 Chapter 1 of With Her in Our Land. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Amelia Chesley. With Her in Our Land by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Chapter 1. The Return. The three of us, all with set faces of high determination, sat close in the big biplane as we said goodbye to her land, and rose whirring from the level rock on that sheer edge. We went up first and made a wide circuit that my wife, Elador, might have a view of her own beloved land to remember. How green and fair and flower-brightened it lay below us. The little cities, the thick-dotted villages, the scattered hamlets and wide parks of grouped houses lay again beneath our eyes, as when we three men had first set our astonished masculine gaze on this ultra-feminine land. Our long visit, the kind care and judicious education given us, even though under restraint, and our months of freedom and travel among them made it seem to me like leaving a second home. The beauty of the place was born in upon me anew as I looked down on it. It was a garden, a great cultivated park, even to its wildest forested borders. And the cities were ornaments to the landscape, finning out into delicate lace-like tracery of scattered buildings as they merged into the open country. Terry looked at it with set teeth. He was embittered through and through, and but for Elador I could well imagine the kind of things he would have said. He only made this circuit at her request, as one who said, Oh well, an hour or two more or less, it's over anyhow. Then the long gliding swoop as we descended to our sealed motor boat in the lake below. It was safe enough. Perhaps the savages had considered it some deadly witch work and avoided it. At any rate, save for some dents and scratches on the metal cover, it was unhurt. With some careful labor, Terry working with a feverish, joyful eagerness, we got the machine dissembled and packed away, pulled in the anchors and with well-applied oiling, started the long, disused motor, and moved off toward the Great River. Elador's eyes were on the towering cliffs behind us. I gave her the glass, and as long as we were on the open water, her eyes dwelt lovingly on the high rocky border of her home. But when we shot under the arching gloom of the forest, she turned to me with a little sigh and a bright, steady smile. That's goodbye, she said. Now it's all looking forward to the big new world, the real world with you. Terry said very little. His heavy jaw was set. His eyes looked forward eagerly, determinedly. He was polite to Elador and not impolite to me, but he was not conversational. We made the trip as fast as was consistent with safety, faster sometimes, living on our canned food and bottled water, stopping for no fresh meat, shooting down the ever-widening river toward the coast. Elador watched it all with eager childlike interest. The freshness of mind of these herland women concealed their intellectual power. I never quite got used to it. We are so used to seeing our learned men cold and solemn, holding themselves far above all the enthusiasm of youth, that it is hard for us to associate a high degree of wisdom and intellectual power with vivid interest in immediate events. Here was my wife from Wonderland, leaving all she had ever known, a lifetime of peace and happiness and work she loved, and a whole nation of friends, as far as she knew them, and starting out with me for a world which I frankly told her was full of many kinds of pain and evil. She was not afraid. It was not sheer ignorance of danger either. I had tried hard to make her understand the troubles she would meet. Neither was it a complete absorption in me far from it. In our storybooks, we read always of young wives giving up all they have known and enjoyed for his sake. That was by no means Elador's position. She loved me, that I knew, but by no means with that engrossing absorption so familiar to our novelists and their readers. Her attitude was that of some high ambassador sent on an important and dangerous mission. She represented her country, and that with a vital intensity we can hardly realize. She was to meet and learn a whole new world and perhaps establish connections between it and her own dear land. As Terry held to his steering, grim and silent, that feverish eagerness in his eyes and a curb on his usually ready tongue, Elador would sit in the bow, leaning forward, chin on her hand, her eyes ahead, far ahead, down the long reaches of the winding stream with an expression such as one could imagine on Columbus. She was glad to have me near her. I was not only her own in a degree she herself did not yet realize, but I was her one link with the homeland. So I sat close and we talked much of the things we saw and more of what we were going to see. Her short, soft hair, curly in the moist air, rippling back from her bright face as we rushed along, gave the broad forehead and clear eyes a more courageous look than ever. That finely cut mobile mouth was firmly set, though always ready to melt into a tender smile for me. Now Van, my dear, she said one day as we neared the coast town where we hope to find a steamer. Please don't worry about how all this is going to affect me. You have been drawing very hard pictures of your own land and of the evil behavior of men so that I shall not be disappointed or shocked too much. I won't be, dear. I understand that men are different from women, must be, but I am convinced that it is better for the world to have both men and women than to have only one sex like us. We have done the best we could, we women, all alone. We have made a nice little safe clean garden place and lived happily in it, but we have done nothing whatever for the rest of the world. We might as well not be there for all the good it does anyone else. The savages down below are just a savage for all our civilization. Now you, even if you were, as you say, driven by greed and sheer love of adventure and fighting, you have gone all over the world and civilized it. Not all, dear, I hastily put in. Not nearly all. There are ever so many savages left. Yes, I know that. I remember the maps and all the history and geography you have taught me. It was a never-ending source of surprise to me the way those herland women understood and remembered. It must have been due to their entirely different system of education. There was very much less put into their minds from infancy up, and what was there seemed to grow there, to stay in place without effort. All the new facts we gave them, they had promptly hung up in the right places like arranging things in a large well-planned, not overfilled closet, and they knew where to find them at once. I can readily see, she went on, that our pleasant collective economy is like that of bees and ants and such co-mothers, and that a world of fathers does not work as smoothly as that. We have observed, of course, among animals that the instincts of the male are different from those of the female and that he likes to fight. But think of all you have done. That was what delighted Elador. She was never tired of my stories of invention and discovery, of the new lands we had found, the mountain ranges crossed, the great oceans turned into highways, and all the wonders of art and science. She loved it as did Desdemona, the wild tales of her lover, but with more understanding. It must be nobler to have two, she would say, her eyes shining. We are only half a people. Of course, we love each other and have advanced our own little country, but it is such a little one and you have the world. We reached the coast in due time and town. It was not much of a town, dirty and squalid enough with lazy half-breed inhabitants for the most part. But this I had carefully explained and Elador did not mind it, examining everything with kind impartial eyes as a teacher would examine the work of atypical children. Terry loved it. He greeted that slovenly ill-built idle place with our door and promptly left us to ourselves for the most part. There was no steamer. None had touched there for many months, they said, but there was a sailing vessel which undertook for sufficient payment to take us and our motorboat with its contents to a larger port. Terry and I had our belts with gold and notes. He had letters of credit too while Elador had brought with her not only a supply of gold, but a little bag of rubies which I assured her would take us several times around the world and more. The money system in her land was mainly paper and their jewels while valued for decoration were not prized as ours are. They had some historic treasure chests, rivalling those of India and she had been amply supplied. After some delay, we set sail. Terry walked the deck more eager as the days passed. Elador, I am sorry to say, proved a poor sailor as was indeed to be expected, but may know fuss about her disabilities. I told her it was almost unescapable, unpleasant, but not dangerous so she stayed in her berth or sat wrapped mummy fashion on the deck and suffered in patience. Terry talked a little more when we were out of her hearing. Do you know they say there's a war in Europe? He told me. A war? A real one or just the Balkans? A real one, they say. Germany and Austria against the rest of Europe, apparently. Began months ago, no news for a long time. Oh, well, it will be over before we reach home, I guess. Lucky for us, we are Americans. But I was worried for Elador. I wanted the world, my world, to look its best in her eyes. If those women, alone and unaided, had worked out that pleasant, peaceful, comfortable civilization of theirs with its practical sisterliness and friendliness all over the land, I was very anxious to show her that men had done at least as well and in some ways better, men and women, that is. And here, we had gotten up a war, a most undesirable spectacle for an international guest. There was a missionary on board, a thin, almost emaciated man of the Presbyterian denomination. He was a most earnest person and a great talker naturally. Whoa, unto me, he would say, if I preach not this gospel. And he preached it in season and out of season. Elador was profoundly interested. I tried to explain to her that he was an enthusiast of a rather rigid type and that she must not judge Christianity too harshly by him. But she quite reassured me. Don't be afraid, my dear boy. I remember your outline of the various religions, all about how Christianity arose and spread, how it held together in one church for a long time and then divided and kept on dividing naturally. And I remember about the religious wars and persecutions that you used to have in earlier ages. We had a good deal of trouble with religion in our first centuries too. And for a long time, people kept appearing with some sort of new one and they had tad revealed to them, just like yours. But we saw that all that was needed was a higher level of mentality and a clear understanding of the real laws. So we worked toward that. And as you know, we have been quite at peace as to our religion for some centuries. It's just part of us. That was the clearest way of putting it. She had yet thought of that her land religion was like the manners of a true aristocrat, a thing unborn and inbred. It was the way they lived. They had so clear and quick a connection between conviction and action that it was well nigh impossible for them to know a thing and not do it. I suppose that was why when we had told them about the noble teachings of Christianity, they had been so charmed, taking it for granted that our behavior was equal to our belief. The Reverend Alexander Murdoch was more than pleased to talk with Elador any man