The Forerunner Part 49

ODE TO A FOOL

"Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly."--Prov. 17th, 12th.

Singular insect! Here I watch thee spin Upon my pin; And know that thou hast not the least idea I have thee here.

Strange is thy nature! For thou mayst be slain Once and again; Dismembered, tortured, torn with tortures hot-- Yet know it not!

As well pour hate and scorn upon the dead As on thy head.

While I discuss thee here I plainly see Thee sneer at me.

Marvellous creature! What mysterious power In idle hour Arranged the mighty elements whence came Thy iron frame!

In every item of thy outward plan So like a man!

But men are mortal, dying every day, And thou dost stay.

The nations rise and die with pa.s.sing rule, But thou, O Fool!

Livedst when drunken Noah asleeping lay, Livest to-day.

Invulnerable Fool! Thy mind Is deaf and blind; Impervious to sense of taste and smell And touch as well.

Thought from without may vainly seek to press Thy consciousness; Man's hard-won knowledge which the ages pile But makes thee smile; Thy vast sagacity and blatant din Come from within; Thy voice doth fill the world from year to year, Helpless we hear.

Wisdom and wit 'gainst thee have no avail; O Fool--All Hail!

THE FORERUNNER

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE

BY

CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN AUTHOR, OWNER & PUBLISHER

1.00 A YEAR .10 A COPY

Volume 1. No. 5 MARCH, 1910 Copyright for 1910 C. P. Gilman

How many a useless stone we find Swallowed in that capacious, blind, Faith-swollen gullet, our ancestral mind!

THE SANDS

It runs--it runs--the hourgla.s.s turning; Dark sands glooming, bright sands burning; I turn--and turn--with heavy or hopeful hands; So must I turn as long as the Voice commands; But I lose all count of the hours for watching the sliding sands.

Or fast--or slow--it ceases turning; Ceases the flow, or bright or burning-- "What have you done with the hours?" the Voice demands.

What can I say of eager or careless hands?-- I had forgotten the hours in watching the sliding sands.

A MIDDLE-SIZED ARTIST

When Rosamond's brown eyes seemed almost too big for her brilliant little face, and her brown curls danced on her shoulders, she had a pa.s.sionate enthusiasm for picture books. She loved "the reading," but when the picture made what her young mind was trying to grasp suddenly real before her, the stimulus reaching the brain from two directions at once, she used to laugh with delight and hug the book.

The vague new words describing things she never saw suggested "castle,"

a thing of gloom and beauty; and then upon the page came The Castle itself, looming dim and huge before her, with drooping heavy banners against the sunset calm.

How she had regretted it, scarce knowing why, when the pictures were less real than the description; when the princess, whose beauty made her the Rose of the World (her name was Rosamond, too!), appeared in visible form no prettier, no, not as pretty, as The Fair One with The Golden Locks in the other book! And what an outcry she made to her indifferent family when first confronted by the unbelievable blasphemy of an ill.u.s.tration that differed from the text!

"But, Mother--see!" she cried. "It says, 'Her beauty was crowned by rich braids of golden hair, wound thrice around her shapely head,' and this girl has black hair--in curls! Did the man forget what he just said?"

Her mother didn't seem to care at all. "They often get them wrong," she said. "Perhaps it was an old plate. Run away, dear, Mama is very busy."

But Rosamond cared.

She asked her father more particularly about this mysterious "old plate," and he, being a publisher, was able to give her much information thereanent. She learned that these wonderful reinforcements of her adored stories did not emanate direct from the brain of the beneficent author, but were a supplementary product by some draughtsman, who cared far less for what was in the author's mind than for what was in his own; who was sometimes lazy, sometimes arrogant, sometimes incompetent; sometimes all three. That to find a real artist, who could make pictures and was willing to make them like the picture the author saw, was very unusual.

"You see, little girl," said Papa, "the big artists are too big to do it--they'd rather make their own pictures; and the little artists are too little--they can't make real ones of their own ideas, nor yet of another's."

"Aren't there any middle-sized artists?" asked the child.

"Sometimes," said her father; and then he showed her some of the perfect ill.u.s.trations which leave nothing to be desired, as the familiar ones by Teniel and Henry Holiday, which make Alice's Adventures and the Hunting of the Snark so doubly dear, Dore and Retsch and Tony Johannot and others.

"When I grow up," said Rosamond decidedly, "I'm going to be a middle-sized artist!"

Fortunately for her aspirations the line of study required was in no way different at first from that of general education. Her parents explained that a good ill.u.s.trator ought to know pretty much everything.

So she obediently went through school and college, and when the time came for real work at her drawing there was no objection to that.

"It is pretty work," said her mother, "a beautiful accomplishment. It will always be a resource for her."

"A girl is better off to have an interest," said her father, "and not marry the first fool that asks her. When she does fall in love this won't stand in the way; it never does; with a woman. Besides--she may need it sometime."

So her father helped and her mother did not hinder, and when the brown eyes were less disproportionate and the brown curls wreathed high upon her small fine head, she found herself at twenty-one more determined to be a middle-sized artist than she was at ten.

Then love came; in the person of one of her father's readers; a strenuous new-fledged college graduate; big, handsome, domineering, opinionative; who was accepting a salary of four dollars a week for the privilege of working in a publis.h.i.+ng house, because he loved books and meant to write them some day.

They saw a good deal of each other, and were pleasantly congenial. She sympathized with his criticisms of modem fiction; he sympathized with her criticisms of modern ill.u.s.tration; and her young imagination began to stir with sweet memories of poetry and romance; and sweet hopes of beautiful reality.

There are cases where the longest way round is the shortest way home; but Mr. Allen G. G.o.ddard chose differently. He had read much about women and about love, beginning with a full foundation from the ancients; but lacked an understanding of the modern woman, such as he had to deal with.

Therefore, finding her evidently favorable, his theories and inclinations suiting, he made hot love to her, breathing, "My Wife!"

into her ear before she had scarce dared to think "my darling!" and suddenly wrapping her in his arms with hot kisses, while she was still musing on "The Hugenot Lovers" and the kisses she dared dream of came in slow gradation as in the Sonnets From the Portuguese.

He was in desperate earnest. "O you are so beautiful!" he cried. "So unbelievably beautiful! Come to me, my Sweet!" for she had sprung away and stood panting and looking at him, half reproachful, half angry.

"You love me, Dearest! You cannot deny it!" he cried. "And I love you--Ah! You shall know!"