The Forerunner Part 167

"Yes--I knew it--but it is different now. You know when you are _married_--"

Mrs. Weatherstone looked far away through the wide window. "I do know,"

she said.

Diantha reached a strong hand to clasp her friend's. "I wish I could give it to you," she said. "You have done so much for me! So much!

You have poured out your money like water!"

"My money! Well I like that!" said Mrs. Weatherstone. "I have taken my money out of five and seven per cent investments, and put it into ten per cent ones, that's all. Shall I never make you realize that I am a richer woman because of you, Diantha Bell Warden! So don't try to be grateful--I won't have it! Your work has _paid_ remember--paid me as well as you; and lots of other folks beside. You know there are eighteen good imitations of Union House running now, in different cities, and three 'Las Casas!' all succeeding--and the papers are talking about the dangers of a Cooked Food Trust!"

They were friends old and tried, and happy in mutual affection. Diantha had many now, though none quite so dear. Her parents were contented--her brother and sister doing well--her children throve and grew and found Mama a joy they never had enough of.

Yet still in her heart of hearts she was not wholly happy.

Then one night came by the last mail, a thick letter from Ross--thicker than usual. She opened it in her room alone, their room--to which they had come so joyously five years ago.

He told her of his journeying, his lectures, his controversies and triumphs; rather briefly--and then:

"My darling, I have learned something at last, on my travels, which will interest you, I fancy, more than the potential speed of all the guinea-pigs in the world, and its transmissability.

"From what I hear about you in foreign lands; from what I read about you wherever I go; and, even more, from what I see, as a visitor, in many families; I have at last begun to grasp the nature and importance of your work.

"As a man of science I must accept any truth when it is once clearly seen; and, though I've been a long time about it, I do see at last what brave, strong, valuable work you have been doing for the world. Doing it scientifically, too. Your figures are quoted, your records studied, your example followed. You have established certain truths in the business of living which are of importance to the race. As a student I recognize and appreciate your work. As man to man I'm proud of you--tremendously proud of you. As your husband! Ah! my love! I am coming back to you--coming soon, coming with my Whole Heart, Yours!

Just wait, My Darling, till I get back to you!

"Your Lover and Husband."

Diantha held the letter close, with hands that shook a little. She kissed it--kissed it hard, over and over--not improving its appearance as a piece of polite correspondence.

Then she gave way to an overmastering burst of feeling, and knelt down by the wide bed, burying her face there, the letter still held fast. It was a funny prayer, if any human ear had heard it.

"Thank you!" was all she said, with long, deep sobbing sighs between.

"Thank you!--O--thank you!"

The End

OUR OVERWORKED INSTINCTS

Instinct is a good thing in its place. We, in common with other animals, have instincts, especially in our racial youth; but as reason waxes, instinct wanes. At present, thanks to the development of the brain and even the beginnings of education, we have few instincts left.

What we have, we work pretty hard.

Among both men and women, the most primal instincts are still deified.

The instinct of self-preservation, which in every species is promptly subordinated to race preservation, we solemnly hail as "Nature's First Law!" It may be first, as creeping comes before walking, but is no more honorable for that!

Then there is the s.e.x instinct, a good second to this first, an ancient, useful and generally pleasant incentive to action; but we, in our simplicity, have set up this contributive impulse as the Lord of Life.

"The Life Force," we call it; when it is only one form of expression for the Life Force, and a limited one.

Self-preservation does very well to keep the cards on the table, and race preservation goes on giving us a new deal, but neither of them alone, nor both of them together, is The Game.

What we are really here for is Growth, Improvement, Progress--and we have a deep and UNIVERSAL instinct towards that, too; but little is said about it! It is our primitive animal instincts we are so proud of: our social instincts we scarcely recognize.

Men have the instinct of combat, a very useful thing in its place. But in their exclusive preoccupation of being men, they have a.s.sumed this masculine proclivity to be something of universal importance and solemnly a.s.sure us that "Life is a Struggle."

Life is a Growth, a Progress, a Journey, if you will. It may be interrupted by having.to stop and struggle, but the struggling is at its best only incidental. Nature, seeking always the line of least resistance, avoids opposition when possible: the masculine instinct of combat courts it, and he idealizes his own instincts.

So also the woman. She has her one, great original maternal instinct; and both man and woman worship it. They a.s.sume something intrinsically holy in the feelings of a mother, and something superlatively efficacious in her ministrations. Motherhood is a beautiful and useful inst.i.tution, but it is not enough to take right care of children.