would be, of course. He was immensely curious about her too. But even to impertinent questions, she presented an amiable but absolute impermeability. From what country do you come, Mrs. Jennings? He asked her one day in my hearing. He did not know I was within earshot, however. Elador was never annoyed by questions nor angry nor confused where most people seem to think that there is no alternative but to answer correctly or to lie. She recognized an endless variety of things to say or not say. Sometimes she would look pleasantly at the inquirer with those deep kind eyes of hers and ask, why do you wish to know? Not sarcastically, not offensively at all, but as if she really wanted to know why they wanted to know. It was generally difficult for them to explain the cause of their curiosity. But if they did, if they said it was just interest, kindly human interest in her, she would thank them for the interest and ask if they felt it about everyone. If they said they did, she would say still with her quiet gentleness. And is it customary when one feels interested in a stranger to ask them questions? I mean, is it a, what, what you call a compliment? If so, I thank you heartily for the compliment. If they drove her, some people never will take a hint, she would remain always quite courteous and gentle, even praise them for their perseverance, but never say one word she did not choose to. And she did not choose to give to anyone news of her beloved country until such time as that country decided it should be done. The missionary was not difficult to handle. Did you not say that you were to preach the gospel to all nations or all people or something like that? She asked him. Do you find some nations easier to preach to than others? Or is it the same gospel to all? He assured her that it was the same, but that he was naturally interested in all his hearers and that it was often important to know something of their antecedents. This, she agreed, might be an advantage and left it at that asking him if he would let her see his Bible. Once he was embarked on that subject, she had only to listen and to steer the conversation or rather the monologue. I told her I had overheard this bit of conversation begging her pardon for listening, but she said she would greatly enjoy having me with her while he talked. I told her I doubted if he would talk as freely if there were three of us and she suggested in that case that if I was interested I was quite welcome to listen as far as she was concerned. Of course, I wasn't going to be an eavesdropper even on a missionary trying to convert my wife but I heard a good bit of their talk as I strolled about and sat with them sometimes. He let her read his precious flexible Oxford Bible at times, giving her marked passages and she read about a hundred times as much as he thought she could in a given time. It interested her immensely and she questioned him eagerly about it. You call this the word of God? Yes, he replied solemnly. It is his revealed word and everything it says is true. It is truth itself, divine truth, he answered. You do not mean that God wrote it. Oh no, he revealed it to his servants. It is an inspired book. It was written by many people, was it not? Yes, many people, but the same word. And at different times? Oh yes, the revelation was given at long intervals, the Old Testament to the Jews, the New Testament to us all. Elador turned the pages reverently. She had a great respect for religion and for any sincere person. How old is the oldest part? She asked him. He told her as best he could, but he was not burst in the latest scholarship and had a genuine horror of the higher criticism. But I supplied a little information on the side when we were alone, telling her of the patchwork group of ancient legends which made up the first part of the very human councils of men who had finally decided which of the ancient writings were inspired and which were not. Of how the book of Job, the oldest of all, had only scraped in by one vote and then with a rather malicious relish of that most colossal joke of all history, how the song of songs, that amorous, not to say salacious ancient love lyric, had been embraced with the others and interpreted as a mystical lofty outburst of devotion with that black but comely, light of love figuring as the church. Elador was quite shocked, but then he ought to know that you ought to tell him. Is it generally known? It is known to scholars, not to the public as a whole, but they still have it bound in with the others and think it is holy when it isn't. Yes, I grinned. The joke is still going on. What have the scholars done about it? She asked. Oh, they have worked out their proof, shown up the thing and let it go at that. Wasn't there any demand from the people who knew to have it taken out of the Bible? There isn't one edition of the Bible now printed in all the separate books, a whole shelf full of little ones instead of one big one. I should think that would be much better, she said, but the other one is still printed and sold, printed and sold and given away by hundreds of thousands with the joke going right on. She was puzzled. It was not so much the real outside things we did, which you found it hard to understand, but the different way our minds worked. In Herland, if a thing like that had been discovered, the first effort of all their wisest students would have been to establish the facts. When they were sure about it, they would have then taken the rather shameful old thing out of its proud position among the sacred books at once. They would have publicly acknowledged their mistake, rectified it, and gone on. You'll have to be very patient with me, van theorist. It's going to take me a long time to get hold of your psychology, but I'll do my best. Her best was something amazing and she would have come to her final conclusions far earlier, but for certain firm preconceptions that we were somehow better, nobler than we were. The Reverend Murdoch kept at her pretty steadily. He started in at the beginning, giving her the full circumstantial account of the temptation, the fall, and the curse. She listened quietly with no hint in her calm face of what she might be thinking, but when he came to the punishment of the serpent, upon my belly shall thou go and thou shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. She asked a question. Will you tell me, please, how did the serpent go before? Mr. Murdoch looked at her. He was reading in a deep sorrowful voice his mind full of the solemn purport of the great tragedy. What was his method of locomotion before he was cursed? asked Elador. He laid down the book in some annoyance. It is believed that the serpent walked erect that he stood like a man that he was Satan himself. He replied. But it says, now the serpent was more subtle than any of the beasts of the field, doesn't it? And the picture you showed me is of a snake in the tree. The picture is, as it were, allegorical, he replied. It is not reverent to question the divine account like this. She did not mind this note of censure, but asked further, as a matter of fact, do snakes eat dust or is that allegorical, too? How do you know which is allegorical and which is fact? Who decides? They had rather a stormy discussion on that point. At least the missionary was stormy. He was unable to reconcile Elador's gentle courtesy with her singular lack of reverence for mere statements. But our theological discussions were summarily ended and Elador reduced to clean to her birth by a severe storm. It was not a phenomenal hurricane by any means, but a steady lashing gale which drove us far out of our course and so damaged the vessel that we could do little but drive before the wind. There's a steamer, said Ciri, on the third day of heavy weather. And as we watched the drift of smoke on the horizon, we found it was nearing us and none too soon. By the time they were within hailing distance, our small vessel ran up signals of distress, for we were leaking heavily and we were thankful to be taken off, even though the steamer, a Swedish one, was bound for Europe instead of America. They gave us better accommodations than we had had on the other and eagerly took on board our big motorboat and biplane. Too eagerly, I thought. Elador was greatly interested in the larger ship, the big blonde men, and in their talk. I prepared her as well as I could. They had good maps of Europe and I filled in her outlines of history as far as I was able and told her of the war. Her horror at this was natural enough. We have always had war, Terry explained. Ever since the world began, at least as far as history goes, we have had war. It is human nature. Human? Asked Elador. Yes, he said. Human. Bad as it is, it is evidently human nature to do it. Nations advance, the race is improved by fighting. It is the law of nature. Since our departure from her land, Terry had rebounded like a rubber ball from all its influences. Even his love for Alima, he was evidently striving to forget with some success. As for the rest, he had never studied the country in its history as I had, nor accepted it like Jeff. And now he was treating it all as if it really was what he had often called it to me, a bad dream. He would keep his word in regard to telling nothing about it. That virtue was his at any rate. But in his glad reaction, his delighted return, a man in a world of men, he was now giving information to Elador in his superior way, as if she was a totally ignorant stranger. And this war seemed almost to delight him. Yes, he repeated. You will have to accept life as it is to make war is human activity. Are some of the soldiers women she inquired women? Of course not. They're men, strong, brave men. Once in a while, some abnormal woman becomes a soldier, I believe. And in Dahomey, that's in Africa, one of the black tribes have women soldiers. But speaking generally, it is men of course. Then why do you call it human nature? She persisted. If it was human, wouldn't they both do it? So he tried to explain that it was a human necessity, but it was done by the men because they could do it and the women couldn't. But women are just as indispensable in their way. They give us the children, you know, men cannot do that. To hear Terry talk, you would think he had never left home. Elador listened to him with her grave, gentle smile. She always seemed to understand not only what one said, but all the background of sentiment and habit behind. Do you call bearing children human nature? She asked him. It's women's nature. He answered. It's her work. Then why do you not call fighting man nature instead of human? Terry's conclusion of an argument with Elador was the simple one of going somewhere else. So off he went to enjoy himself in the society of those sturdy Scandinavians and we too sat together discussing war. To be continued. End of chapter one. Chapter two of With Her in Our Land. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Amelia Chesley. With Her in Our Land by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Chapter two. War. For a long time my wife from Wonderland as I love to call her used to the utmost the high self-restraint taught by her religion, her education, the whole habit of her life. She knew that I should be grieved by her distresses that I expected the new experiences would be painful to her and was watching to give what aid and comfort I could. And further she credited me with a racial sensitiveness and pride far beyond the facts. Here again was one of the differences between her exquisitely organized people and ours. With them the majority of their interests in life were communal. Their love and pride and ambition was almost wholly for the group. Even motherhood itself was viewed as social service and so fulfilled. They were all of them intimately acquainted with their whole history. That was part of their beautiful and easy educational system with their whole country and with all its industries. The children of her land were taken to all parts of the country shown all its arts and crafts taught to honor its achievements and to appreciate its needs and difficulties. They grew up with a deep and vital social consciousness which not one in a thousand of us could approach. This kind of thing does not show. We could not see it externally. Any more than one could see a good housewife's intimate acquaintance with and pride in the last detail of her menage. Further as our comments on their country had been almost wholly complementary they had not heard Terry's. We had not hurt this national pride or if we had they had never let us see it. Now here was Ellador daring traveler leaving her world for mine and finding herself not as we three had been exiled into a wisely ordered peaceful and beautiful place with the mothering care of that group of enlightened women but as one alone in a world of which her first glimpse was of hideous war as one who had never in her life seen worse evil than misunderstanding or accident and not much of these one to whom universal comfort and beauty was the race habit of a thousand years the sight of Europe in its present condition was far more of a shock and even I had supposed she thought that I felt as she did I did feel badly and ashamed but not a thousandth part as she would have felt the exposure of some fault in her land not nearly as badly as she supposed I was constantly learning from her to notice things among us which I had never seen before and one of the most conspicuous of my new impressions was the realization of how slightly socialized we are we are quite indifferent to public evils for the most part unless they touch us personally which is as though the housewife was quite indifferent to having grease on the chairs unless she happened to spoil her own dress with it even our reformers seem more like such a housewife who should show great excitement over the greasy chairs but none over the dusty floor the grammy windows the empty coal bin the bad butter or the lack of soap special evils rouse us some of us but as for a clean sanitary effortless housekeeping we have not come to want it most of us but elador lovely considerate soul that she was had not only the incessant shock of these new impressions to meet and bear but was doing her noble best to spare my feelings by not showing hers she could not bear to blame my sex to blame my country or at least my civilization my world she did not wish to cast a reproach on me I was ashamed to a considerable degree if a man has been living in the pleasant atmosphere of perfect housekeeping such as I have mentioned and is then precipitated suddenly into foul slovenliness with noise confusion and ill will he feels it more than if he had remained in such surroundings from the first it was the ill will that counted most here again comes the psychic difference between the women of her land and us people who grow up amid slang profanity obscenity harsh contradiction and quarreling do not particularly note or mind it but one reared in an atmosphere of the most subtle understanding gracious courtesy and a loving use of language as an art is very sharply impressed if someone says hold your jaw your son of a blank or even by a glowering room full of silent haters that's what was heavy on elador all the time the atmosphere the social atmosphere of suspicion distrust hatred of ruthless self and grand diesment and harsh scorn there was a German officer on this ship he tried to talk to elador at first merely because she was a woman and beautiful she tried to talk to him merely because he was a human being and a member of a great nation but I watching saw how soon the clear light of her mind brought out the salient characteristics of his and of how in spite of all her exalted philosophy she turned shuttering away from him we were overhauled by an English vessel before reaching our destination in sweden and all three of us were glad to be transferred that was what we thought the German officer was not glad I might add elador hailed the change with joy she knew more about England than about the Scandinavian countries and could speak the language I think she thought it would be easier there we were unable to get away as soon as we expected Terry indeed determined to enlist or to join the service in some way and they were glad to use him and his airplane this was not to be wondered at if Terry had the defects of his qualities he also had the qualities of his defects and he did good work for the allies elador rather unexpectedly asked to stay a while it is hard she said but we may not come again perhaps and I want to learn all I can so we stayed and elador learned it did not take her long she was a rapid reader and soon found the right books she was a marvelous listener and many were glad to talk to her and to show her things we investigated in London Manchester Birmingham were entertained in beautiful country places went motoring up into Scotland and Ireland visited Wales and then to my great surprise she urged that we go to France I want to see to know she said to really know I was worried about her she had a hard set fixity of expression her unfailing gentleness was too firm of surface and she talked to less and less with me about social conditions we went to France she visited hospitals looking at those broken men those maimed and blinded boys and grew paler and harder daily day by day she gathered in the new language till soon she could talk with the people then we ran across Terry scouting about with his machine asked to be taken up she wanted to see a battlefield I tried to dissuade her from this fearing for her even her splendid health seemed shaken by all she had witnessed but she said it is my duty to see and know all I can this is not they tell me exceptional this war not at all said Terry it's only bigger than usual as most things are now why in all our history there out war she looked at him her eyes widening darkening when was that she said after Jesus came Terry laughed oh no he said it wasn't any one time it's 300 years here and there scattering so you see war is really the normal condition of human life so she said then I ought to see it take me up to said it was dangerous but it was very hard to say no to Ellador and she had her way she saw the battle lines of trenches she saw the dead men she saw and heard the men not dead where there had been recent fighting she saw the ruins ruins everywhere that night she was like a woman of marble cold dumb sitting still by the window where she could rest her eyes on the far stars she treated me with a great poignant tenderness as one would treat a beloved friend whose whole family had become lepers we went back to England and she spent the last weeks of our stay there finding out all she could about Belgium that was the breaking point she locked the door of her room but I heard her sobbing her heart out Ellador who had never in all her splendid young life had an experience of pain and whose consciousness we feel these horrors as happening to other people she felt them as happening to herself I broke the lock I had to get to her she would not speak would not look at me but buried her face in the pillow shuttering away for me as if I too were a German the great sobs tore her it was I suddenly felt not like the facile tears of an ordinary woman of a strong man and she was as a shamed of it then I had enough enlightenment to see some little relief for her not from the weight of horrible new knowledge but from the added burden of herself restraint I knelt beside her and got her into my arms her head hidden on my shoulder dear I said dear I can't help the horror but at least I can help you bear it and you can let me try you see you're all alone here I'm all you've got you'll have to let it out somehow just say it all to me she held me very close then with a tense frightened grip I want I want my mother she sobbed Elador's mother was one of those wise women who sat in the temples and gave comfort and council when I not seeing them always together had understood yet her mother had counseled her going had urged it for the sake of their land and its future mother mother mother she sobbed under her breath Oh mother help me bear it there was no mother and no temple only one man who loved her and in that she seemed to find a little ease and slowly grew quieter there is one thing we know more about than you do I suggested that is how to manage pain you mustn't keep it to yourself you must let it out let the others help bear it that's good psychology dear it seems so unkind she murmured Oh no it's not unkind it's just necessary bear you one another's burdens you know also we have a nice proverb about marriage it makes joy double and have this trouble just pile it on me dearest that's what a husband is for but how can I say to you the things I feel it seems so rude so to reflect on your people your civilization I think you underrate two things I suggested one is that I'm a human creature even if male the other that my visit to her land my life with you has had a deep effect on me I see the awfulness of war as I never did before and I can even see a little of how it must affect you what I want you to do now is to relieve the pressure of feeling which is hurting so by putting it into words letting it out say it all say the very worst say this world is not civilized not human it is worse than the humble mountains let it out dear I can stand it and you'll feel better she lifted her head and drew a long shuttering breath I think you're right there must be some relief and here are you suddenly she threw her arms around me and held me close close you do love me I can feel it a little a very little like mother love I am so grateful she rested in my arms till the fierce tempest of pain had passed somewhat and then we sat down close together and she followed my advice seeking to visualize to put in words to fully express the anguish which was upon her you see she began slowly it is hard for me to do this because I hate to hurt you you must care so so horribly stop right there dear you overestimate my sensitiveness what I feel is nothing at all to what you feel I can see that remember that in our race traditions war is a fine thing a splendid thing we have idealized war and the warrior through all our history you have read a good deal of our history by now she had I knew and she nodded her head sadly yes it's practically all about war she agreed but I didn't I couldn't visualize it she closed her eyes and shrink back but I went on steadily so you see this is not to us wholly a horror it is just more horrible than other wars on account of the infamous behavior of some combatants and because we really are beginning to be civilized now this pain that you see is no greater than the same pain all the way back in history always and you are not being miserable about that surely no she admitted she wasn't very well I hurried on we the human race outside of her land have been fighting one another for all the ages and we are here yet some of these military enthusiasts say because of war some of the pacifists say in spite of it and I'm beginning to agree with them with you Elador through you and because of you and because of seeing what human life can be in your blessed country I see things as I never did before I'm growing she smiled