my husband to be love, the one sacred tie.”
“Love is a first rate tie,” says I, mildly, holdin’ on to my temper first
rate, “upwards of 15 years ago, I give one of the most remarkable proofs
of it, that has ever been seen in this country;” (and for a minute my
mind wandered off onto that old revery, _why_ did I love Josiah Allen?)
But collectin’ my mind together I spoke onwards, with firm and cast iron
principle. “Still, although I felt that sacred tie unitin’ Josiah and
me in a double beau knot that couldn’t be untwisted, the first time we
met, still, if Elder Wesley Minkley hadn’t united us at the alter--or
mother’s parlor, I should have felt dreadful floatin’ round in my mind.
It would have seemed too curious and onstiddy kinder, as if Josiah and me
was liable to fall all to pieces at any time, and waver off in the air
like two kites that had broke loose from thier strings.” Says I, firmly,
“Thier would be a looseness to it, I couldn’t stand.”
She said I would get accustomed to it, and that custom made many things
seem holy that were unholy, and many things sinful that were pure in the
sight of God.
But still I murmured with a sad look, but firm as old Bunker Hill, “I
couldn’t stand it, Victory, it would seem too much like a circus.
“And then agin, Victory, you are in the wrong of it about divorces. ‘What
God has joined togather let no man put asunder.’”
Says she, “Josiah Allen’s wife, if divorces were free to-morrow, would
you get one from Josiah?”
“Never!” says I, and my best dress most bust open at the breast, (them
biases always was took up a little too snug) at the idee of partin’ from
Josiah.
“Well, what is it that would hold you so fast to each other that nothin’
but death could separate you? was it the few words you said before the
minister?”
“It was love, Victory! love, that wouldn’t let me eat a mite, nor sleep
a wink, if I couldn’t put my hand onto Josiah Allen any time day or
night.”
“Then,” says she, “why not give other good men and women credit for bein’
actuated by the same sentiments? Those that God has joined togather, no
man _can_ put asunder. Those who are really married heart and sole, would
never separate, it would only correct abuses, and separate those that
man, and not God, had joined togather.”
Says I, “Victory, is there any particular need of folks lettin’ man join
’em togather, when God hasn’t?” says I; “if folks was obleeged to marry,
there would be some sense in such talk,” says I, “they haint no business
to marry if they don’t love each other. All sin brings its punishment,
and them that commit the crime aginst thier own sole, of marryin’ without
love, ought to be punished by unhappiness in thier domestic relations,
what else can they expect?” says I. “Marriage is like baptism, now some
folks say it is a savin’ audnence, I say nobody haint any right to be
baptised unless they are saved already. Nobody haint any business to put
on the outward form of marriage, if they haint got the inward marriage of
the spirit.”
“Some folks marry for a home,” says she.
“Wall, they haint no business to,” says I warmly. “I had ruther live out
doors under a umberell, all my days.”
“Those are my sentiments exactly, Josiah Allen’s wife. But you can’t
deny that people are liable to be decieved.”
“If they are such poor judges the first time, what would hender ’em
from bein’ decieved the next time, and so on, ad infinitum, to the
twentieth and thirtieth time?” says I firmly. “Instead of folks bein’
tied together looser, they ought to be tied as tight agin. If folks knew
they couldn’t marry agin, how many divorces do you suppose there would
be? No doubt there are individual cases, where there is great wrong, and
great sufferin’. But we ought to look out for the greatest good to the
greatest number. And do you realize, Victory, what a condition society
would be in, if divorces was absolutely free? The recklessness with
which new ties would be formed, the lovin’ wimmen’s hearts that would
be broken by desertion, the children that would be homeless and uncared
for. When a fickle man or woman gets thier eyes onto somebody they like
better than they do thier own lawful pardners, it is awful easy to think
that man, and not God, has jined ’em. But let folks once get the idee
into thier heads, that marriage is a solemn thing, and lasts as long as
thier lives do, and they can’t get away from each other, they will be
ten times as careful to live peacible and happy with thier companions.”
Says I, “When a man realizes that he can if he wants to, start up and
marry a woman before breakfast, and get divorced before dinner, and have
a new one before supper time, it has a tendency to make him onstiddy and
worrysome.”
Says I, “Victory, men are dreadful tryin’ by spells, do you suppose I
have lived with one for upwards of 15 years, and hain’t found it out?
