Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  Self-righteous? Tremendously so. For eight years I did not do anything I thought wrong, and did, at any cost, what I thought right — which is not saying that all my decisions were correct.

  CHAPTER VI. POWER AND GLORY

  AMONG our immediate associates I heard nothing of the larger movements of the time, but with the Channing family and their friends was a larger outlook, while in my steady reading I lived in the world as a whole. This world seemed to be suffering from many needless evils, evils for which some remedies seemed clear to me even then. I was deeply impressed with the injustices under which women suffered, and still more with the ill effects upon all mankind of this injustice; but was not in close touch with the suffrage movement. Once I went to a meeting of some earnest young temperance workers, but was not at all at home in that atmosphere of orthodox religion and strong emotion. My method was to approach a difficulty as if it was a problem in physics, trying to invent the best solution.

  It was a period of large beginnings in many lines. “Strong-minded” girls were going to college under criticism and ridicule, the usual curriculum in those days was held quite beyond “the feminine mind.” Some thirty years later, an editor, sadly impressed by the majority of prize-takers being girls, protested that these same curricula were “evidently too feminine.” I recall part of a bit of newspaper wit at the time, about 1880:

  She’d a great and varied knowledge she’d picked up at a woman’s college,

  Of quadratics, hydrostatics and pneumatics very vast;

  She’d discuss, the learned charmer, the theology of Brahma,

  All the ‘ologies of the colleges and the knowledges of the past.

  She knew all the forms and features of the prehistoric creatures,

  Icththyosaurus, megliosaurus, plestosaurus, and many more,

  She could talk about the Tuscans and the Greeks and the Etruscans,

  All the scandals of the Vandals and the sandals that they wore.

  But she couldn’t get up a dinner for a gaunt and starving sinner,

  Or concoct a simple supper for her poor old hungry Poppa,

  For she never was constructed on the old domestic plan.

  The “charmer” before marriage and the cook afterward were the prevailing ideas at the time, as indeed they still are in some places. But things began to change, women appeared in stores and offices — I once met a man from Maine who told me how he was severely criticized for employing saleswomen — so unwomanly! such a public occupation! Doubtless our Civil War, like this last one, drove women to do what men had done before. Clothing changed, there appeared the “tailored suit,” even made by men! made for street wear, plain and serviceable. Ideas began to change. Mona Caird in England produced that then much talked of book, Is Marriage a Failure?

  Education was advancing, the kindergarten making slow but sure impression. Far-seeing mothers were beginning to give their children information about sex. There was a start toward an equal standard in chastity, equal up, not down as at present. A little paper called The Alpha was brought out in Washington to urge this ideal. The first poem I had published was in this tiny paper. It was called “One Girl of Many,” a defense of what was then termed the “fallen” woman.

  In the present-day lowering of standards of behavior one exhibition of ignorance and meanness of spirit is the charge, “You did the same in your day, only you were secretive about it.” Any one whose memory covers fifty years knows better. There were plenty of young men who were “fast,” and some girls who were called “pretty gay,” but even at that the words had different meanings.

  For instance there was just one damsel in all my acquaintance who was certainly “gay.” She was so proud of the “wasp-waist” admired at the time, that she tied her corset-laces to the bedpost and pulled, to draw them tight enough. Her behavior with young men was so much discussed that I determined to learn something of her.

  “You know I am not ‘in society,’ “ I told her. “I am interested as a student, and I wish you would tell me just what the game is — what it is that you are trying to do.” She recognized my honest interest, and was quite willing to explain. Considering thoughtfully she presently replied, “It is to get a fellow so he cannot keep his hands off you — and then not let him touch you.”

  This was bad enough in all conscience, but she was the only one out of scores. Among the more daring girls there was some discussion of whether, when a fellow came home with you, he might also claim a kiss. But there was also discussion, quite popular, of this question of Emerson’s, “Does the soul underlie a condition of infinite remoteness?” I remember coming to the conclusion that it did.

