She stopped at that, turned away from me and walked to the opposite window, where she stood for some time with her hands clenched and her shoulders heaving.
"Where was I?" she asked presently, definitely dropping the question of children. "Black—yes, and how about the yellow? Do they 'melt'? Do you want them to melt? Isn't your exclusion of them an admission that you think some kinds of people unas- similable ? That democracy must pick and choose a little ?"
"What would you have us do ?" I asked rather sullenly. "Ex- clude everybody? Think we are superior to the whole world?"
Ellador laughed, and kissed me. "I think you are," she whispered tenderly. "No—I don't mean that at all. It would be too great a strain on the imagination! If you want a prescrip- tion—far too late —it is this: i Democracy is a psychic relation. It requires the intelligent conscious co-operation of a great many persons all 'equal' in the characteristics required to play that kind of a game. You could have safely welcomed to your great undertaking people of every race and nation who were individually fitted to assist. Not by any means because they were 'poor and oppressed,' nor because of that glittering gen- erality that 'all men are born free and equal,' but because the human race is in different stages of development, and only some the races—or some individuals in a given race—have reached the democratic stage."
"But how could we discriminate?"
"You mustn't ask me too much, Van. I'm a stranger; I don't know all I ought to, and, of course I'm all the time measuring by my background of experience in my own country. I find you people talk a good bit about the Brotherhood of Man, but you haven't seemed to think about the possibilities of a sisterhood of women."
I looked up alertly, but she gave a mischievous smile and shook her head. "You do not want to hear about the women, I remember. But seriously, dear, this is one of the most danger- ous mistakes you have made; it complicates everything. It makes your efforts to establish democracy like trying to make a ship go by steam and at the same time admitting banks of oars, masses of sails and cordage, and mere paddles and outriggers."
"You can certainly make some prescription for this particu- larly dreadful state, can't you?" I urged. "Sometimes 'an out- sider' can see better than those who are—being melted."
She pondered awhile, then began slowly: "Legitimate immig- ration is like the coming of children to you,—new blood for the nation, citizens made, not born. And they should be met like children, with loving welcome, with adequate preparation, with the fullest and wisest education for their new place. Where you have that crowded little filter on Ellis Island, you ought to have Immigration Bureaus on either coast, at ports so specified, with a great additional department to definitely Americanize the newcomers, to teach them the language, spirit, traditions and customs of the country. Talk about offering hospitality to all the world! What kind of hospitality is it to let your guests crowd and pack into the front hall, and to offer them neither bed, bread nor association? That's what I mean by saying that you are not conscious. You haven't taken your immigration ser- iously enough. The consequence is that you are only partially America, an American clogged and confused, weakened and mismanaged, for lack of political compatibility."
"Is this all?" I asked after a little. "You make me feel as if my country was a cross between a patchwork quilt and a pudding stone.'
"Oh, dear, no f" she cheerfully assured me. "That's only a be- ginning of my diagnosis. The patient's worst disease was that disgraceful out-of-date attack of slavery, only escaped by a surgical operation, painful, costly, and not by any means wholly successful. The second is this chronic distension from absorb- ing too much and too varied material, just pumping it in at wild speed. The third is the most conspicuously foolish of all —to a Herlander."
"Oh—leaving the women out ?"
"Yes. It's so—so—well, I can't express to you how ridiculous it looks.
"We're getting over it," I urged. "Eleven states now, you know—it's getting on."
"Oh, yes, yes, it's getting on. But I'm looking at your history, and your conditions, and your loud complaints, and then to see this great mass of fellowcitizens treated as if they weren't there— it is unbelievable!"
"But I told you about that before we came," said I. "I told you in Herland —you knew it."
"I knew it, truly. But, Van, suppose anyone had told you that in Herland women were the only citizens—would that have pre- vented your being surprised ?"
I looked back for a moment, remembering how we men, after living there so long, after "knowing" that women were the only citizens, still never got over the ever recurring astonishment of realising it.
"No wonder it surprises you, dear,—I should think it would. But go on about the women."
"I'm not touching on the women at all, Van. This is only in treating of democracy—of your country and what ails it. You see: "
"Well, dear? See what?"
"It is so presumptuous of me to try to explain democracy to you, an American citizen. Of course you understand, but evid- ently the country at large doesn't. In a monarchy you have this one allowed Ruler, and his subordinate rulers, and the people submit to them. Sometimes it works very well, but in any case it is something done for and to the people by someone they let do it.
"A democracy, a real one, means the people socially con- scious and doing it themselves—doing it themselves! Not just electing a Ruler and subordinates and submitting to them—transferring the divine right of kings to the divine right of alderman or senators. A democracy is a game everybody has to play—has to —else it is not a democracy. And here you people deliberately left out half!"
"But they never had been 'in'; you know, in the previous governments."
"Now, Van—that's really unworthy of you. As subjects they were the same as men, and as queens they were the same as kings. But you began a new game— that you said must be 'by the people'— and so on, and left out half."
"It was—funny," I admitted, "and unfortunate. But we're im- proving. Do go on.
"That's three counts, I believe," she agreed. "Next lament- able mistake,—failure to see that democracy must be economic."
"Meaning socialism?"
"No, not exactly. Meaning what Socialism means, or ought to mean. You could not have a monarchy where the king was in no way different from his subjects. A monarchy must be ex- pressed not only in the immediate symbols of robe and crown, throne and sceptre, but in the palace and the court, the list of lords and gentlemen-in-waiting. It's all part of monarchy.
"So you cannot have a democracy while there are people markedly differentiated from the others, with symbolism of dress and decoration, with courts and palaces and crowds of servitors."