But suppose a mother deserts a child because he is wormy, and tears his
breeches. She brought him into the world, and it is her duty to take care
of him. Do you suppose a store keeper ought to take back a pink calico
dress, after you have made it up, and washed it because the color washes
out of it, you ought to have tried it before it was cut off. I married
Josiah Allen with both eyes open, I didn’t wear spectacles then, I wasn’t
starved to it nor thumbscrewed into it, and it is my duty to make the
best of him.”
Says she, “When a woman finds that her soul is clogged and hampered, it
is a duty she owes to her higher nature to find relief.”
Says I, “When a woman has such feelin’s, instead of leavin’ her lawful
husband and goin’ round huntin’ up a affinitee, let her take a good
thoroughwert puke. Says I, in 9 and ½ cases out of 10, it is folkes’es
stomachs that are clogged up insted of their souls. Says I, there
is nothin’ like keepin’ the stomach in good order to make the moral
sentiments run good. Now our Tirzah Ann, Josiah’s girl by his first wife,
I kinder mistrusted that she was fallin’ in love with--” I almost said
it right out Shakespeare Bobbet, but I thought of Betsey, and turned
it “with a little feller that hadn’t hardly got out of his roundabouts,
she bein’ at the same time in pantalettes. Well I give her a good
thoroughwert puke, and it cured her, and if his mother,” says I with a
keen look onto Betsey, as I thought of my night of troubles, “If his
mother had served him in the same way, it would have saved some folks a
good deal of sufferin’.”
I see that agin I was wanderin’ off’en the subject, and I says in a deep
solemn tone,
“I don’t believe in this divorcin’.”
Mr. Tilton spoke up for most the first time, and says he, “I think you
are wrong in your views of divorce, Josiah Allen’s wife.”
I looked into his handsome face and my feelin’s rose up strong I couldn’t
throw ’em, they broke loose and says I, in almost tremblin’ tones,
“It is you that are in the wrong on it, Theodore,” says I, “Theodore,
I have read your poetry when it seemed as if I could ride right up to
heaven on it, though I weigh 200 and 10 pounds by the steelyards. There
is one piece by the name of “Life’s Victory.” I haint much of a hand for
poetry, but I read it for the first time when I was sick, and it seemed
as if it carried me so near to heaven, that I almost begun to feather
out. And when I found out who the author was, he seemed as near to me
as Thomas Jefferson, Josiah’s boy by his first wife. Theodore, I have
kept sight of you ever sense, jest as proud of you, as if you was my
own son-in-law, and when you went off into this free love belief I felt
bad.” I took out my white 25 cent handkerchif, for a tear came within I
should say half or three quarters of a inch from my eye-winkers. I held
my handkerchif in my hand, the tear come nearer and nearer--he looked
agitated--when up spoke Miss Woodhull.
“It is perfectly right; I believe in free divorce, free love, freedom in
everything.”
I jest jammed my handkerchif back into my pocket, for that tear jest
turned round and traveled back to where it come from. I thought I had
used mildness long enough, and I says to her in stern tones,
“Victory, can you look me straight in the spectacles, and say that you
think this abominable doctrine of free love is right?”
“Yes mom, I can, I believe in perfect freedom.”
Says I, “That is what burglers and incendiarys say,” says I, “that is
the word murderers and Mormans utter,” says I “that is the language of
pirates, Victory Woodhull.”
She pretty near quailed, and I proceeded on, “Victory, there haint
but one true liberty, and that is the liberty of the Gospel, and it
haint Gospel liberty to be surrounded by a dozen husbands’es and
ex-husbands’es,” says I, “this marryin’ and partin’ every day or to,
haint accordin’ to Skripter.”
Says she in a scornful tone, “What is skripter?” If I had been her mother
I would have spanked her then and there. But I wasn’t, and I jest turned
my back to her, and says I, “Mr. Tilton you believe the bible don’t you?”
“Yes mom, I do, but the bible justifies divorce.”
“Yes,” says I, “for one cause, and no other, and the Saviour says that
whosoever marries a woman put away for any but the bible cause, commits
adultery, and I don’t believe in adulteration, nor Josiah don’t either.
