In none of these studies could I have passed a college examination, I suppose, but the result of studying from a strong desire to know, and in orderly sequence and relation, was to give me a clear, connected general outline of the story of life on earth, and of our own nature and progress, which has proved lastingly useful.
Soon I realized the importance of religion as a cultural factor, but also the painfully conspicuous absurdities and contradictions of the world’s repeated attempts in this line. As I followed the evolution of religion, saw it still dominated by some of its earliest errors, and universally paralyzed by the concept of a fixed revelation, the view was somewhat discouraging. But as clearly I saw the universal need of it, the functional demand of the brain for a basic theory of life, for a conscious and repeated connection with the Central Power, and for “sailing orders,” a recognized scale of duties. I perceived that in human character there must be “principles,” something to be depended on when immediate conditions did not tend to produce right conduct. James Freeman Clark’s Ten Great Religions was a long step in this field of study, with much besides, and with wide illustration from both real life and fiction.
One may have a brain specialized in its grasp of ethics, as well as of mechanics, mathematics or music. Even as a child I had noted that the whole trouble and difficulty in a story was almost always due to lying or deceit. “He must never know,” she cries, or “She must never know,” he insists, and the mischief begins. Also, I observed a strange disproportion in the order of virtues, the peculiar way in which they vary in the order of their importance, by race, class, age, sex.
So I set about the imperative task of building my own religion, based on knowledge. This, to the “believer,” is no satisfactory foundation. All religions of the past have rested on some one’s say so, have been at one in demanding faith as the foremost virtue. Understanding was never required, nor expected, in fact it was forbidden and declared impossible, quite beyond “the poor human intellect.”
“It may be poor,” said young Charlotte to herself, “but it is all the intellect there is, I know of none better. At any rate it is all I have, and I’ll use it.” As this religion of mine underlies all my Living, is the most essential part of my life, and began in these years, it will have to go in.
“Here I am,” said I, “in the world, conscious, able to do this or that. What is it all about? How does it work? What is my part in it, my job — what ought I to do?” Then I set to work calmly and cheerfully, sure that the greatest truths were the simplest, to review the story of creation and see what I could see. The first evident fact is action, something doing, this universe is a going concern.
“Power,” said I. “Force. Call it God. Now then, is it one, or more?” There are various forces at work before us, as centripetal and centrifugal, inertia and others, but I was trying to get a view of the whole show, to see if there was any dominant underlying power.
Looking rapidly along the story of the world’s making and growing, with the development of life upon it, I could soon see that in spite of all local variations and back-sets, the process worked all one way — up. This of course involves deciding on terms, as to what is better or worse, higher or lower, but it seemed to me mere sophistry to deny that vegetable forms and activities are higher than mineral; animal higher than vegetable: and of animal life man the highest form and still going on. This long, irresistible ascent showed a single dominant force. “Good!” said I. “Here’s God — One God and it Works!”
The next question was of the character of this Force and its effect on the growing world, was it Good? Or Bad?
Here loomed before me the problem of evil, long baffling so many. But I knew that mighty thinkers had thought for ages without discovering some of the most patent facts; their failure did not prove the facts difficult to discover, it merely showed that they had not thought of them. Also, I was strengthened by an innate incredulity which refused to accept anybody’s say-so, even if it had been said for a thousand years. If a problem was said to be insoluble, I forthwith set out to solve it. So I sat me down before the problem of evil, thus:
“I will go back to the period of a molten world, where we can call nothing right or wrong, and follow carefully up the ages — see where it comes in.” So I followed the process until the earth was cool enough to allow the formation of crystals, each square or pentagonal or whatever was its nature, and then if one was broken or twisted, I pounced upon the fact— “here it is! It is right for this to be a hexagon, wrong for it to be squeezed flat.” Following this thought in vegetable and animal growth, I was soon able to make my first ethical generalization: “That is right for a given organism which leads to its best development.”
It is told that Buddha, going out to look on life, was greatly daunted by death. “They all eat one another!” he cried, and called it evil. This process I examined, changed the verb, said, “They all feed one another,” and called it good. Death? Why this fuss about death? Use your imagination, try to visualize a world without death! The first form of life would be here yet, miles deep by this time, and nothing else; a static world. If birth is allowed, without death, the resulting mass would leave death as a blessed alternative. Death is the essential condition of life, not an evil.
As to pain — ? I observed that the most important continuous functions of living are unconsciously carried on within us; that the most external ones, involving a changing activity on our part, as in obtaining food, and mating, are made desirable by pleasure; that just being alive is a pleasure; that pain does not come in unless something goes wrong. “Fine!” said I. “An admirable world. God is good.”
As to the enormous suffering of our humankind, that we make, ourselves, by erroneous action — and can stop it when we choose.
Having got thus far, there remained to study the two main processes of religion, the Intake and the Output. (The phrasing of all this is of more recent years, but the working out of it was done in those years of early girlhood from sixteen to twenty.)