  On sleighing-parties and “straw-rides” there was a good deal of holding hands and some kissing, all in cheerful, giggling groups; and I do not doubt that going to ride with what livery-stable men called a “courtin’ horse” involved a good deal of hugging. But the standards and general behavior of “nice girls” — and most of them were nice — are shown clearly in the books of Louisa M. Alcott and Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney.

  Among the many splendid movements of the late nineteenth century was one dear to my heart, that toward a higher physical culture. In Europe and then here the impulse was felt, building gymnasiums, practice of calisthenics even for girls, and the rapid development of college athletics. In this line of improvement I was highly ambitious. With right early training I could easily have been an acrobat, having good nervous coördination, strength, courage, and excellent balancing power.

  High places never daunted me. As a child in Rehoboth I used to parade the ridge-pole of the barn and stand on the very end of it, to alarm people driving by — mischievous wretch! In the simple task of walking rails, railroad rails, I have kept on steadily over a hundred of them. Dancing would have been a passion, but dancing was one of the many forbiddings of my youth.

  What I did determine on and largely secure was the devleopment of a fine physique. Blaikie’s How To Get Strong and How To Stay So was a great help. Early country life gave a good start, and housework kept some muscles in use, the best of it is scrubbing the floor. That is good back and arm work, and not dusty or steamy like sweeping and washing.

  Going to the art school gave me two miles’ walk a day. In the coldest weather I’d start off so briskly that before long I’d have my mittens off and coat unbuttoned, smiling triumphantly at chillier people. All manner of “stunts” I delighted to practise, that were within my range. There was one favorite, which I will now try to describe — and a more difficult literary task I never undertook!

  Hold a yard-stick horizontally behind you, arms hanging at your sides, palms front. Without changing this grip, raise it behind and bring forward over your head until it is horizontal in front of you. Raise and somewhat advance the left-hand end, lowering and drawing back the right to within a foot of the floor directly before you. Raise the right foot and put it outside the hand and inside the stick, while you balance on the left foot. Then move your left hand forward and toward the right, never changing that grip, passing the stick behind your head and downward, until you can lift your right foot over it again and stand as you began. Repeat with the other foot first. I used to do this with each foot three times before going to bed. It is easy enough for slender, pliable girls, but strong men, somewhat muscle-bound, cannot do it.

  Needless to say that I never wore corsets, that my shoes were “common sense” (and more people seemed to have common sense at the time), that all my clothing “hung from the shoulder” — the custom being to drag all those heavy skirts from the waist. I devised a sort of side-garter suspender, to which skirts were buttoned, and, not a flat bandage to make a woman look like a boy, but after many trials evolved a species of brassière which supported the breasts without constriction anywhere. It had elastic over the shoulder and under the arm, allowing perfect freedom for breathing and arm-motion, while snug and efficient as a support.

  Textile construction always delighted me, inventing, composing, making suit
able and if possible lovely garments. There has been plenty of it to do. During all my youth I had to wear other people’s clothes, gifts from friends and relatives. Mother bought my first new dress when I was thirteen or fourteen. Later I had some pretty frocks for those Boston visits, and enjoyed them like any girl.

  Never in my life have I been able to dress as I would like to. That requires one or more of three things I never had enough of, time, strength, or money. And since I would not wear what others did if against my principles of hygiene, truth, beauty, comfort or humanity — as for instance the use of feathers for trimming, or unnecessary furs — the result has left much to be desired. Real beauty I cared for intensely, fashion I despised.

  In the fall of 1891 I wanted a gymnasium for women. There was none in Providence. I went to Dr. Brooks, who had taught calisthenics in my last school, and who had a man’s gymnasium, and asked him why he did not have one for women. He said not enough women wanted it. “How many would you need?” He said about thirty. Then I set forth, visited every girl I knew and many that I didn’t, and got up a class, not thirty indeed, but enough to encourage him to begin. He opened a high-grade woman’s gymnasium, beautifully fitted, and let me design a stencil for the wall-border! Thanks to Mrs. Hazard’s patronage some of the “first families” were represented among the pupils, which ensured success.