But,” says I, convulsivly, “You know a man will part with a woman nowadays
if the butter don’t come quick, and she will part with him if he don’t
hang up the bootjack. Is that bible Theodore?” Says I, “don’t the bible
say that except for that one reason, man and wife are married till death
parts ’em.” Says I, “is a lawyer in a frock coat, with a lot of papers
stickin’ out of his breast pocket, death?” Says I, “tell me Theodore is
he death?”
He looked convinced, and says he, “No mom, he haint.”
“Well then, what business has that little snip of a livin’ lawyer to go
round tryin’ to make out he is death? tell me?” says I almost wildly.
I see my emotions was almost carryin’ me off, and I ketched holt of my
dignity, and continued in deep solemn tones, “True marriage is a sacred
thing, and it is a solemn thing, it is as solemn as bein’ baptized. And
if you are baptized once in the way you ought to be, it is enough. But
the best way you can fix it, it is a solemn thing Victory. To give your
whole life and soul into the keepin’ of somebody else. To place all your
hopes, and all your happiness in another human bein’ as a woman will. A
true woman if she loves truly, never gives half of her heart or three
quarters, she gives it all. She never asks how much shall I get back in
money and housen and finery? or whether she could do better in another
direction. No; True Love is a river that runs onward askin’ no questions
of anybody, sweepin’ right on with a full heart. And where does that
river empty Theodore and Victory?”
They both looked as solemn as a protracted meetin’, almost, as I looked
at ’em, first one, then the other, through my specs; but they didn’t
reply. Says I, in a deep solemn tone, “the name of the place where
that river emptys is Eternity.” Says I, “That river of True Love as it
flows through the world gets riley sometimes, by the earthly mud on its
banks. Sometimes it gets mad and precipitates itself over precipices,
and sometimes it seemin’ly turns backward a spell. But in its heart it
knows where it is bound for, it keeps on growin’ broader, and deeper,
and quieter like, and as it jines the ocian it leaves all its mud on the
banks, for God cleanses it, and makes it pure as the pure waters it flows
into.”
I felt real eloquent as I said this, and it seemed to impress ’em as I
wanted it to. They both of ’em have got good faces. Though I didn’t like
their belief, I liked their looks. They looked sincere and honest.
Agin I repeated, “Marriage is a solemn thing.”
I heard a deep sithe behind me, and a sorrowful voice exclaimed,
“It is solemn then both ways, you say it is solemn to marry, and I
know”--here was another deep sithe “I _know_ it is solemn not to.” It was
Betsey, she was a thinkin’ of the Editer of the Augur, and of Ebineezer,
and of all the other dear gazelles, that lay cold and lifeless in her
buryin’ ground. I felt that I could not comfort her, and I was silent.
Miss Woodhull is a well bread woman, and so to kinder notice Betsey, and
make talk with her, says she,
“I believe you are the author of these lines
‘If wimmen had a mice’s will,
They would arise and get a _bill_?’”
“Yes,” says Betsey, tryin’ to put on the true modesty of jenieus look.
Miss Woodhull said “she had heard it sung to several free love
conventions.”
“How true it is,” says Betsey glancin’ towards Mr. Tilton, “that deathless
fame sometimes comes by reason of what you feel in your heart haint the
best part of you. Now in this poem I speak hard of man, but I didn’t feel
it Miss Woodhull, I didn’t feel it at the time, I wrote it jest for
fame and to please Prof. Gusheh. I love men,” says she, glancin’ at Mr.
Tilton’s handsome face, and hitchin’ her chair up closer to his’en.
“I almost worship ’em.”
Theodore began to look uneasy, for Betsey had sot down close by the side
of him and says she,
“Did you ever read the soul stirrin’ lines that Miss Woodhull refers to,
I will rehearse them to you, and also three others of 25 verses apiece
which I have wrote since on the same subject.”
I see a cold sweat begin to break on his white and almost marble forward,
and with a agitated move he ketched out his watch and says he,
“I have a engagement.”
Says Betsey, beseechin’ly layin’ her hand on his coat sleeve, “I can
rehearse them in 26 or 27 minutes, and oh how sweet your sympathy would
be to me, let me repeat them to you deah man.”
A haggard look crept into his handsome eyes, and says he, wildly turnin’
’em away, “It is a case of life and death,” and he hurried to the door.