a little at that and took my hand again you are the most important ambassador that ever was I continued you are sent from your upland island your little hidden heaven to see our poor blind leading world and carry news of it to your people perhaps that vast storehouse of mother love can help to set us straight at last and you can't afford to feel our sorrow you'd die of it you must think and talk it off remorselessly to me you amazing darling she answered at last drawing a deep breath you are right holy right I'm afraid I have a little underrated your wisdom forgive me I forgave her fast enough though I knew it was an impossible offense and she began to free her mind first as to Christianity she said that gave me great hopes at first not the mythology of course but the spirit and when the missionary man enlarged on the spread of Christianity and its countless benefits I began to feel that here was a lovely thing it would do us good to know about something very close to motherhood motherhood always reverently spoken was the highest holiest word they knew in her land but as I've read and talked and studied all these weeks I do not find that Christianity has done one thing to stop war or that Christian countries fight any less than heathen ones rather more also they fight among themselves Christianity has not brought peace on earth not at all no I admitted it hasn't but it tries to ameliorate to heal and save that seems to me simply foolish she answered if there is a house on fire the only true way to check the destruction is to put the fire out to sit about trying to heal burned skin and repair burned furniture is foolish especially when the repaired furniture serves as additional fuel for more fire I added you see it she exclaimed joyfully then why don't you but I see you are only one you alone cannot change it oh no I'm not alone in that I answered cheerfully there are plenty more who see it then why she began but checked herself and paused a little continuing slowly what I wish to get off my mind is this spectacle of measureless suffering which human beings are deliberately inflicting on one another it would be hard enough to bear if the pain was unavoidable that would be pure horror and the eager rush to help but here there is not only horror but a furious scorn because they do not have to have it at all you're quite right my dear I agreed but how are you going to make them stop that's what I have to find out she answered gravely I wish mother was here and all the over mothers they would find a way there must be away and you are right I must not let myself be overcome by this put it this way I suggested even if three quarters of the world should be killed it would be plenty left to refill as promptly as would be wise you remember how quickly your country filled up yes she said and I must remember that it is the race progress that counts not just being alive then ringing her hands in sudden bitterness she added but this stops all progress it is not merely that people are being killed half the world might die in an earthquake and not do this harm it is the hating I mind more than the killing the perversion of human faculty it's not humanity dying it's humanity going mad she was shivering again the black horror growing in her eyes gently dear gently I told her humanity is a large proposition you and I have a whole round world to visit as soon as it is safe to travel and in the meantime I want to get you to my country as soon as possible we are not at war our people are good-natured and friendly I think you'll like us it was not unnatural for an American in warm at Europe to think of his own land with warm approval nor for a husband to want his wife to appreciate his people and his country you must tell me more about it she said eagerly I must read more to study more I do not do justice to the difference I'm sure I am judging the world only by Europe and to see here my darling do you mind if we see the rest first I want to know the world as far as I can and as quickly as I can I'm sure that if I study first for a while in England they seem so familiar with all the world though we might then go east instead of west and see the rest of it before we reach America leave the best to the last except for the danger of traveling there seemed no great objection to this plan I would rather have her make her brief tour and then return with me to my own dear country at the end then have her uneasy there and planning to push on we went back to a quiet place in England where we could temporarily close our minds to the horror and Ellador with unerring judgment found an encyclopedic young historian with the teaching gift and engaged his services for a time they had a series of maps from old blank Terra incognita ones with its bounding ocean of ancient times to the spread of accurate surveying which now gives us the whole surface of the earth she kissed the place where her homeland they hidden but that was when he was not looking the rapid grasp she made at the whole framework of our history would have astonished anyone not acquainted with her land brains and her land methods of education it did astonish the young historian she by no means set herself to learn all that he wanted to teach her on the contrary she continually checked his flow of information receiving only what she wanted to know a very few good books on world evolution geological botanical zoological and ethnic gave her the background she needed and such a marvel of condensation as winwood reads martyrdom of man supplied the outline of history her own clear strong uncrowded and logical mind with its child fresh memory saw held and related the fact she learned with no apparent effort presently she had a distinct view of what we people have been up to on earth for the few ages of our occupancy she had her estimate of time taken and of the rate of our increased speed I had never realized how long how immeasurably long and slow were the years before progress so to speak or the value of each great push of new invention but she got them all clearly and rigidly refusing to be again agonized by the ceaseless wars she found eager joy in counting the upward steps of social evolution this joy increased as the ages came near to our own she became fascinated with the record of inventions and discoveries and their interrelative effects each great religion as it entered was noted to find in its special power and weakness and its consequences observed she made certain map effects for herself washing in the different areas with various colors according to the different religions and lapping them over where they had historically lapped as for instance where the man yana of the Spaniard marks the influence following oriental invasion and where Buddhism produces such and such effects according to its reception by Hindu Chinese or Japanese I could spend a lifetime in these details she eagerly explained again but I'm only after enough to begin on I must get them placed so that I can understand what each nation is for what they have done for one another and for the world which of them are going on and how fast which of them are stopping or sinking back and why it is profoundly interesting Elador's attitude vaguely nettles me just a little in that earlier consciousness I was really outgrowing so fast she seemed like an enthusiastic young angel slumming I resented a little this cheerful and relentless classification just as poor persons resent being treated as cases but I knew she was right after all and was more than delighted to have her so soon triumph over the terrible influence of the war she did not of course wholly escape or forget it who could but she successfully occupied her mind with other matters it's so funny she said to me here in all your history books the whole burden of information is as to who fought who and when and who reigned and when especially when why are your historians so morbidly anxious about the exact date why it's important isn't it I asked from certain points of view yes but not in the least from that of the general student the doctor wants to know at just what hour the fever rises or declines he has to have his chart to study but the public ought to know how fever is induced and how it is to be avoided people in general ought to know the whole history of the world in general and what were the most important things that happened and here the poor things are required to note and remember that this king at such a date and died at such another facts of no historic importance whatever and as to the wars and wars and wars and all these decisive battles of history Elador had the whole story so clearly envisaged now that she could speak of war without cringing why that isn't history at all surely it's part of history isn't it I urged not even part of it go back to your doctor's chart his history of the case that history treats of the inception development success or failure of the disease he is treating to say that at 4 15 p.m. the patient climbed into another patient's bed and bit him is no part of that record of tuberculosis or cancer it would be if it proved him delirious wouldn't it I suggested Elador lifted her head from the chart she was filling in and smiled enchantingly then she said I'm proud of you that splendid it would then appear she pursued glancing over her papers as if the patient had a sort of intermittent fever from the beginning hot fits of rage and fury when he is practically a lunatic and cold fits too she cried eagerly pursuing the illustration cold and weak when he just lies helpless and cannot do anything we agreed that as a figure of speech this was pretty strong and clear with its inevitable suggestion that we must study the origin of the disease how to cure and still better prevent it but there is a splendid record behind all that she told me I can't see that your historians have ever seen it clearly and consecutively you evidently have not come to the place where all history has to be consciously revised for educational purposes ours is more complex than yours isn't it I offered so many different nations and races you know but she smiled wisely and shook her head quoting after her instructor and history with all her volumes vast half but one page they all tell about the same things she said they all do the same things and not one of them ever sees what really matters most ever gives the history of the case correctly I truly think dear that we could help you with your history she had fully accepted the proposition I made that day when the horror so overthrew her and now talk to me as freely as if I were one of her sisters she talked about men as if I wasn't one and about the world as if it was no more mine than hers there was a strange exaltation a wonderful companionship in this I grew to see life as she saw it more and more and it was like rising from some tangled thorny thicket to take a bird's eye view of city and farmland of continent and ocean life itself grew infinitely more interesting I thought of that benighted drummers joke that life is just one damn thing after another so widely accepted as voicing a general opinion I thought of our pathetic virtues of courage cheerfulness patience also ridiculously wasted in facing troubles which need not be there at all Elador saw human life as a thing in the making with human beings as the makers we have always seemed to regard it as an affliction or blessing bestowed upon us by some exterior force studying seeing understanding I grew insensibly to adopt her point of view her scale of measurements and her eager and limitless interest so when we did set forth on our round the world trip to my home we were