  For three years I had the use of this well-appointed place, free, and found it a joy indeed. Aside from its initial purpose it provided social pleasure. There were a lot of nice girls, and I even learned some dancing, for we had polka-races, the witchy “slide and kick, slide and kick, slide and slide and slide and kick” of the racquet, and long lines of high-swinging legs in the “Patience step,” from the then new opera.

  My special efforts were not toward anything spectacular, but directed to the building up of a sound physique. Going twice a week, each day I ran a mile, not for speed but wind, and can still run better than many a younger woman. I could vault and jump, go up a knotted rope, walk on my hands under a ladder, kick as high as my head, and revel in the flying rings. But best of all were the traveling rings, those wide-spaced single ones, stirrup-handled, that dangle in a line the length of the hall.

  To mount a table with one of those in one hand, well drawn back, launch forth in a long swing and catch the next with the other, pull strongly on the first to get a long swing back, carefully letting go when it hung vertically so that it should be ready for the return, and go swinging on to the next, down the whole five and back again — that is as near flying as one gets, outside of a circus. I could do it four times in those days.

  Life does not offer many opportunities for this exercise, but I had a chance at it when about thirty-six, again when somewhat over fifty, and last, lecturing in Oklahoma University, I did it once, the whole row and back, at sixty-five. Whereby it is apparent that a careful early training in physical culture lasts a lifetime. I never was vain of my looks, nor of any professional achievements, but am absurdly vain of my physical strength and agility.

  Five little rules of health I devised: “Good air and plenty of it, good exercise and plenty of it, good food and plenty of it, good sleep and plenty of it, good clothing and as little as possible.” How I should have delighted in the short, light garments of to-day! But I would have made mine wide enough to walk in, this pinched pillow-case effect is far from freedom. The result of all this training was to establish a cheerful vigor that enjoyed walking about five miles a day, with working hours from six A.M. to ten P.M. except for meals.

  We moved, April, 1881, to a better house, on the north-west corner of Manning and Ives Streets. Ours was the ground floor, Aunt Caroline took the second, and I had a little room on the third, where the little landlady kept three for herself. That little chamber of mine, with its one arched window facing south, was hot in summer and cold in winter, but I enjoyed it hugely — thus celebrating its prospect:

  MY VIEW

  From my high window the outlooker sees

  The whole wide southern sky;

  Fort Hill is in the distance, always green,

  With ordinary houses thick between,

  And scanty passers by.

  Our street is flat, ungraded, little used,

  The sidewalks grown with grass;

  And, just across, a fenceless open lot,

  Covered with ash-heaps, where the sun shines hot

  On bits of broken glass.

  It’s hard on Nature, blotting her fair face

  With such discourteous deeds;

  But one short season gives her time enough

  To softly cover all the outlines rough

  With merciful thick weeds.

  Then numerous most limited back-yards,

  One thick with fruit trees, overgrown with vines,

  But most of them are rather bare and small,

  With board and picket fences, running all

  In parallel straight lines.

  Hardly a brilliant prospect, you will think,

  The common houses, scanty passers by,

  Bare lot thick strewn with cinder-heaps and shards,

  And small monotonous township of backyards —

  Ah! You forget the sky!

  The window I promptly took out of the casing, it stayed out for the three years we lived there. In very stormy weather I used to stand one of the spare leaves from the dining-table against it; that and closed blinds kept out most of the snow. There was no bathroom in this house, that luxury I never possessed till living in Oakland in 1891, but I took my daily cold bath from the wash-bowl until the ice in the water-pail was so thick I could not break it with my heel. A rough facecloth, a triple scrub — it used to leave me steaming.