"You can't except all the people to be just alike, can you ?" "No, nor even to be 'equal.' Some people will always be more valuable than others, and some more useful than others; but a poet, a blacksmith, and a dancing master might all be friends and fellow-citizens in a true democratic sense. Your million- aires vote and your daylaborers vote, but it does not bring them together as fellow citizens. That's why your little old New England towns and your fresh young western ones, have more of 'America' in them than is possible—could ever be pos- sible—in such a political menagerie as New York, for instance.
"Meaning the Tiger?" I inquired.
"Including the Tiger, with the Elephant, the Moose and the Donkey—especially the Donkey! No—I do not really mean those—totems. I mean the weird collection of political meth- ods, interests, stages of growth.
"New York's an oligarchy; it's a plutocracy; it's a hierarchy; it reverts to the clan system with its Irishmen, and back of that, to the patriarchy, with its Jews. It's anything and everything you like— but it's not a democracy."
"If it was, what would it do to prove it ? Just what do you ex- pect of what you call democracy? Don't you idealize it?" I asked.
"No." She shook her head decidedly. "I do not idealize it. I'm familiar with it, you see—we have one at home, you know."
So they had. I had forgotten. In fact I had not very clearly no- ticed. We had been so much impressed by their all being wo- men that we had not done justice to their political development."
"It's no miracle," she said. "Just people co-operating to gov- ern themselves. We have universal suffrage, you know, and train our children in the use of it before they come to the real thing. That farseeing Mr. Gill is trying to do that in your public schools, I notice, and Mr. George of the Junior Republics. It re- quires a common knowledge of the common need, local self- management, recognizing the will of the majority, and a big ceaseless loving effort to make the majority wiser. It's surely nothing so wonderful, Van, for a lot of intelligent people to get together and manage their common interests."
It certainly had worked well in Herland. So well, so easily, so smoothly, that it was hardly visible.
"But the people who get together have got to be within reach of one another," she went on. "They've got to have common in- terests. What united action can you expect between Fifth Aven- ue and— Avenue A?"
"I've had all I can stand for one dose, my lady," I now pro- tested. "From what you have said I should think your 'Splendid Child' would have died in infancy— a hundred years ago. But we haven't you see. We're alive and kicking—especially kick- ing. I have faith in my country yet."
"It is still able to lead the world—if it will," she agreed. "It has still all the natural advantages it began with, and it has ad- ded new ones. I'm not despairing, nor blaming, Van—I'm dia- gnosing, and pretty soon I'll prescribe. But just now I suggest that we change politics for tennis."
We did. I can still beat her at tennis— having played fifteen years to her one— but not so often as formerly.
Chapter 7
In Our Homes
IF there was one thing more than another I had wanted to show Ellador it was our homes,—my home, of course, and oth- ers that I knew.
In all the peace and beauty of Herland there was nowhere the small lit circle of intimate love and mutually considered comfort which means so much to us. The love, the comfort, were everywhere, to be sure, but that was different. It was like reflected lighting instead of a lamp on the center table; it was like an evenly steam-heated house, instead of one with an open fire in each room. We had missed those fires, so warm to the front, so inadequate on the back, so inclusive of those who can sit near it, so exclusive of everyone else.
Now, as we visited far and wide, and as Ellador, in her new capacity as speaker to clubs and churches went farther and wider, she was becoming well acquainted with our American homes, it seemed to me.
But it did not satisfy her. She had become more and more the sociologist, the investigator.
"They are all alike," she said. "The people vary, of course, but the setting is practically the same. Why, Van—in all my visits, in so many states, in so many kind families, I've found the most amusing similarity in homes. I can find the bathroom in the dark; I know just what they'll have for breakfast; there seem to be only some eight or ten dinners or luncheons known."
I was a little nettled,—just a little.
"There is a limit to edible animals, if that's what you mean," I protested. "Beef and veal, mutton and lamb, pig,— fresh, salted and smoked—poultry and game. Oh, and fish."
"That's ten, and can be stretched, of course. No, I don't mean the basis of supplies. I mean only the lack of—of specialization in it all. You see the women have talked with me—eagerly. It really is pathetic, Van, the effort—effort —effort, to do what ought to be so easy. And the expense!"
"We know it is laborious, but most women hold it is their duty, dear. Of course, I agree with you, but most of our people don't, you see. And the men, I'm afraid, consider their own comfort."
"I only wish they did," she remarked, surprisingly. "But I'm studying the home not merely on the economic side; I'm study- ing it as a world institution— it's new to me, you see. Europe—Africa — Asia — the Islands — America — see here, dear, we haven't seen South America. Let's learn Spanish and go!"
Elladore spoke of learning a new language as if it were a dance, a brief and entertaining process. We did it, too; at least she did. I knew some Spanish already and polished it up with her new enthusiasm to help. It was not until observing her in- tellectual processes in our journeyings together that I had real- ized the potential energy of the Herland mind. Its breadth and depth, its calm control, its rationality, its fertility of resource, were apparent while we were there, but accustomed as I was to the common limitations of our own minds, to the narrow spe- cialization with accompanying atrophy of other powers, to the "brain-fag" and mental breakdown, with all the deadly lower grades of feeblemindedness and last gulf of insanity—I had not realized that these disabilities were unknown in Herland. A healthy brain does not show, any more than a sick one, and the airy strength of a bounding acrobat can hardly be judged if you see him in a hammock.
For this last year or two I was observing a Herland brain at work, assimilating floods of new impressions, suffering keen and severe emotional shocks, hampered by an inevitable nos- talgia, and yet picking up languages in passing as one picks flowers by the roadside.
We made our trip to South America, with Spanish history carefully laid in beforehand, and learned what everyone of us ignorant United Statesians ought to know,—that "America" is a worldspanning double continent, not merely a patch on one, and that, if we do our duty by our brother countries, we may some day fill out legitimately that large highsounding name of ours and really be The United States of America.
