, letting God do it. Spread self-consciousness into concern for others. Leave one’s self an open door, a free unconscious channel, for the deep rushing flood of life to pour through. To make sure in one’s own life of what one teaches others— “say ‘come’ not ‘go,’ “ be what they ought to be. To tell and tell forever humanity’s great secret — that each one is all the rest — and each “can do,” himself, the world’s work, so made easier for all. A calmness born of the immeasurable Power which moves us. A rich Peace, seeing that life is good. A Joy, deepening daily as we understand. And Love — the love that all things live in — to feel it and give it, to Give it, Give it, Give it everywhere....

  Another good dentist befriends me, “Gold cro
wn $10.00,” and a Christmas present of just that amount made it nothing. January 7th to Toledo, where I visited “Golden Rule Jones,” and spoke in the Hall of that name, on the “Social Organism.” Also preached there next day. Monday in Wauregan, Ohio, on Socialism, “Collection, $5.00.” Further: “Mr. Jones gave me $25.00 and offered a lot more, but I thought best not to indulge. Back to Chicago again.”

  Presently I set off on a southern trip, from which I hoped much as an escape from cold — my years in California having left me with a settled distaste for winter weather.

  The first stop was with N. O. Nelson, in St. Louis, or rather in the model village of Leclaire, just across the river. Mr. Crunden, the librarian in St. Louis, was much interested in my books. I spoke for the Wednesday Club, for The Pedagogical Society, twice for Mr. Nelson’s group at Leclaire. “There are lots of nice people here,” I note. January 20th, a talk in a private school; twenty-second preached in Unitarian church A.M. and in Congregational church in evening; twenty-third, spoke at a “Christian” ministers’ meeting, and addressed a colored Woman’s Club at their church; there were a kindergarten meeting and a settlement meeting, too. For all these I got $90.00, of which $40.00 was from the Pedagogical Society.

  Then I set forth, February 26th, for Ruskin, Tennessee. Ruskin was another of those sublimely planned, devotedly joined, and invariably deserted Socialist colonies. Only ignorance of the real nature of social relation can account for these high-minded idiocies. A city, a village, a settlement of any sort, is not based on “Go to! Let us live here and behave so and so!” That Socialists, so convinced of “economic determinism,” should overlook the necessity for a legitimate local economic base and relationship, is especially sad, but they do. The result is that those of their membership who are capable of serving the larger organism of city, state, or country are drawn away by the pull of that larger service; those who remain are of the sort who need to be taken care of, not world-builders at all.