Thoughtless Yes

H. Gardener Helen

Description

Although much of her literary activity was centered in the genre of nonfiction essays, author Helen H. Gardener (the pen name of Alice Chenoweth) also dabbled in fiction, with several of her short stories achieving widespread acclaim. A Thoughtless Yes is a collection of Gardener's best short-form fiction, spanning an array of topics, styles, and themes.

Sujets

• Short story

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 mars 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781775562115
• Langue: English

Extrait

A THOUGHTLESS YES
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HELEN H. GARDENER
 
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A Thoughtless Yes First published in 1890 ISBN 978-1-77556-211-5 © 2013 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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An Open Letter A Splendid Judge of a Woman The Lady of the Club Under Protest For the Prosecution A Rusty Link in the Chain The Boler House Mystery The Time Lock of Our Ancestors Florence Campbell's Fate My Patients Story
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To the many strangers who, after reading such of these stories as havebefore been printed, have written me letters that were thoughtful or gayor sad, I dedicate this volume.
These letters have come from far and near; from rich and from poor; fromChristian and from unbeliever; from a bishop's palace and from behindprison walls.
If this collection of stories shall give to my friends, known andunknown, as much pleasure and mental stimulus as their letters gave tome, I shall be content.
HELEN H. GARDENER.
An Open Letter
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I have, this morning, read your review of "A Thoughtless Yes." I wishto thank you for the pleasant things said and also to make theconnection—which I am surprised to see did not present itself to yourmind—between the title and the burden of the stories or sketches.
It is not so easy as you may suppose to get a title which shall beexactly and fully descriptive of a collection of tales or sketches,each one of which was written to suggest thoughts and questions on someparticular topic or topics to which people usually pay the tribute of athoughtless yes. With one—possibly two—exceptions each sketch means tosuggest to the reader that there may be a very large question mark putafter many of the social, religious, economic, medical, journalistic, orlegal fiats of the present civilization.
You say that "in 'The Lady of the Club' she [meaning me] does not showhow poverty results from a thoughtless yes. Perhaps she does not seethat it does." I had in my mind exactly that point when I wrote thestory and when I decided upon the title for the book. No, I do notattempt in such sketches to show how , but to show that , such andsuch conditions exist and that it is wrong. I want to suggest a questionof the justice and the right of several things; but I want to leave eachperson free to think out, not my conclusion or remedy, but a conclusionand a remedy, and at all events to make him refuse, henceforth, thethoughtless yes of timid acquiescence to things as they are simplybecause they are. In the "Lady of the Club" I meant to attack theimpudent authority that makes such a condition of poverty possible,by calling sympathetic attention to its workings. There are one or twoother ideas sustained by authority, to which, to the readers of thattale, I wished to make a thoughtless yes henceforth impossible. At leastI hoped to arouse a question. One is taxation of church property. Iwished to point out that by shirking their honest debts churches heapstill farther poverty and burden upon the poor. I hoped, too, tosuggest that the idea of "charity," to which most people give a warmlythoughtless yes, must be an indignity or impossibility where, even theywould say, it was most needed. I wanted to call attention to the factthat a physician and a man of tender heart and lofty soul were compelledto make themselves criminals, before the law, to even be kind to thedead. That conditions are so savage under the present system that such acase is absolutely hopeless while the victims live and outrageous afterthey are dead. To all of these dictates of impudent authority, to whichmost story readers pay the tribute of a thoughtless yes, I wanted tocall attention in such a way that henceforth a question must arise intheir minds. I hoped to show, too, that even so lofty a characteras Roland Barker was tied hand and foot—until it made him almost amadman—by a system of economics and religion and law which so interlaceas to sustain each other and combine to not only crush the poor but toprevent the rich from helping along even where they desire to do so.
