The Forerunner Part 58

Now I have a theory of my own in regard to what we are pleased to call "minor poets"; namely, that poetry is a natural form of expression to most human beings, and should be used as such.

Why do we imagine that the best method of ensuring our output of poetry is to have a few huge monoliths of poets--and no more? Is the great poet surer of recognition, safer in his unparalleled superiority because there is nothing between him and the unpoetical? Is a vast audience of the dumb and verseless, who do not care enough for poetry to write any of it, the best for the great poet?

According to my theory there is as much room for short-distance poetry as for the kind that rings around the world for centuries.

As I look over this small collection, I am impressed most with its clear sincerity, in feeling and expression. These verses are not cooked--they grew.

Then I feel anew the range of interests of the modern singer--so swiftly widening, so intensely human, and yet so sympathetic with nature.

Democracy in literature is a good thing; not only in subject matter but in universal partic.i.p.ation.

So that the contribution be genuine, the real speech of an honest soul, it has its own place in the literature of the day; and that is evidently the case with Philemon's Verses.

"The Lords of High Decision" is a t.i.tle more high-sounding than descriptive. If the story had been called "The Slaves of Low Decision"

it would be more recognizable.

Here is a man who wabbles through some thirty years of life without coming to any decision at all; a woman who at no time had any decision; another who decided wrong, then right, then wrong again, and was finally let out by an accident; a first-cla.s.s pitcher who gives up his chosen field to be a chauffeur and general attache of the wabbler, and finally loses his life to save another man--perhaps he was a Lord of High Decision.

Perhaps Paddock, the settlement-running clergyman was. Or Walsh,--the suppressed parent. Colonel Craighill, the father of the Wabbler, is well drawn, evidently from nature.

A highly Episcopalian att.i.tude toward divorce is taken; the heroine, who has been for some years free of a husband casually married in youth, is led to see her duty in going back to him; even though she deeply loves another man. As her ex-husband has more sense than she, he refuses to accept this living sacrifice. She succeeds in giving up something, however, for her lover, a man of considerable wealth, makes his proposal in this wise:

"I know I ask a great deal when I ask you to give up your work for me--and yet I ask it. Remember, there is no grat.i.tude in this--you are a woman, and I am a man--and I love you."

Poor girl! She has struggled through poverty, a broken marriage, long years of valiant endeavor for this work of hers; it was the innocent and easily domesticated task of drawing children's faces--she was an ill.u.s.trator. Yet the first thing her "lover" does, in the very height of his new virtue, in the very act of offering himself, is to a.s.sume as a matter of course that she would give it up. And she did--for this Lord of High Decision.

"The Lords of High Decision," by Meredith Nicholson. Doubleday, Page & Co. $1.50.

PERSONAL PROBLEMS

Here is a "Personal" of distinct interest.

May it reach its mark!

"WANTED:

"By a Socialist woman of mature years, a congenial person of similar s.e.x, education and tastes to share with her the expense of a country home in the mountains, and the study--as far as may be agreeable--of nature, music, literature, sociology and socialism. No objection to Suffragette or Vegetarian, but advocates of Anarchism or Free Love are hereby contra-indicated. Credentials to be frankly exchanged with personal history. Address: The Widow Baucis, Care of The Forerunner, 67 Wall St., New York City."

Apropos of the above, there are no more intimate and pressing problems than those of the business of living, the mere every day processes.

We are still so hampered by the customs and habits of the proprietary family that we a.s.sume as a matter of course that one must live, first, in childhood and youth, with one's parental family; second, in middle life, with one's matrimonial family; and third in age, with one's descendants.

Now suppose one is of age, unmarried, and not fond of living with one's parents. This is not wicked. It is not extremely unusual. One may be very fond of one's parents, as parents, yet prefer other society in daily life. Enforced residence in the same home of a number of grown people of widely different ages, interests, and ideas, is not made happy by the fact of blood-relations.h.i.+p.

There are many indications to show an increasing divergence of tastes between our rapidly changing generations. Each set of young people seem to differ more sharply from their parents than they, in their youth, similarly differed.

Moreover, there are a number of persons who do not marry, and yet have a right to live--yes, and to enjoy living.

Men have long ago solved this problem to their own satisfaction. They leave home early; they have learned in cabin, camp and club to live in groups, without women; and many, with an apartment of their own as a base, seem to find enough society in visits among their friends.

But women are only beginning to realize that it is possible to live, yes, and to have a "home," even if one has not, in the original sense, "a family." The amount of happiness that really congenial friends can find in living together is fully as great as that of some marriages; and quite outside of daily contact in the household remains that boundless field of strength, stimulus and delight which comes of true social contact.

But the machinery of life is all arranged for married couples; who rightly const.i.tute the majority; and the unmarried woman is not allowed for. She is, however, rapidly awakening to the fact that she has an actual individual existence--as well as a potential marital existence; and is learning how to use and enjoy it.

PLAYTIME

AUNT ELIZA

(This was done by two persons, in alternate lines, as a game.)

Seven days had Aunt Eliza Read the Boston Advertiser, Seven days on end; But in spite of her persistence Still she met with some resistance From her bosom friend.

Thomas Brown, the Undertaker, Who declared he'd have to shake her, Daily called at ten; Asking if dear Aunt's condition Would allow of his admission, With his corps of men.

Aunt Eliza heard him pleading, Ceased an instant from her reading, Softly downward stole; Soon broke up the conversation, Punctuating Brown's oration, With a shower of coal.

THE CRIPPLE

There are such things as feet, human feet; But these she does not use; Firm and supple, white and sweet, Softly graceful, lightly fleet, For comfort, beauty, service meet-- There are feet, human feet, These she does with scorn refuse-- Preferring shoes.

There are such things as shoes--human shoes; Though scant and rare the proof; Serviceable, soft and strong, Pleasant, comely, wearing long, Easy as a well-known song-- There are shoes, human shoes, But from these she holds aloof-- Prefers the hoof!

There are such things as hoofs, sub-human hoofs, High-heeled, sharp anomalies; Small and pinching, hard and black, s.h.i.+ny as a beetle's back, Cloven, clattering on the track, There are hoofs, sub-human hoofs, She cares not for truth, nor ease-- Preferring these!

THE FORERUNNER

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE

BY

CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN AUTHOR, OWNER & PUBLISHER