MOVING THE MOUNTAIN BY CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN CHARLTON COMPANY NEW YORK 1911 Copyright, 1911 by Charlotte Perkins Gilman 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 outside 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. CONTENTS CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER IX CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI CHAPTER XII CHAPTER I 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. * * * * * *