t is good and noble in women, which degrades and pettifies them. The
contrast between the instinctive ideals of young women and the sordid
realities into which housekeeping plunges them is to her intolerable.
And in the best satirical verses of modern times she ridicules these
unnecessary shames. In one spirited piece she points out that the
soap-vat, the pickle-tub, even the loom and wheel, have lost their
sanctity, have been banished to shops and factories:

But bow ye down to the Holy Stove,
The Altar of the Home!

The real feeling of Mrs. Gilman is revealed in these lines, which voice,
indeed, the angry mood of many an outraged housewife who finds herself
the serf of a contraption of cast-iron:

... We toil to keep the altar crowned
With dishes new and nice,
And Art and Love, and Time and Truth,
We offer up, with Health and Youth
In daily sacrifice.

Mrs. Gilman is not under the illusion that the conditions of work
outside the home are perfect; she is, indeed, a socialist, and as such
is engaged in the great task of revolutionizing the basis of modern
industry. But she has looked into women's souls, and turned away in
disgust at the likeness of a dirty kitchen which those souls present.

Into these lives corrupted by the influences of the "home" nothing can
come unspoiled--nothing can enter in its original stature and beauty.
She says:

Birth comes. Birth--
The breathing re-creation of the earth!
All earth, all sky, all God, life's sweet deep whole,
Newborn again to each new soul!
"Oh, are you? What a shame! Too bad, my dear!
How well you stand it, too! It's very queer
The dreadful trials women have to carry;
But you can't always help it when you marry.
Oh, what a sweet layette! What lovely socks!
What an exquisite puff and powder box!
Who is your doctor? Yes, his skill's immense--
But it's a dreadful danger and expense!"

And so with love, and death, and work--all are smutted and debased. And
her revolt is a revolt against that which smuts and debases
them--against those artificial channels which break up the strong, pure
stream of woman's energy into a thousand little stagnant canals, covered
with spiritual pond-scum.

It is a part of her idealism to conceive life in terms of war. So it is
that she scorns compromise, for in war compromise is treason. And so it
is that she has heart for the long, slow marshaling of forc