both fairly well equipped for the rapid survey which was all we planned for to be continued end of chapter two chapter three of with her in our land this is a LibriVox recording videos are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org with her in our land by Charlotte Perkins Gilman chapter three a journey of inspection it was fortunate for Ellador's large purposes that her fat little bag of jewels contained more wealth than I had at first understood and that there were some jewel hungry millionaires left in the world in India we found native princes who were as much a thirst for rubies and emeralds as ever were their hoarding ancestors and who had comfortable piles of ancient gold were with to pay for them we were easily able to fill snug belts with universally acceptable gold pieces and to establish credit to carry us wherever there were banks she was continually puzzled over our money values why do they want these so much she demanded why are they willing to pay so much for them money she understood well enough they had their circulating medium in her land in earlier years but it was used more as a simple method of keeping accounts than anything else like tickets and finally discontinued they had so soon centralize their industries that the delay and inconvenience of measuring off every item of exchange in this everlasting system of tokens became useless to their practical minds and incentive to industry it was not necessary motherhood was their incentive when they had plenty of everything it was free to all in such amounts as were desired in scarcity they divided their interest in life was in what they were doing and what they were going to do not in what they were to get our points of you puzzled her I remember this matter coming up between Ellador and a solemn college professor an economist as we were creeping through the dangerous Mediterranean she questioned and listened saying nothing about her country this we had long since found was the only safe way for the instant demand where is it was what we did not propose to answer but having learned what she could from those she talked with and sped searchingly through the books they offered her she used to relieve her mind in two ways by talking with me and by writing I've simply got to she told me I'm writing a book in fact I'm writing two books one is notes quotations facts and pictures pictures pictures this photography is a wonderful art she had become quite a devotee of said art and was gathering material right and left to show her people we'll have to go back and tell them you know she explained and they'll be so interested I shall have to go about lecturing as you commended I wish you'd go about lecturing to us I told her we have more to learn than you have of the really important matters in living but I couldn't you see without quoting always from home and then they'd want to know they'd have a right to know or else they wouldn't believe me no all I can do is to ask questions to make suggestions perhaps here and there even to criticize a little when I've learned a lot more and if I'm very sure of my hearers meanwhile I've got to talk it off to you you poor boy and just right you shall read it if you want to of course her notes were a study in themselves ships and shipping interested her at once as something totally new and her first access to encyclopedias had supplied background to what she had learned from people she had set down in the briefest possible manner not mere loose data as to vessels and navigation but an outlined history of the matter arranged like a genealogical tree there were the rude beginnings log raft skin boat basket boat canoe and the line of paddled or odd boats went on to the great carved war canoes without rigours the galleys of Romans and Norsemen the delicate birch barks of our American aborigines and the neat manufactured ones on the market a bare sentence covered it and another the evolution of the sailing craft then steam navigation is an exclusively masculine process she noted always men only men odd vessels of large size required slave labour status of sailors still akin to slavery rigid discipline miserable accommodations abusive language and personal violence to this she added in parenthesis same holds true of armies always men only men similar status but somewhat better provision for men and more chance of promotion owing to greater danger to officers continuing with ships she noted psychology a high degree of comradeship the habit of obedience enforced this doubtless accounts for large bodies of such indispensable men putting up with such wretched treatment obedience appears to dull and weak in the mind same with soldiers study further among officers great personal gallantry a most exalted sense of duty as well as brutal and unjust treatment of inferiors the captain in a special is so devoted to his concept of duty as sometimes refers to go down with his ship to being saved without her why what social service is there in being drowned I learned this high devotion is found also in engineers and in pilots seems to be a product of extreme responsibility might be developed more widely by extending opportunity she came to me with this asking for more information on our political system of rotation in office is that why you do it she asked eagerly not so much as to get the work done better as to make all the people or at least most of them feel greater responsibility a deeper sense of duty I had never put it that way to myself but I now agreed that that was the idea that it must be she was warmly interested she said she knew she would love America I felt sure she would there was an able Egyptologist on board a man well acquainted with ancient peoples and he with the outline she had so well laid down during her English studies soon filled her mind with a particularly clear and full acquaintance with our first civilizations Egypt with its one river Asia Minor with the valley of the two rivers and China with its great rivers she poured over her maps and asked careful eager questions the big black bearded professor was delighted with her interest and discussed most instructively I see she said I see they came to places where the soil was rich and where there was plenty of water it made agriculture possible profitable and then the surplus and then the wonderful growth of course that German officer who had made so strong and disagreeable an impression while we were on the Swedish ship had been insistent rudely insistent on the advantages of difficulty and what he called discipline he had maintained that the great races the dominant races came always from the north this she had borne in mind and now questioned her obliging preceptor with map out spread and dates at hand for all those thousands of years these Mediterranean and Oriental peoples held the world were the world yes absolutely and what was up here she pointed to the wide vacant spaces on the northern coasts savages barbarians wild skinclad ferocious men madam Elador made a little diagram a vertical line with many ages marked across it this is the year one as far back as you can go she explained pointing to the mark at the bottom and here we are near the top this is now and these Eastern peoples held the stage and did the work all the way up to here did they they certainly did madam and were these people in these northern lands there all the time or did they happen afterward they were there we have the bones to prove it then if they were there and as long and of the same stock you tell me that all these various clans streamed out westward from a common source and became in time Persians Hindus Palestinians Etruscans and all the rest as well as Celts, Slavs, Chutans it's so held roughly speaking he resented a little her sweeping generalizations and condensations but she had her own ends in view and what did these northern tribes contribute to social progress during all this time practically nothing he answered their arts were naturally limited by the rigors of the climate the difficulties of maintaining existence prevented any higher developments I see I see she nodded gravely then why is it in the face of these facts that some still persist in attributing progress to difficulties and cold weather this professor who was himself Italian was quite willing to question this opinion that theory you will find is quite generally confined to the people who live in the colder climates he suggested when Ellador discussed this with me she went further it seems as if when people say the world they mean their own people she commented I've been reading history is written by the North European races perhaps when we get to Persia, India, China and Japan it will be different it was different I had spent my own youth in the most isolated of modern nations the one most ignorant of and indifferent to all the others the one whose popular view of foreigners is based on the immigrant classes and whose traveling rich consider Europe as a playground a picture gallery a museum a place we're into Finnish ones education being so reared and associating with similarly minded persons my early view of history was a great hell to scale to surging background to the clear, strong, glorious incidents of our own brief national career while geography consisted of the vivid large-scale familiar United States and a globe otherwise covered with more or less nebulous maps and such political evolution as I had in mind consisted of the irresistible development of our own institutions all this of course was my youthful attitude in later studies I had added a considerable knowledge of general history sociology and the like but had never realised until now how remote all this was to me from the definite social values already solidly established in my mind now, associating with Elador dispassionate and impartial as a visiting angel bringing to her studies of the world the triple freshness of view of one of different stock different social development and different sex I began to get a new perspective to her the world was one field of general advance her own country held the foreground in her mind of course but she had left it as definitely as if she came from Mars and was studying the rest of humanity in the mass her alien point of view her previous complete ignorance and that powerful well-ordered mind she brought to bear on the new knowledge so rapidly amassed gave her advantages as an observer far beyond our best scientists the one special and predominant distinction given to her studies by her supreme femininity was what gave me the most numerous and I may say unpleasant surprises in my world's studies I had always assumed that humanity did thus and so but she was continually shearing through the tangled facts with her sharp distinction that this and this phenomenon was due to masculinity alone but Elador I protested why do you say the male Scandinavians continually indulged in piracy and the male Spaniards practice terrible cruelties and so on it sounds so invidious as if you were trying to make out a case against men I wouldn't do that for anything she protested I'm only trying to understand the facts you don't mind when I say the male Phoenicians made great progress in navigation or the male Greeks developed great intelligence do you that's different they did do those things didn't they do the others too well yes they did them of course but why rub it in really did the Norse women raid the coasts of England and France did the Spanish women cross the ocean and torture the poor Aztecs they would have if they could I protested so would the Phoenician women and Grecian women in the other cases wouldn't they I