Herland
on the exalted sentiment and measureless perfection of his Celis; and
Terry--Terry made so many false starts and met so many rebuffs, that by
the time he really settled down to win Alima, he was considerably wiser.
At that, it was not smooth sailing. They broke and quarreled, over and
over; he would rush off to console himself with some other fair one--the
other fair one would have none of him--and he would drift back to Alima,
becoming more and more devoted each time.
She never gave an inch. A big, handsome creature, rather exceptionally
strong even in that race of strong women, with a proud head and sweeping
level brows that lined across above her dark eager eyes like the wide
wings of a soaring hawk.
I was good friends with all three of them but best of all with Ellador,
long before that feeling changed, for both of us.
From her, and from Somel, who talked very freely with me, I learned at
last something of the viewpoint of Herland toward its visitors.
Here they were, isolated, happy, contented, when the booming buzz of our
biplane tore the air above them.
Everybody heard it--saw it--for miles and miles, word flashed all over
the country, and a council was held in every town and village.
And this was their rapid determination:
“From another country. Probably men. Evidently highly civilized.
Doubtless possessed of much valuable knowledge. May be dangerous. Catch
them if possible; tame and train them if necessary. This may be a chance
to re-establish a bi-sexual state for our people.”
They were not afraid of us--three million highly intelligent women--or
two million, counting only grown-ups--were not likely to be afraid of
three young men. We thought of them as “Women,” and therefore timid; but
it was two thousand years since they had had anything to be afraid
of, and certainly more than one thousand since they had outgrown the
feeling.
We thought--at least Terry did--that we could have our pick of them.
They thought--very cautiously and farsightedly--of picking us, if it
seemed wise.
All that time we were in training they studied us, analyzed us, prepared
reports about us, and this information was widely disseminated all about
the land.
Not a girl in that country had not been learning for months as much
as could be gathered about our country, our culture, our personal
characters. No wonder their questions were hard to answer. But I am
sorry to say, when we were at last brought out and--exhibited (I hate to
call it that, but that’s what it was), there was no rush of takers. Here
was poor old Terry fondly imagining that at last he was free to stray in
“a rosebud garden of girls”--and behold! the rosebuds were all with keen
appraising eye, studying us.
They were interested, profoundly interested, but it was not the kind of
interest we were looking for.
To get an idea of their attitude you have to hold in mind their
extremely high sense of solidarity. They were not each choosing a
lover; they hadn’t the faintest idea of love--sex-love, that is. These
girls--to each of whom motherhood was a lodestar, and that motherhood
exalted above a mere personal function, looked forward to as the highest
social service, as the sacrament of a lifetime--were now confronted with
an opportunity to make the great step of changing their whole status, of
reverting to their earlier bi-sexual order of nature.
Beside this underlying consideration there was the limitless interest
and curiosity in our civilization, purely impersonal, and held by an
order of mind beside which we were like--schoolboys.
It was small wonder that our lectures were not a success; and none at
all that our, or at least Terry’s, advances were so ill received. The
reason for my own comparative success was at first far from pleasing to
my pride.
“We like you the best,” Somel told me, “because you seem more like us.”
“More like a lot of women!” I thought to myself disgustedly, and then
remembered how little like “women,” in our derogatory sense, they were.
She was smiling at me, reading my thought.
“We can quite see that we do not seem like--women--to you. Of course,
in a bi-sexual race the distinctive feature of each sex must be
intensified. But surely there are characteristics enough which belong
to People, aren’t there? That’s what I mean about you being more like
us--more like People. We feel at ease with you.”
Jeff’s difficulty was his exalted gallantry. He idealized women, and
was always looking for a chance to “protect” or to “serve” them. These
needed neither protection nor service. They were living in peace and
power and plenty; we were their guests, their prisoners, absolutely
dependent.
Of course we could promise whatsoever we might of advantages, if they
would come to our country; but the more we knew of theirs, the less we
boasted.
Terry’s jewels and trinkets they prized as curios; handed them about,
asking questions as to workmanship, not in the least as to value; and
discussed not ownership, but which museum to put them in.
When a man has nothing to give a woman, is dependent wholly on his
personal attraction, his courtship is under limitations.
They were considering these two things: the advisability of making the
Great Change; and the degree of personal adaptability which would best
serve that end.
Here we had the advantage of our small personal experience with those
three fleet forest girls; and that served to draw us together.
As for Ellador: Suppose you come to a strange land and find it pleasant
enough--just a little more than ordinarily pleasant--and then you find
rich farmland, and then gardens, gorgeous gardens, and then palaces
full of rare and curious treasures--incalculable, inexhaustible, and
then--mountains--like the Himalayas, and then the sea.