Every furry animal has a mother: every naked savage has a mother: every ignorant peasant has a mother; and every mother has a compelling instinct which causes her to love and protect her young. But furry animal, naked savage, ignorant peasant they remain for all of their mothers.

Evolution needs more than mothers! It is not enough to live, not enough to reproduce one's kind: we have to change, progress, improve--and instinct is no help here. Instinct is nothing but inherited habit. It always dates a long way behind us. It is never any guide in new conditions or a incentive to betterment. Instinct holds us in chains to the past; or it would if it could.

In human life--especially in modern human life--conditions change so rapidly that we have scant time to form individual habits, much less develop instincts. What we have left are very old ones, prehuman or savage in origin and mostly applying to physical relations. Suppose we recognize these early a.s.sistants, regard them with respect as once useful, and lay them where they belong--on the shelf.

Instinct is no guide to proper food to-day: we have to use our brains and learn what is right to eat. It is no guide to proper clothing--as witness the unhealthy, uncomfortable, unbeautiful garments we wear. It is no guide to success in any kind of human industry, business, science or art. These things have to be learned: they do not come "by instinct." It is no suitable guardian of our behavior, either in public or private: all good manners and established government are achieved at considerable expense to "our natural instinct." And a.s.suredly our instincts are not reliable as leaders in education, religion or morality.

Why then, seeing the inadequacy of instinct in all these lines, are we so sure of its infallible guidance in the care of babies? A modern human mother has far less instinct to guide her than her arboreal ancestors: the real advantage her babies profit by are obtained through the development of the father--in reason, in knowledge, in skill, in the prosperity and progress of the world he makes.

He prepares for his children a Home, a School, a Church, a Government, a Nation: he provides them all manufactured articles--each last and least dish, utensil, piece of furniture, tool, weapon, safeguard, convenience, ship, bridge, plaything, jewel. He makes the world.

Into this world of reason, knowledge, skill, training and experience comes the baby, richer in each generation by a new and improved father.

He is born and cherished, however, by the same kind of mother, bringing to her tremendous task no new tool worthy of the time, but merely the same old dwindling, overworked "maternal instinct."

The children of today need mothers of today, and they must begin to supplement their primitive impulse by the very fullest, highest, richest powers of the human intellect and the human heart--the real human heart, which cannot be satisfied until every child on earth is more than mothered.

LOVE'S HIGHEST

Love came on earth, woke, laughed and began his dominion.

Strong? Just the Force of Creation. Glad? Merely Joy of Existence.

Love cast about for Expression--for work, which is Love in Expression, And the fluctuant tissues of life began burgeoning, blooming and fruiting.

Up through dim ages laughed Love, flowing through life like a fountain, Pouring new forms and yet newer, filling each form with new pa.s.sion, Playing with lives like a juggler, life after life, never dropping; Till a new form was developed: Humanity came: it was daylight.

Love laughed aloud, rose in splendor, offered up hymns of thanksgiving.

"Now I have room for expression! Here is a vehicle worthy!

Life that is lovelier far than all these poor blossoms and creatures; Life that can grow on forever, unlimited, changeful, immortal.

Here I can riot and run through a thousand warm hearts in a moment, I can flash into glories of art! I can flow into marvels of music!

I can stand in Cathedrals and Towers, and sit splendid, serene, in fair cities!

These exquisite, limitless beings shall radiate love from their faces, Shall uphold it with emulous arms, and scatter it wide with their fingers, Shall build me, through ages and ages, new forms and new fields of expression!

I have worked through the mosses and gra.s.ses till the world was all sweetened with roses, Warm-clothed with the soft-spreading forests, and fed with ripe wheat and red apples; I have worked with fur-children and feathered, till they knew the delights of my kingdom; I have shown, thousand-fold, throughout Nature, my Masterpiece--Glory--the Mother!

Now love shall pour like the sunlight, shall cover the earth like the ocean, Love encompa.s.sing all, as the air does, not only in fragrance and color, Not only in Nature and Mothers, but now, in this Crown of Creation-- Latest fruit of the Tree Everlasting, this myriad-featured fulfillment-- With unlimited force I shall fill them, in unnumbered new voices be uttered, By millions and millions and millions they shall pour out their love in their labor, And the millions shall love one another.