hesitated now my best beloved she said holding my hand in both hers and looking deep into my eyes please oh please the facts are there and they are immensely important think dearest we of her land have known no men till now we alone in our tiny land have worked out a happy healthy life then you came you wonderful three you should realise the stir the excitement the great hope that it meant to us we knew there was more world but nothing about it life to us now I come to see to learn for the sake of my country because you see some things we gathered from you made us a little afraid afraid for our children you see perhaps it was better after all to live up there alone in ignorance but in happiness we thought now I've come to see to learn to really understand if I can so as to tell my people why if it were only for your sake I would love them and I'm sure we were all sure at home or at least most of us are that two sexes working together must be better than one then I can see how being two sexes and having so much more complex a problem than ours and having all kinds of countries to live in how you got into difficulties we never knew I'm making every allowance I'm firm in my conviction of the superiority of the bisexual method it must be best or it would not have been evolved in all the higher animals but you can't expect me to ignore facts no I couldn't what troubled me most was that I too began to see facts quite obvious facts which I had never noticed before wherever men had been superior to women we had proudly claimed it sex distinction wherever men had shown evil traits not common to women we had serenely treated them as race characteristics so although I did not enjoy it I did not dispute any further Elador's growing collection of facts it was just as well not to facts are stubborn things we visited a little in Tunis Algiers and Cairo making quite an excursion in Egypt who's knowledge was invaluable to us he translated inscriptions showed us the more important discoveries and gave condensed accounts of the vanished civilizations Elador was deeply impressed to think that under one single city here in Abidos there are the remains of five separate cultures five as different as can be with a long time between evidently so that the ruins were forgotten and a new people a new city on the site of the old one it's wonderful then she turned suddenly on Senor Armini what did they die of she demanded die of? who madam those cities those civilizations why they were conquered in war doubtless the inhabitants were put to the sword some carried away as slaves perhaps and the cities razed to the ground by whom she demanded who did it why other peoples other cultures from other cities do you mean other peoples or just other men? he was puzzled why the soldiers were men of course but war was made by one nation against another do you mean that the women of the other nations were the governing power and sent the men to fight? no he did not mean that and surely the children did not sent them of course not people are men, women and children aren't they? and only the adult men about one fifth of the population made war this he admitted perforce and Elador did not press the point further but in these cities were all kinds of people weren't there women and children as well as men this was obvious also and then she branched off a little what made them want to conquer a city? either fear or revenge or desire for plunder the ancient cities were the centres of production of course and he discoursed on the beautiful handicrafts of the past the rich fabrics, the jewels and carved work and varied treasures who made them? she asked slaves for the most part he answered men and women? yes men and women I see said Elador she saw more than she spoke of even to me in ancient Egypt she found much that pleased her in the power and place of historic womanhood this satisfaction was short lived as we went on eastward with a few books with eager questioning of such experts as we met and what seemed to me an almost supernatural skill in eliciting valuable and opposite information from unexpected quarters my lady from her land continued to fill her mind and her notebooks to me who grew more to admire her to reverence her to tenderly love her as we travelled on together there now appeared a change in her spirit more alarming even than that produced by Europe's war it was like the difference between the terror roused in one surrounded by lions and the loathing experienced in the presence of hideous reptiles this not in the least at the people but at certain lamentable social conditions in visiting our world she had been most unfortunately first met by the hot horrors of war I had thought to calm her by the static nations the older peoples sitting still among their ruins richly draped in ancient and interesting histories but a very different effect was produced what she had read while it prepared her to understand the sequence of affairs had in no case given what she recognised as the really important events and their results I'm writing a little history of the world she told me with a restrained smile just a little one so that I can have something definite to show them but how can you dearest in this time with what data you have I know you are wonderful but a history of the world only a little one she answered just a synopsis you know we are used to condensing and simplifying for our children I suppose that is where we get the grasp of salient features you have spoken of so often these historians I read now certainly do not have it she continued tender to me more so if anything of two things we talked with pleasure of her land and my land and always of the beauty of nature this seemed to her a ceaseless source of strength and comfort it's the same world she said as we lean side by side on the rail at the stern and watched the white wake run and coiling away from us all silver shining under the round moon the same sky the same stars some of them the same blessed sun and moon and the deer grass and the trees the precious trees being by profession a forester it was inevitable that she should notice trees and in Europe she found much to admire though lamenting the scarcity of food bearing varieties in northern Africa she had noted the value of the palm the olive and others and had readily understood the whole system of irrigation and its enormous benefits what she did not easily grasp was its disuse and the immeasurable futility of the felahin still using the shadoof after all these ages of progress I don't see yet she admitted what makes their minds so so impervious it can't be because they're men surely men are not duller than women are they dear indeed they are not I cried rather stung by this new suggestion men are the progressive sex the thinkers the innovators which is the women who are conservative and slow even you will have to admit that I certainly will if I find it so she answered cheerfully I can see that these women are dull enough but then if they do things differently there are penalties aren't there penalties why yes if the women innovate and rebel the least that happens to them is that the men won't marry them isn't that so I shouldn't think you would call that a penalty my dear I answered oh yes it is it means extinction a variety of women you seem to have quite successfully checked mutation in women and they have neither education opportunity or encouragement in other variation don't say you I urged these are the women of the orient you were talking about not all of the world everybody knows that their position is pitiful and a great check to progress wait till you see my country I should be glad to get there dearest I'm sure of that she told me but as to these more progressive men amongst the Egyptians there was no penalty for improving on the Shadoof was there or the method of threshing grain by the feet of cattle then I explained trying to show no irritation that there was a difference in the progressiveness of nations of various races but that other things being equal the men were as a rule more progressive than the women where are the other things equal van I had to laugh at that she was a very difficult person to argue with but I told her they were pretty equal in our United States and that we thought our women fully as good as men and a little better she was comforted for a while but as we went on into Asia her spirit sank and darkened and that change I spoke of became apparent Burma was something of a comfort and that surviving matriarchate in the island hills her rather extended visit to India guided and informed by both English and native friends and supplied with further literature she began to suffer deeply we had the rare good fortune to be allowed to accompany a scientific expedition up through the wonder of the Himalayas through Tibet and into China here that high sweet spirit drooped and shrunk with a growing horror a loathing before in her clear eyes she was shocked beyond words at the vast area of dead country skeleton country deforested, deshrubbed, degrassed wasted to the bone lying there to burn in the sun and drown in the rain feeding no one van van helped me to forget the women a little and talk about the land helped me to understand the minds of people here is intelligence intellect, a high cultural development of sorts they have beautiful art in some lines they have an extensive literature they are old very old, surely old enough to have learned more than any other people and yet here is proof that they have never mastered the simple and obvious facts of how to take care of the land on which they live but they still live on it, don't they? yes, they live on it but they live on it like swarming fleas on an emaciated kitten rather than careful farmers on a well cultivated ground however she brightened a little there's one thing this horrible instance of a misused devastated land must have been of one great service it must have served as an object less into all the rest of the world where such an old and wise nation has made so dreadful a mistake for so long at least no other nation need to make it I did not answer as fully and cheerfully as she wished and she pressed me further the world has learned how to save its trees, its soil, its beauty its fertility, hasn't it? of course what I've seen is not all it's better in other places we did not go to Germany, you know my dear they have a high degree of skill in forestry there in many countries it is now highly thought of we are taking steps to preserve our own forests though so far they are so extensive that we rather forgot there was any end to them it will be good to get there van and she squeezed my hand hard I must see it all I must know the worst and surely I'm getting the worst first but you have free education you have every advantage of climate you have a mixture of the best blood on earth of the best traditions and you are brave and free and willing to learn oh van I'm so glad it was America that found us I held her close and kissed her I was glad too and I was proud, clear through to have her speak so of us yet still I was not as perfectly comfortable about it as I had been at first she had read about the foot binding process still common in so larger part of China but somehow had supposed it was a thing of the past and never general also I fancy she had deliberately kept it out of her mind as something impossible to imagine now she saw it for days and days as we travelled through the less known parts of the great country she saw the crippled women not merely those serenely installed in rich gardens and lovely rooms with big footed slaves to do their bidding or born in swaying