We have no authentic record of the date of this fair syren's birth. It
is popularly supposed, however, that she was contemporaneous with
POCAHONTAS. POKY (as she was playfully called by her playmates at
boarding-school) is now dead. LOGY (another playful appellation of the
gushing miss alluded to) is still Olive.
We do not, however, credit the legend above cited. Also, we do not
credit the equally absurd and unreasonable story that our girlish gusher
is a daughter of a negro preacher named LOGUEN. We look upon this as a
colorless aspersion of our subject's fair fame, and we therefore feel
called upon to politely but furiously hurl it back in the teeth of its
degraded and offensive inventor. Things are come indeed to a pretty pass
when a lady of Miss LOGAN'S position may have her good name blackened
(not to say sooted) by associating it with that of a preacher. Besides,
LOGUEN was himself born in 1800, and is therefore only seventy years
old. These things are not to be borne.
Miss LOGAN is seventeen years of age. This, at least, is reliable. We
have our information from the lips of an aunt of the Honorable HORATIUS
GREELEY, who met Miss LOGAN in Chicago in 1812, and wrung the confession
from the gifted lady herself. Mr. GREELEY'S aunt, we need not say, is
incapable of telling a lie.
At the early age of six weeks our illustrious victim made her first
appearance as a public speaker. This was at Faneuil Hall, Boston. She
was supported on that memorable occasion by a young and fascinating lady
by the name of ANTHONY (SUSAN.) SUSIE prophesied then, it will be
remembered, that the fair oratress would yet live to be President of the
United States and Canadas. Miss LOGAN, with her customary modesty,
declined to view the mysterious future in that puerile light, gracefully
suggesting, amid a brilliant outburst of puns, metaphors and amusing
anecdotes, that SUSIE distorted the facts. Miss ANTHONY, under a
mistaken impression that this referred to her peculiar mode of keeping
accounts, offered, with a wild shriek of despair and disgust, to exhibit
her books to an unprejudiced committee of her own sex, with WENDELL
PHILLIPS as chairwoman. (There is manifest inaccuracy in this account,
though, inasmuch as Mr. PHILLIPS was not yet born, at that time; but we
of course give the story as it is related to us by eye-witnesses.) Mr.
JOHN RUSSELL YOUNG, who was in the audience, rose and said that Miss
ANTHONY'S explanation was entirely sufficient, and that she might now
take her seat. The lecturer then proceeded to discuss her subject,
"Girls." She said--
However, this is not a newspaper report, is it?
Soon after this, Louis PHILLIPPE invited Miss LOGAN to visit Paris. He
represented that he should consider it an honor at any time to welcome
the beautiful demoiselle to the palace of the Tuileries. He remarked in
a postscript that his dinner hour was twelve o'clock, noon, sharp, and
that his hired man had instructions to pass Miss LOGAN at any time.
Accordingly, our syren departed hungrily for the capital of the French.
Her career in Paris is well known to every mere ordinary schoolboy:
therefore, wherefore dwell? Madame DE STAEL'S dressmaker called on her.
A committee of strong-minded milliners solicited the honor of her
acquaintance. GEORGE FRANCIS TRAIN proposed an alliance with her for the
purpose of hurling imperial jackassery from its tottering throne. Other
honors were conferred on her.
Returning to her native motherland in 1812, she once more resumed her
career as a public speakeristess. How wonderful that career has been,
does not the world know? If not, why not? She has lectured in
14,364,812,719 towns between San Francisco on the one hand and
California on the other. Upwards of fourteen million Young Men's
Christian Associations have crowded to hear her thrilling eloquence, and
lecture committees all over the land have grown fat and saucy on the
enormous profits yielded by her engagements. Country editors, who,
before speculating in tickets of admission, were without shoes to their
feet, have been suddenly converted into haughty despots and bloated
aristocrats by their prodigious gains. And Miss LOGAN herself is said to
be worth $250.
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