In the order of nature the ideal precedes the actual. In back-woods phrase, “The wind-work must precede the ground-work.” “The ascent of life is the ascent of ideals.” Ascent means action, change, involving effort, struggle, aspiration. Aspiration implies or pre-supposes DISCONTENT.
The author of the story, “Hilda’s Home,” preaches the gospel of discontent—dissatisfaction with the old, desire for the new. With Ella Wheeler she says,
Be not content; contentment means inaction—
The growing soul aches on its upward quest.
Satiety is kin to satisfaction—
All great achievements spring from life’s unrest.
The tiny root, deep in the dark mould hiding,
Would never bless the earth with leaf and flower,
Were not an inborn restlessness abiding
In seed and germ to stir them with its power.
The author of “Hilda’s Home” preaches the gospel of Freedom—equal freedom, the gospel of Liberty coupled with responsibility. With Spencer she would say, “Every one has the right to do as he pleases so long as he does not invade the equal right of others.” With Macaulay, Rosa Graul would say “The cure for the evils of Liberty is more liberty.” Hence she has no fears that under Freedom the Home and the Family would cease to exist, or that woman will be less loving and lovable, or that man will be less manly and honorable. On the contrary she maintains that only in the soil and atmosphere of freedom is it possible for true womanhood and manhood to live and flourish.
While devoting considerable space to the subject of industrial reconstruction, the central aim of “Hilda’s Home” is the emancipation of womanhood and motherhood from the domination of man in the sex relation. “Self-ownership of woman” may be called the all-pervading thought of the book now offered to the impartial and truth-loving reader. With Havelock Ellis in his “Psychology of Sex,” Rosa Graul would say:
“I regard sex as the central problem of life. And now that the problem of religion has practically been settled, and that the problem of labor has at least been placed on a practical foundation, the question of sex—with the social questions that rest on it—stands before the coming generation as the chief problem for solution. Sex lies at the root of life, and we can never learn to reverence life until we know how to understand sex—So, at least, it seems to me.”
A word of warning: Let no reader expect perfection in the following pages, either in ideal or in its manner of presentation. The editor and publisher offer this work to the reading public not for its literary merits, not for the excellence of its plan nor for the originality of its conception. The writer of “Hilda’s Home” is a poor, hard-working, unlettered woman; one whose advantages in the way of preparation for literary work have been almost nil. The great, the distinguishing merit of Rosa Graul, as an author, is the simplicity, the naturalness with which she tells of the varied experiences that educate and prepare the various characters of her story for living in a co-operative home. For the life history of these children of her brain she is indebted, so she informs us, to the cold hard facts of her own experience and personal observation. “Experience teaches a dear school but fools will learn in no other,” saith the proverb. The trouble with us all is that we are so slow to learn, even in the bitter school of experience. In no department of life is this comment so universally applicable as in the sexual or conjugal relations of women and men. Hence the necessity of plainness of speech and honesty of thought, on this subject, no matter how iconoclastic or revolutionary the thought may be.
Prominent among the criticisms made upon the economic ideal herein presented is the absence of all reference to the “Labor Exchange,” and the apparent acquiescence by the co-operators in the old monopolistic financial system. In answer to this objection it may be said that our story was written some years ago, and before the publication of books on Labor Exchange and other modern economic reforms, and though an appendix was prepared to supply this lack, the addition would have increased the size of the book beyond its prescribed limits.
By others it is objected that an ideal home could and should be built without the aid of the millionaire’s ill-gotten dollars. To this it may be replied that the earth with all it holds, including the accumulations called “capital,” belong to the living present, and not to the dead past, and that if the legal heirs of past accumulations, the Owen Hunters of today, can be induced to build model homes for the use of those who may be ready to utilize them, there would seem to be no rational objection to such attempts at rectification of past wrongs.
To close this brief preface, which must serve also as introduction and appendix, let it be remembered that “Hilda’s Home” is offered not as a final solution of all the problems of human life, but rather as a suggester of thought upon some of the most important and most perplexing of these problems. In all great reforms the public conscience must first be aroused to see the necessity of such change. If this unpretentious volume can be made the vehicle or means of helping to educate and stimulate the public conscience to the point of putting into practice the reforms advocated therein, the chief object of the author, as well as of editor and publisher, will have been realized.