litters by strong coolies but poor women, working women toiling in the field carrying their little mats to nylon while they worked because their feet were helpless aching pegs presently, while we waited in a village and were entertained by a local magnet who had business relations with one of our guides Elador was in the women's apartment and she heard it the agony of the bound feet of a child the child was promptly hushed struck and chided made to keep quiet but Elador had heard its moaning from a woman missionary she got details of the process and was shown the poor little shrunken stumps that night she would not let me touch her come near her she lay silent staring with set eyes long shudders running over her from time to time when it came to speech which was some days later she could still but faintly express it to think she said slowly that there are on earth men who can do a thing like that to women to little helpless children but their men don't do it dearest I urged it is the women, their own mothers who bind the feet of the little ones they are afraid to have them grow up big footed women afraid of what asked Elador that shudder passing over her again End of Chapter 3 Recording by Kate M Chapter 4 of with her in our land this is a Librebox recording all Librebox recordings are in the public domain for more information all to volunteer please visit Librebox.org with her in our land by Charlotte Perkins Gilman Chapter 4 Nearing home we stayed some little time in China meeting most interesting and valuable people missionaries, teachers, diplomats merchants some of them the educated English speaking Chinese Elador's insatiable interest her exquisite courtesy and talent as a listener made anyone willing to talk to her she learned fast and placed in that by sunlight mind of hers each fact in due relation I'm beginning to understand she told me sweetly that I mustn't judge this miscellaneous world of yours as I do my country we were just ourselves an isolated homogeneous people when we moved we all moved together you're all kinds of people you're all kinds of places touching at the edges and getting mixed and so far from moving on together there are no two nations exactly abreast that I can see and they mostly are ages apart some away ahead of the others some going far faster than others some stationary yes I told her and in the still numerous savages we find the beginners and the backsliders the hopeless backsliders and human progress I see she said reflectively when you say the civilized world that is just a figure of a speech the world is not civilized yet only spots in it and those not holy that's about it of course the civilized nations think of themselves as the world that's natural how does it compare in numbers she inquired let's look at the statistics on the population of the earth chasing through pages of classification difficult to sift until we hit upon a little table population of the earth according to race that out to do roughly speaking I told her we'll call the white races civilized and lump the others let's see how it comes out it came out that the total of Indo-Germanic or Aryan white for Europe, America, Persia India and Australia and the rest of the world black, red, brown and yellow was 788 million do you mean that the majority of mankind is still uncivilized? she asked she didn't ask it unpleasantly Elador was never sarcastic or bitter but the world was her oyster to study and she was quite impartial I however felt reproached by this cool estimate no indeed I said you can't call China uncivilized it is one of the very oldest civilizations we have this is only by race, you see by color oh yes, she agreed and race or color do not count in civilization of course not, how stupid I was but I laid down the pencil I was using to total our populations and looking at her with the new and grave misgiving she was so world innocent even the history she had so swiftly absorbed had not changed her any more than indecent novels affect a child the child does not know the meaning of the words in the light of Elador's colossal innocence of what we are accustomed to call life I began to see the process in a wholly new perspective her country was but one her civilization was one and indivisible in her country the women and children lived as mothers daughters, sisters in general tolerance, love, education and service out of that nursery, school, garden shop and parlor she came into this great scrambling world of ours to find it spotted over with dissimilar peoples, more separated by their varying psychology than by geography politics or race, often ignorant of one another, often fearing, despising, hating one another and each national group, each racial stock assuming itself to be the norm by which to measure others she had first to recognize the facts and then to disentangle the causes the long lines of historic evolution which had led to these results even then it was hard for her really to grasp the goals which divide one part of the human race from the others and now I had the unpleasant task of disabusing her of this last glad assumption that race and color made no difference dear, I said slowly you must repair your mind for another shock, though you must have got some of it already here and there race and color make all the difference in the world people dislike and despise one another on exactly that ground difference in race and color these millions were pure marked Aryan or white include Persians and Hindus yet the other white races are reversed to intermarrying with these whose skins are indeed much darker than ours though they come of the same stock is the aversion mutual? she asked as calmly as we had been discussing insects I assured her that speaking generally it was that the flatter faced Mongolians regarded us as hawk like in our aquiline features and that little African children fled screaming from the unnatural horror of a first seen white face but what I was thinking about was how I should explain to her the race prejudice in my own country when she reached it I felt like a housekeeper bringing home company discovering that the company has far higher and more exacting standards than herself and longing to get home first and set the house in order before inspection we spent some little time in Japan Elador enjoying the fairy beauty of the country with its flower worshipping, sunny face people and the plump happy children everywhere but instead of being content with the artistic beauty of the place with which their life is covered she followed her usual course of penetrating investigation it needed no years to study no dreary tables of figures with what she already knew so clearly held in her mind with a few questions each loaded with implications she soon grasped the salient facts of Japanese civilization its conspicuous virtues gave her instant joy the high honor of the samurai the unlimited patriotism of the people in general the exquisite politeness and the sincere love of beauty nature and art these were all comforting and the free fitted women also after the golden lilies of China but presently piercing below all these she found the general poverty of the people their helplessness under a new and heart grinding commercialism and the patient agnonomy in which the women lived how is it dear she asked me that these keenly intelligent people fail to see that such limited women cannot produce a no-blow race I could only say that it was a universal failing common to all races except ours of course her face always lighted when we spoke of America you don't know how I look forward to it dear she said after this painful introduction to the world I knew so little of I'm so glad we came this way saving the best to the last the newer we came to America and the more eagerly she spoke of it the more my vague uneasiness increased I began to think of things I had never before been sensitive about and to seek for justification meanwhile Elador was accumulating heartache over the Japanese women whose dual duty of childbearing and manservice dominated all their lives it is so hard for me to understand man they aren't people at all somehow just wives or worse their mothers surely I urged no not in our sense not consciously look at this ghastly crowding here's the little country easy to grasp and manage capable of supporting about so many people not more and here they are making a saturated solution of themselves she had picked up that phrase from one of her medical friends a vigorous young man who told her much that she was eager to know about the health and physical development of the Japanese can't they see that there are too many she went on if a people increases beyond its means of support it has to endure miserable poverty of what is that the Germans expansion they have to have somebody else's country how strangely dull they are but my dear girl please remember that this is life I told her this is the world this is the way people live you expect too much of them it is a law of nature to increase and multiply of course Malta set up a terrified cry about overpopulating the earth but it has not come to that yet not near our means of subsistence increase with the advances science as to the world I can see that but as to a given country and especially a smaller one as this what does become of them she asked suddenly this started her on a rapid study of immigration in which fortunately my own knowledge was of some use and she eagerly gathered up and arranged in her mind that feature of our history on which hangs so much she thought once how when most of the earth's surface was unoccupied people moved freely about in search of the best hunting or pasture rage how in an agricultural system they settled and spread widening with the increase of population however since they met and touched each nation limited by its neighbors there had been the double result of overcrowding inside the national limits and warfare in the interests of expansion I can see now the wonderful advantage you have she said eagerly humanity got its second win with the discovery of the new world didn't it it always delighted me to note the speed and correctness with which she picked up idioms and bits of slang they were now altered to her and a constant delight you had a big new country to spread out in and no competitors there were no previous inhabitants were there nothing but Indians I said Indians yes savages like those in the forest below your mountain land though more advanced in some ways how did you arrange with them she asked I hate to tell you Elador you see you have a little idealized my country we do not arrange with those savages we kill them all of them how many were there she was quite calm she made no movement of alarm or horror we can see the rich color fade from her face and her dear general mouth set in harder lines of control it's a long story and not a nice one I'm sorry to say we left some having them in spots called reservations there have been a good deal of education and missionary work some Indians have become fully civilized as good citizens as any and some have intermarried with the whites we have many people with Indian blood but speaking generally this is one of our national shames Helen Haunt wrote a book about it called a century of dishonor Elador was silent that lovely far of homesick look came into her eyes I hate to disillusion you dear heart I said we're not perfect in America I truly think we have many advantages over any other country but we're not blameless I'll defer judgment alike at there she presently answered let's go back to what we're discussing the pressure of population rather sadly we took it up again