These were the main points upon which that particular tale was intendedto arouse a mental attitude of thoughtful protest There are other, minorones, which I need not trouble you to recall. If you will notice, nearlyall of the tales end (or stop without an end) with an open question forthe reader to settle—to settle his way, not mine. Indeed, I am not yetconvinced that my own ideas of the changes needed and the way to bringthem about are infallible. I am still open to conviction. I have triedto grasp the Socialist, Communist, Anarchist, Single-tax, Free-land, andother ideas and to comprehend just what each could be fairly expectedto accomplish if established—to see the pros and cons of theseand other schemes for social improvement. These, and the varying cultsranged between, each seems to me to have certain strong points andcertain weak ones. Each seems to me to overlook some essential feature;and yet I have no system to offer that I think would be better or wouldwork better than some of these. Indeed, I do most earnestly believe that the inspired way is yet to be struck out, and I do not believe thatI am the one to do it Meanwhile I can do some things. I can suggestquestions, and, sometimes, answers. But I am not a god, and I do notwant all people to answer my way. I do want to help prevent, now andhenceforth, the tribute of a thoughtless yes from being given to a goodmany established wrongs.
Since such able thinkers as you are have—in the main—already refusedsuch tribute, I am perfectly satisfied to let each of these answer thequestions I have suggested or may suggest in my fiction in the way thatseems most hopeful to him.
Meantime, the vast majority of story readers have not yet had theiremotions touched by the dramatic presentation of "the other side."Fiction has—in the main—worked to make them accept without questionall things as authority has presented them. Who knows but that a loftydiscontent may be stirred in some soul who can solve the awful problemsand at the same time reconcile the various cults of warring philosophersso that they may combine for humanity and cease to divide forrevenue—or personal pique? I do not believe that the province of astory is to assume to give the solution of philosophical questions thathave puzzled and proved too much for the best and ablest brains. I haveno doubt that fiction may stir and arouse to thought many who cannotunderstand and will not heed essays or argument or preaching, whileit may also present the same thoughts in a new light to those who do.Personally I do not believe in tacking on to fiction a "moral" or an"in conclusion" which shall switch all such aroused thoughts into onechannel. Clear thinking and right feeling may lead some one, who is newto such protest, to solutions that I have not reached. So let us eachquestion "impudent authority," whether it be in its stupid blindness toheredity or to environment; and I shall be content that you solve thenew order by an appeal to Anarchism via free land; or that MatildaJoslyn Gage solve it by the ballot for women and hereditary freedom fromslavish instincts stamped upon a race bom of superstitious and subjectmothers.
Personally I do not believe that all the free land, free money orfreedom in the world, which shall leave the mothers of the race (whetherin or out of marriage) a subject class or in a position to transmit totheir children the vices or weaknesses of a dominated dependent, willever succeed in populating the world with self-reliant, self-respecting,honorable and capable people.
On the other hand, I do not see how the ballot in the hands of womanwill do for her all that many believe it will. That it is her rightand would go far is clear; but after that, your question of economicstouches her in a way that it does not and cannot touch men, and I amfree to confess that as yet I have heard of no economic or social planthat would not of necessity, in my opinion, bear heaviest upon those whoare mothers. So you will see that when I suggested the desirability in"For the Prosecution" of having mothers on the bench and as jurors wherea case touched points no man living does or can understand in all itsphases, I do not think that would right all the wrong nor solve all thequestions suggested by such a trial; but I thought it would help pushthe car of right and justice in the direction of light which we all hopeis ahead.
You believe more in environment than in heredity; I believe in both, andthat both are sadly and awfully awry, largely because too many peoplein too many ways pay to impudent authority the tribute of a thoughtlessyes.
It is one of the saddest things in this world to see the brave andearnest men who fight so nobly for better and fairer economic conditionsfor "Labor," pay, much too often, the tribute of a thoughtless yes tothe absolute pauper status of all womanhood They resent with spiritthe idea that men should labor for a mere subsistence and always bedependent upon and at the financial mercy of the rich. They do notappear to see that to one-half of the race even that much economicindependence would be a tremendous improvement upon her present status.How would Singletax or Free-land help this? You may reply that Anarchismwould solve that problem. Would it? With maternity and physicaldisabilities in the scale? To my mind, all the various economic schemesyet put forward lack an essential feature. They provide for a freeand better manho