The Intake; the relation of the soul to God. All manner of religions have wandered around this point, and in spite of wide difference in terminology, the fact is established that the individual can derive renewed strength, peace and power from inner contact with this Central Force. They do it, Christian, Hebrew, Moslem, Buddhist. It is evident that this Force does not care what you call it, but flows in, as if we had tapped the reservoir of the universe.
However, one cannot put a quart in a pint cup. Sucking away on this vast power and not doing anything with it, results in nothing, unless it may be a distention of the mind, unfitting it for any practical contacts. So we sometimes see the most profoundly religious persons accomplishing the least good, while more is done by some who spend less time in prayer.
Seeking to clarify my mind on this point I deliberately put myself in God’s place, so to speak, tried to imagine how I should feel toward my creatures, what I should expect of them. If that Power is conscious we may assume it to be rational, surely, and in no way less than we! If not conscious, we must simply find out how it works. What does God want of the earth? To whirl and spin and keep its times and seasons. What of the vegetable world? To blossom and bear fruit. Of the animals? The same fulfilment of function. Of us? The same and more. We, with all life, are under the great law, Evolution.
I figured it out that the business of mankind was to carry out the evolution of the human race, according to the laws of nature, adding the conscious direction, the telic force, proper to our kind — we are the only creatures that can assist evolution; that we could replenish our individual powers by application to the reservoir; and the best way to get more power was to use what one had.
Social evolution I easily saw to be in human work, in the crafts, trades, arts and sciences through which we are related, maintained and developed. Therefore the first law of human life was clear, and I made my second ethical generalization: “The first duty of a human being is to assume right functional relation to societ
y” — more briefly, to find your real job, and do it. This is the first duty, others accompany and follow it, but not all of them together are enough without this.
This I found perfectly expressed in a story read in later years, of a noted English engineer, whose personal life was open to much criticism, and who was about to die of heart disease. His nurse, a redoubtable Nova Scotian, annoyed him by concern about his soul, his approaching Judgment and probable damnation.
“My good woman,” said he, “when I die, if I come to judgment, I believe that I shall be judged by the bridges I have built.”
Life, duty, purpose, these were clear to me. God was Real, under and in and around everything, lifting, lifting. We, conscious of that limitless power, were to find our places, our special work in the world, and when found, do it, do it at all costs.
There was one text on which I built strongly: “Whoso doeth the will shall know of the doctrine.” “Good,” said I. “That’s provable; I’ll try it.” And I set to work, with my reliable system of development, to “do the will” as far as I could see it.
CHAPTER V. GIRLHOOD — IF ANY
SIXTEEN, with a life to build. My mother’s profound religious tendency and implacable sense of duty; my father’s intellectual appetite; a will power, well developed, from both; a passion of my own for scientific knowledge, for real laws of life; an insatiable demand for perfection in everything, and that proven process of mine for acquiring habits — instead of “Standing with reluctant feet where the brook and river meet,” I plunged in and swam.
I am giving the girlhood which I remember, the dominant feelings, the most earnest efforts. As I look over the diaries of the time, the first one is for 1876, the records are trivial enough, hardly anything is shown of the desperately serious “living” which was going on. It was my definite aim that there should be nothing in my diary which might not be read by any one; I find in these faintly scribbled pages most superficial accounts of small current events, an unbaked girlishness of no special promise.
Very occasionally some indication of the inner difference appears, as once while seventeen: “Am going to try hard this winter to see if I cannot enjoy myself like other people.” This shows the growing stoicism which was partly forced on me by repeated deprivations, then consciously acquired. The local life in which we moved seemed to me petty in the extreme. The small routine of our housekeeping, the goings and comings of friends and relatives, and the rare opportunities for small entertainment, have left almost no impression.
What I do remember, indelibly, is the cumulative effort toward a stronger, nobler character. At the end of the eighteen-year-old diary is written: “Goodby old Year! It has been one of much progress and considerable improvement. My greatest fault now is inordinate egotism.” A persistent characteristic, this.
Our living was of the simplest, mother and I doing the little housework, washing and all. There were coal stoves to care for, and I, “in the vicious pride of my youth,” could take a hod of anthracite coal in both hands and run up two flights of stairs with it, singing all the way. Also, I could lift a full water-pail in one hand up to the level of my ear.
I improved in painting my little water-color portraits of flowers, and began to get small orders for them. Mrs. C. C. Smith, a friend of both my parents, a Boston woman, high in educational circles, visited us, and was not pleased to see a girl of my age so untrained. She suggested that I attend The School of Design, about to be opened in Providence. Mother objected to this on the ground that it would take me out of her influence and management; she held that a girl should, as she put it, “remain in her mother’s sphere until she entered her husband’s.” This was somehow derived from her Swedenborgianism. My natural query, “Does a girl never have a sphere of her own?” was ignored. But the good lady from Boston was a friend of father’s as well as mother’s; she doubtless represented to him that I had talent, he was willing to pay the fees, and the matter seemed to me so important that I decided to stretch my determined obedience for once.