and saw how as long as warfare was a relief nations continually boiled over upon one another gaining more land by the simple process of killing off the previous owners and having to repeat the process indefinitely as soon as the population again pressed against its limits where warfare was abandoned and a settled boundary established as when great China walled itself from marauding tribes then the population showed an ingrowing pressure and reduced the standard of living to a ghastly minimum then came the latter process of peaceful emigration by which the coasts and islands of the Pacific became tinged with the moving thousands of the yellow races she saw it all as a great panorama an endless procession never accepting a static world with the limitations of party colored maps but always watching the movement of races that's what ails Europe now and last that's why those close packed fertile races were always struggling up and down among one another and making room for a while by killing people but certainly a good part of it I agreed every nation wants more land to accommodate its increasing population and they want to increase the population in order to win more land don't they this too was plain and there isn't any way out of it on a limited earth but fixed the whole crowding inside or the fortunes of war that too was plainly unfortunate then why do not the women limit the population as we did oh Elador you cannot seem to realize that this world is not a woman's world like your little country this is a man's world and they do not want to limit the population why not she urged was it because they did not bear the children to fight and live in peace what was the reason neither of those I said slowly the real reason is that neither men nor women have been able to see broadly enough to think deeply enough sufficiently to visualize these great racial questions they just follow their instincts and debate their ancient religions and these things happen without their knowing why but the woman protested Elador surely the women could see a simple thing as that it's only a matter of square miles how many people to a mile can live healthily and pleasantly are these women willing to have the children grow up so crowded that they can't be happy or where they'll have to fight for room to live I can understand it then she went determinedly to question a Japanese authority to whom we were introduced by one of our friends as to the status of women in Japan she was polite, she was meek herself beforehand to hear without surprise and the authority also courteous to a degree gave her a brief outline with illustrator's story and quotation of the point of view from which women were regarded in that country she grasped it even more thoroughly than she had in India or China we left Japan for home via Hawaii and for days she was silent about the subject then as the white blue sea the brilliant eyes spinning by the smooth magnificence of our progress comforted her she touched on it once more I'm trying not to feel about these particularly awful things and not to judge, even till I know more these things are so am I knowing them does not make them any worse than they were before you're a brave girl and a strong one, I assured her that's the only way to do I'm awfully sorry you had to have such a dose at first this war of all things in the east I ought to have prepared you better you could not have, dearest it would have been impossible no mere words could have made me visualize the inconceivable and no matter how I came to it slow or fast the horror would have been just the same it is as impossible for me to make you see how I feel it now as it would have been for you to make me feel it beforehand the voyage did her great good and gloried in the ships doing her best to ignore the pitiful labor conditions of those who made the glory possible always she made friends, travelers missionaries, businessmen and women wherever she found them yet strangely enough she seemed more at a loss with the women than with the men seemed not to know quite how to approach them it was not for lack of love and sympathy far from it she was eager to make friends with them without an explanation like this she made friends with the men on the human side rather than attracting them by feminity and as human beings they exchanged ideas and got on well together the women were not so human had a less wide outlook less experience as a rule when she did get near enough to one of them for talk at all and intimate then came the ultra feminine point of view the different sense of social and moral values the peculiar limitations of their position I saw this as reflected by Elador as I had never seen it for myself before what I did not understand at first was why she seemed to flag an interest and in patience with the women sooner than with the men she never criticized them but I could see a puzzled grieved look come over her kind face and then she would withdraw there were exceptions, mocked ones a woman doctor who had worked for years in China was going home for a long needed vacation and Elador was with her day after day learning and there was another once a missionary, now a research worker in biology who commanded her sincere immigration we came to the lovely Hawaiian islands quite rested and refreshed and arranged to stay there a while and enjoy the splendor of the secret mountains here her eager social interest was again aroused and she supplied herself with a history of this little sample of social progress most rapidly there were plenty to teach her a few excellent books to read self-satisfied descendants of missionaries to bolster the novel work of their fathers this is very illuminating she told me it was not nice what professor Whiting used a microcosm, isn't it by this time my dear investigator had asked clear an idea of general human history as anyone not a specialist, good wish and had it in a very small notebook while in England someone had given her Vinwood Reed's wonderful curriculum of man as good a basis where historical studies could be asked and all the facts and theories she had been collecting since were duly related to her general views here you have done it so quickly inside of a century only 1820 and these nice gentle golden colored people were living here by themselves they weren't always gentle, don't idealize them too much I interrupted they had wars and quarrels and they had a very horrid taboo religion particularly hard on women yes, I know that they were imperfect as we are as professor Boynton used to say but they were beautiful and healthy and happy they were courteous and kind and oh how splendidly they could swim, even the babies they tell me I understood a child can swim earlier than it can walk did they tell you that yes, why not but look here my dear then came the missionaries and interfered and the owners of the land are only 15% of the population with 20% of the deaths they are dispossessed and are being exterminated yes, I said well a literal looked at me one could watch the expressions follow one another over her face like cloud, shadows and sunlight over a landscape she looked puzzled she evidently saw a reason she became stern, then a further reason was recognized and then that heavenly mother look came over her the one I had grown to prize most deeply but all she said was I love you man thank heaven for that my dear I thought you were going to cast me out because of the dispossessed of ions I didn't do it, you're not blaming me or you did not America do it she asked quietly and do you care at all then I embarked on one of this confined and contradictory explanations by which the wolf who has eaten the lamb seeks to show how unavoidable and justifiable it all was do you feel like that about England's taking the boy's country she asked gently I did not I had always faulted a particularly inexcusable piece of expansion and your country it not packed very close yet is it? having so much, why did you need these we wanted to Christianize them to civilize them I urged rather sulkily with the same effect on them and as civilization helped dead people she saw I was hurt and stopped to kiss me let's stop it here I was wrong to press the point but I become so used to saying everything to you just as if you were one of my sisters I forget that things must look differently when one's own country is involved she said no more about the vanishing Hawaiians but I began to look at them with a very different feeling from what I had ever had before we had brought them syphilis the Chinese brought them leprosy one of their lovely islands was now a name of horror from that ghastly disease a place where noble Christians strived to minimize the evil too late the missionaries nobly purposed no doubt to begin with had amassed great fortunes in land given to them by these careless children who knew so little of land ownership and the children and grandchildren of the missionaries lived wealthy and powerful in the work of their forefathers and apparently seeing no evil and sad results perhaps they thought it was no matter how soon the natives died so that they died Christians and the civilization we had brought them means an endless day of labor long hours of grinding toil for other people's profit in place of the cleanies and freedom of their own old life hot labor, disease, death and the lasting consciousness of all this among their dwindling ranks exclusion, social dissemination industrial exploitation approaching extermination it is no wonder the music is mournful I was glad to leave the lovely place glad to put aside a sense of national guilt and to see Elador freshen against the golden days and velvet nights float over us as we esteem toward the sunrise and home there were plenty of Californians on board both wise and unwise and I saw my wife with a constantly increasing ease and skill extracting information from each and all she talked with it is not difficult to extract information about California from a Californian not being one myself and having more definite knowledge about my own country than I had had about most of the others we had visited I was able to check off this trumpet flood of boosting with somewhat colder facts Elador liked it it does my heart good he said both to know that there is such a country on earth and that people can care for it like that she particularly revels in Ella Coolbridge's exquisite poem California so rich with tender pride with vivid appreciation some devotee had the book with her and poured forth a new tarantor praise over a finalist she had of Californian authors this annoyed me rather more than real estate, climate, fruit or flowers and having that somewhat brobeaten over Hawaii let me check it out as somebody else I'm not as good as Elador don't pretend to be at moments like that I don't even want to be so I said to this bubbling enthusiast why do you call all these people Californian authors? she looked at me in genuine surprise were they born there? I inquired are they native sons or daughters she had to admit they were not save in a few cases we marked those who were it was the most insufficient list in California she insisted how long? I asked how long a visitor residence does it take to make an author a Californian like Mark Twain for instance is he a Connecticut author because he lived more years than that in Connecticut or a New York author because he lived quite a while in New York she looked much annoying and I was not a bit sorry but went on ruthlessly I think California is the only state in the union that is not content with its own crop but tries to claim everything in sight to be continued End of chapter 4