THE COLLECTED WORKS OF CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN: Short Stories, Novels, Poems & Essays. Charlotte Perkins Gilman
adding that she regretted her imminent return to the East would end so many pleasant friendships.
Moving the Mountain
Preface
ONE of the most distinctive features of the human mind is to forecast better things.
“We look before and after
And pine for what is not.”
This natural tendency to hope, desire, foresee and then, if possible, obtain, has been largely diverted from human usefulness since our goal was placed after death, in Heaven. With all our hope in “Another World,” we have largely lost hope of this one.
Some minds, still keen in the perception of better human possibilities, have tried to write out their vision and give it to the world. From Plato’s ideal Republic to Wells’ Day of the Comet we have had many Utopias set before us, best known of which are that of Sir Thomas More and the great modern instance, “Looking Backward.”
All these have one or two distinctive features — an element of extreme remoteness, or the introduction of some mysterious out-side force. “Moving the Mountain” is a short distance Utopia, a baby Utopia, a little one that can grow. It involves no other change than a change of mind, the mere awakening of people, especially the women, to existing possibilities. It indicates what people might do, real people, now living, in thirty years — if they would.
One man, truly aroused and redirecting his energies, can change his whole life in thirty years.
So can the world.
Chapter 1.
ON a gray, cold, soggy Tibetan plateau stood glaring at one another two white people — a man and a woman.
With the first, a group of peasants; with the second, the guides and carriers of a well-equipped exploring party.
The man wore the dress of a peasant, but around him was a leather belt — old, worn, battered — but a recognizable belt of no Asiatic pattern, and showing a heavy buckle made in twisted initials.
The woman’s eye had caught the sunlight on this buckle before she saw that the heavily bearded face under the hood was white. She pressed forward to look at it.
“Where did you get that belt?” she cried, turning for the interpreter to urge her question.
The man had caught her voice, her words.
He threw back his hood and looked at her, with a strange blank look, as of one listening to something far away.
“John!” she cried. “John! My Brother!” He lifted a groping hand to his head, made a confused noise that ended in almost a shout of “Nellie!” reeled and fell backward.
. . . . .
When one loses his mind, as it were, for thirty years, and finds it again; when one wakes up; comes to life; recognizes oneself an American citizen twenty-five years old
No. This is what I find it so hard to realize. I am not twenty-five; I am fifty-five.
. . . . .
Well, as I was saying, when one comes to life again like this, and has to renew acquaintance with one’s own mind, in a sudden swarming rush of hurrying memories — that is a good deal of pressure for a brain so long unused.
But when on top of that, one is pushed headlong into a world immeasurably different from the world one has left at twenty-five — a topsy-turvy world, wherein all one’s most cherished ideals are found to be reversed, rearranged, or utterly gone; where strange new facts are accompanied by strange new thoughts and strange new feelings — the pressure becomes terrific,
Nellie has suggested that I write it down, and I think for once she is right. I disagree with her on so many points that I am glad to recognize the wisdom of this idea. It will certainly be a useful process in my re-education; and relieve the mental tension.
So, to begin with my first life, being now in my third
. . . . .
I am the only son of a Methodist minister of South Carolina. My mother was a Yankee. She died after my sister Ellen was born, when I was seven years old. My father educated me well. I was sent to a small Southern college, and showed such a talent for philology that I specialized in ancient languages, and, after some teaching and the taking of various degrees, I had a
Two pages are missing here. ED.
they never mentioned such a detail. Furthermore, they gave so dim an account of where the place was that we don’t know now; should have to locate that night’s encampment, and then look for a precipice and go down it with ropes.
As I have no longer any interest in those venerable races and time-honored customs, I think we will not do this.
Well, she found me, and something happened. She says I knew her — shouted “Nellie!” and fell down — fell on a stone, too, and hit my head so hard they thought I was dead this time “for sure.” But when I “came to” I came all the way, back to where I was thirty years ago; and as for those thirty years — I do not remember one day of them.
Nor do I wish to. I have those filthy Tibetan clothes, sterilized and packed away, but I never want to look at them.
I am back in the real world, back where I was at twenty-five. But now I am fifty-five —
. . . . .
Now, about Nellie. I must go slowly and get this thing straightened out for good and all.
My little sister! I was always fond of her, and she adored me. She looked up to me, naturally; believed everything I told her; minded me like a little dog — when she was a child. And as she grew into girl-hood, I had a strong restraining influence upon her. She wanted to be educated