  “Oct. 5th, 1881. Ice! Up at six, cold as I ever want to be. Warm up with bath and do chores as usual.” Rising hours were early, “6:10,” “6:50,” “5:55;,” “6,” “6:5” they run. The day began with three coal-stoves to attend to, in winter; get breakfast, do chamberwork, be ready for pupils at nine. These were two girls who came to the house for tutoring; in the afternoons there were others in different parts of the city to whom I went, teaching drawing, painting, gymnastics, and ordinary branches with cheerful enthusiasm.

  I gave drawing lessons to a boy and girl, the girl died, and the lonely little brother begged to have me come and stay with him. So I tried governessing, for ten weeks, and learned more about the servant question in that time than most of us ever find out.

  No long-tutored heir to a kingdom ever came to the throne with a more triumphant sense of freedom and power than mine when I reached my twenty-first birthday. I had lived six steady years of self-enforced obedience to management I heartily disapproved of, and which was in some ways lastingly injurious; submission to a tutelage so exacting that even the letters I wrote were read, as well as those I received; an account was always demanded of where I had been, whom I had seen, and what they had said — there was no unhandled life for me.

  Afterward mother used to grieve because I did not give her my confidence. One does not readily give what was so long a compelled tribute. Naturally a confiding child, it required many years of misunderstanding and enforced exhibition to teach me complete reserve. For instance, at sixteen, I wrote the first bit of verse that seemed to me real poetry, a trifling thing about white violets. I went with it at once to mother. She listened with no apparent interest, and as soon as I had finished said, “Go and put on the tea-kettle.” As a matter of fact she thought the verses beautiful, and kept them carefully, but at the time the tea-kettle was vividly in mind and the sensitiveness of a budding poetess was not. A trifling incident, but it hurt so that it was never forgotten, and I did not go to her so readily with later verses.

  Twenty-one. My own mistress at last. No one on earth had a right to ask obedience of me. I was self-supporting of course, a necessary base for freedom which the young revolters of to-day often overlook. This freedom never meant self-indulgence. From sixteen I had not wavered from that desire to help h
umanity which underlay all my studies. Here was the world, visibly unhappy and as visibly unnecessarily so; surely it called for the best efforts of all who could in the least understand what was the matter, and had any rational improvements to propose.

  It is the fashion to-day for our alien critics and their imitators to ridicule the American urge toward improvement, personal or social. Why it should seem absurd for human beings to try to improve their conditions, physical, mental, moral, mechanical, industrial, economic, ethical or social, I cannot see. There certainly is room for it.

  The nature of the work which loomed so large in my mind was by no means definite at that time. Painting, drawing, teaching, these were but means of support; though I did look forward to being a cartoonist as one form of influence. Writing was expected to be mainly didactic and gratuitous, and lecturing never came into my range ‘til ten years later. But there was a tremendous sense of power, clean glorious power, of ability to do whatever I decided to undertake.

  I contemplated much further study, meaning to spend time in various countries and learn each language like a native; much more in the sciences, a wide outline knowledge of history, economics, politics, there was no field of knowledge applicable to human need which was outside my purpose. Astronomy I never cared for; it seemed so definitely apart from social progress.

  My health was splendid, I never tired, with a steady cheerfulness which external discomforts or mishaps could not dim. When asked, “How do you do?” it was my custom to reply, “as well as a fish, as busy as a bee, as strong as a horse, as proud as a peacock, as happy as a clam.”

  As to looks, if I had been sex-conscious and dressed the part I think I should have been called beautiful. But one does not call a philosophic steam-engine beautiful. My dress was not designed to allure. When from Lily Langtry came the lovely and sensible “Jersey” I seized upon it with delight, and wore it, with a plain, and for those days, markedly short skirt, and a neckerchief, continuously. Clothes were still given me, to make over. I spent little. In one eleven months my total outlay was $5.11 — including shoes! But a pair of “button boots,” kid, cost only three dollars then.