I liked her that day she balanced on the branch before me and named the
trio. I thought of her most. Afterward I turned to her like a friend
when we met for the third time, and continued the acquaintance. While
Jeff’s ultra-devotion rather puzzled Celis, really put off their day
of happiness, while Terry and Alima quarreled and parted, re-met and
re-parted, Ellador and I grew to be close friends.
We talked and talked. We took long walks together. She showed me things,
explained them, interpreted much that I had not understood. Through her
sympathetic intelligence I became more and more comprehending of the
spirit of the people of Herland, more and more appreciative of its
marvelous inner growth as well as outer perfection.
I ceased to feel a stranger, a prisoner. There was a sense of
understanding, of identity, of purpose. We discussed--everything. And,
as I traveled farther and farther, exploring the rich, sweet soul of
her, my sense of pleasant friendship became but a broad foundation for
such height, such breadth, such interlocked combination of feeling as
left me fairly blinded with the wonder of it.
As I’ve said, I had never cared very much for women, nor they for
me--not Terry-fashion. But this one--
At first I never even thought of her “in that way,” as the girls have
it. I had not come to the country with any Turkish-harem intentions,
and I was no woman-worshipper like Jeff. I just liked that girl “as a
friend,” as we say. That friendship grew like a tree. She was _such_ a
good sport! We did all kinds of things together. She taught me games and
I taught her games, and we raced and rowed and had all manner of fun, as
well as higher comradeship.
Then, as I got on farther, the palace and treasures and snowy mountain
ranges opened up. I had never known there could be such a human being.
So--great. I don’t mean talented. She was a forester--one of the
best--but it was not that gift I mean. When I say _great_, I mean
great--big, all through. If I had known more of those women, as
intimately, I should not have found her so unique; but even among them
she was noble. Her mother was an Over Mother--and her grandmother, too,
I heard later.
So she told me more and more of her beautiful land; and I told her as
much, yes, more than I wanted to, about mine; and we became inseparable.
Then this deeper recognition came and grew. I felt my own soul rise
and lift its wings, as it were. Life got bigger. It seemed as if I
understood--as I never had before--as if I could Do things--as if I too
could grow--if she would help me. And then It came--to both of us, all
at once.
A still day--on the edge of the world, their world. The two of us,
gazing out over the far dim forestland below, talking of heaven and
earth and human life, and of my land and other lands and what they
needed and what I hoped to do for them--
“If you will help me,” I said.
She turned to me, with that high, sweet look of hers, and then, as her
eyes rested in mine and her hands too--then suddenly there blazed out
between us a farther glory, instant, overwhelming--quite beyond any
words of mine to tell.
Celis was a blue-and-gold-and-rose person; Alma,
black-and-white-and-red, a blazing beauty. Ellador was brown: hair dark
and soft, like a seal coat; clear brown skin with a healthy red in
it; brown eyes--all the way from topaz to black velvet they seemed to
range--splendid girls, all of them.
They had seen us first of all, far down in the lake below, and flashed
the tidings across the land even before our first exploring flight. They
had watched our landing, flitted through the forest with us, hidden in
that tree and--I shrewdly suspect--giggled on purpose.
They had kept watch over our hooded machine, taking turns at it; and
when our escape was announced, had followed along-side for a day or two,
and been there at the last, as described. They felt a special claim on
us--called us “their men”--and when we were at liberty to study the land
and people, and be studied by them, their claim was recognized by the
wise leaders.
But I felt, we all did, that we should have chosen them among millions,
unerringly.
And yet “the path of true love never did run smooth”; this period of
courtship was full of the most unsuspected pitfalls.
Writing this as late as I do, after manifold experiences both in Herland
and, later, in my own land, I can now understand and philosophize about
what was then a continual astonishment and often a temporary tragedy.
The “long suit” in most courtships is sex attraction, of course. Then
gradually develops such comradeship as the two temperaments allow. Then,
after marriage, there is either the establishment of a slow-growing,
widely based friendship, the deepest, tenderest, sweetest of relations,
all lit and warmed by the recurrent flame of love; or else that process
is reversed, love cools and fades, no friendship grows, the whole
relation turns from beauty to ashes.
Here everything was different. There was no sex-feeling to appeal to, or
practically none. Two thousand years’ disuse had left very little of the
instinct; also we must remember that those who had at times manifested
it as atavistic exceptions were often, by that very fact, denied
motherhood.
Yet while the mother process remains, the inherent ground for
sex-distinction remains also; and who shall say what long-forgotten
feeling, vague and nameless, was stirred in some of these mother hearts
by our arrival?
What left us even more at sea in our approach was the lack of any
sex-tradition. There was no accepted standard of what was “manly” and
what was “womanly.”
When Jeff said, taking the fruit basket from his adored one, “A woman
should not carry anything,” Celis said, “Why?” with the frankest
amazement. He could not look that fleet-footed, deep-chested young
forester in the face and say, “Because she is weaker.” She wasn’t. One
does not call a race horse weak because it is visibly not a cart horse.