We sat at our little dining-table, mother and Aunt Caroline and I. Calmly I stated the advantages offered, improvement in my work, means of earning a living, a chance to make friends and connections, ending: “If you command me not to go I shall obey you, but do you dare refuse such an opportunity?” She didn’t. So I went to the Rhode Island School of Design, and learned much.
The school was on the top floor of a five-story building on Westminster Street, about a mile from our house. There was an elevator, but I was always looking for additional exercise, and walked up. At first slowly and sedately, then I ran one flight and walked three, then ran two and presently all, then began again with two steps at a time, and in a month or so I was running up the whole four flights two steps at a time and beating the elevator, to my immense satisfaction.
I was no artist, but a skilled craftsman. My flower-portraiture was perfect of its kind, but not “art.” The study in free-hand drawing I liked, the charcoal work, even the beginnings in oil, but chiefly delightful was perspective, which just fitted some corner of my mind. When the exercises were given I had the example done before the description was hardly finished, and then it was hung on the wall as a specimen of class-work.
Which calls to mind a story about another specimen and a discomfited young man. We were taught modeling, and I had a medallion to copy, a head of Couture by William M. Hunt. The copy was a good one and was kept among the school exhibits. Years later another principal of the school, a young man and cocky, passed it around at an artist’s club supper as Hunt’s own, expatiating dictatorially on its merits. But a friend of mine present saw my monogram on it, and pointed out that it was done by C. A. Perkins while a student, to the chagrin of the exhibitor.
One odd result of the art school experience was temporary employment in a monument shop. They wanted some student to assist in their drawing work, and I got the job. All I remember of that effort is how to put on a “flat wash” — to tint evenly a large surface, and the shape of an “ogee curve.”
Another was to teach drawing in a small private school. There I encountered the only child I ever saw who really could not draw. She was “form blind,” could not distinguish between a square and a circle, as it were.
One amusing source of income was the painting of advertising cards for Kendall’s Soap Company. Cousin Robert Brown was in that business, and the fashion of distributing small lithographed cards to attract customers had just begun. Robert had a fertile imagination, he devised the pictures he wanted and I drew and colored them. I did not know how, did not do them well, but neither of us minded that. One of their established figures was “The Soapine Whale,” this animal I labored with repeatedly. Another of his involved a big gray-dappled horse which used to lead in pulling freight-cars through the city, and with much effort I drew him, my first horse.
Little by little I added to my earning capacity, selling the little cardboard panels with groups of flowers on them, and giving lessons both in school and privately. This flower-painting developed to a sort of limited perfection. I was told later by a competent judge that if I would give myself to it I could paint still life as well as any one on earth. But this seemed to me a poor ambition, not conducive to my object — the improvement of the human race.
Some lasting friendships were contracted during these years, one, somewhat unique in its character, with a gentle, lovely, intellectual girl, Martha Luther by name. She was sixteen, I seventeen. We liked each other immensely. Said I to her: “We seem to be on the brink of what they call ‘A schoolgirl friendship,’ which so often breaks up in foolish quarrel or misunderstanding. Let’s make ours safe and permanent.”
So we undertook to be always utterly frank with each other in word and deed, never to pretend anything we did not fully feel. I explained, furthermore, that I was irregular in fervor, that for a time I should want to see her continually, and that there would be spaces when affection seemed to wane, but if she would understand and be patient it would well
up warmly again. We earnestly entered into this compact of mutual understanding, kept its agreements, enjoyed years of perfect companionship, and as grandmothers are still friends. This was my first deep personal happiness.
The Hazards, one of the “noble families” of Rhode Island, were extremely kind to me in these years of girlhood. There was the grandfather, Rowland Hazard I, the son, Rowland Hazard II, the grandson, Rowland Hazard III, later came a fourth, and there may be a fifth of the dynasty by now.
Mrs. Rowland II was like some beneficent duchess. There chanced to be a strong resemblance between me and her sister, Mrs. Blake, who was dead; also to her daughter, Ada Blake, and to Mrs. Hazard’s daughter Helen. There was no connection between our families, but the resemblance was so marked that I was repeatedly taken for one or the other of the girls even in her own house.
Mrs. Hazard engaged me to give lessons to her youngest daughter, which never struck me at the time as pure benevolence. She invited me occasionally to parties, and to visit them at their lovely home in Peacedale, Rhode Island. I recall now with the keenest appreciation how wisely kind they were to me, all of them, trying to help this obstinate young stoic, to ameliorate somewhat the hard conditions in which I lived.
My mother was anxious as to my conduct in all this grandeur. “Does Charlotte know how to behave?” she asked, and gracious Mrs. Hazard answered: “If she does not know what to do, she does something of her own that is just as good.”
I had no suitable clothes for such society, which distressed me not a whit. On my way home from giving lessons I would stop at their splendid home for an afternoon tea or something, wearing what was practically my only dress, hanging up what was practically my only hat in the hall, perfectly unconcerned in the matter of clothes. If, hatless, I was taken for one of the family, why that was a compliment.
Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman Page 250