But Betsey started up and got ahead of him, she got between him and the
door, and says she, “I will let you off about hearin’ the poetry--but oh!
listen to my otheh prayer.”
“I _won’t_ listen to your prayer,” says he, firmly.
“In the name of the female wimmen of America who worship you so, pause,
and heah my prayer.”
He paused deeply agitated, and says he. “In their name I will hear you,
what is your request Betsey Bobbet?”
She clasped her hands in a devotional way, and with as beseechin’ and
almost heart meltin’ a look as a dog will give to a bone held above its
head, she murmured,
“A lock of youh haih deah man, that I may look at it when the world looks
hollow to me, a lock of youh haih to make my life path easier to me.”
I turned my spectacles on which principle sot enthroned, towards ’em, and
listened in awful deep interest to see how it would end. Would he yield
or not? He almost trembled. But finally he spoke.
“Never! Betsey Bobbet! never!” and he continued in low, agitated tones,
“I have got jest enough to look well now.”
My heart throbbed proudly, to see him comin’ so nobly through the hot
furnace of temptation, without bein’ scorched. To see him bein’ lifted up
in the moral steelyards, and found full weight to a notch. But alas! Jest
as small foxes will gnaw into a grape vine, jest so will dangerous and
almost loose principles gnaw into a noble and upright nature unbeknown to
them.
Agin Betsey says in harrowin’ tones, at the same time ketchin’ holt of
his coat skirts wildly,
“If you can’t part with any more, give me one haih, to make my life path
smootheh.”
[Illustration: BETSEY’S PRAYER.]
Alas! that my spectacles was ever bought to witness the sad sight. For
with a despairin’, agonized countenance such as Lucifer, son of Mr.
Mornin’ might have wore as he fell doun, Theodore plucked a hair out of
his foretop, threw it at Betsey’s feet, and rushed out doors. Betsey with
a proud, haughty look, picked it up, kissed it a few times, and put it
into her port-money.
But I sithed.
I hadn’t no heart to say anything more to Victory. I bid her farewell.
But after we got out in the street, I kept a sithin’.
A WIMMEN’S RIGHTS’ LECTURER.
As we wended our way back to Miss Asters’es to dinner, Betsey said she
guessed after all she would go and take dinner to her cousin Ebeneezer’s,
for her Pa hadn’t give her much money. Says she,
“I hate to awfully. It is revoltin’ to all the fineh feelings of my
nature to take dinneh theah, afteh I have been so--” she stopped
suddenly, and then went on agin. “But Pa didn’t make much this yeah,
and he didn’t give me much money, he nor Ma wouldn’t have thought they
could have paid my faih heah on the cars, if they hadn’t thought certain,
that Ebeneezah’s wife would be took from us, and I--should do my duty by
coming. So I guess I will go theah and get dinneh.”
Thinks’es I to myself, “If your folks had brought you up to emanual
labor, if they had brought you up to any other trade only to get married,
you might have money enough of your own to buy one dinner independent,
without dependin’ on some man to earn it for you.” But I didn’t say
nothin’, but proceeded onwards to the tavern where I put up. When I got
there I met Johnothan Beans’es ex wife, and says she,
“Oh, I forgot, there is a lady here that wanted to see you when you got
back.”
“Who is it,” says I.
“It is a female lecturer on wimmen’s rights,” says she.
Well, says I, “Principle before vittles, is my theme, fetch her on.”
Says she, “Go into your room and I’ll tell her you have come, and bring
her there. She is awful anxious to see you.”
Well, says I, “I’m visible to the naked eye, she won’t have to take a
telescope,” and in this calm state of mind I went into my room and waited
for her.
Pretty soon she came in.
Jonothan Beans’es ex wife introduced us, and then went out. I rose up and
took holt of her hand, but I give it a sort of a catious shake, for I
didn’t like her looks. Of all the painted, and frizzled, and ruffled, and
humped up, and laced down critters I ever see, she was the cap sheaf. She
had a hump on her back bigger than any camel’s I ever see to a managery,
and no three wimmen ever grew the hair that critter had piled on to her
head.
I see she was dissapointed in my looks. She looked dreadful kinder
scornful down onto my plain alpaca, which was made of a sensible length.
Hers hung down on the carpet. I’ll bet there was more’n a bushel basket
of puckers and ruffles that trailed down on to the floor behind her,
besides all there was on the skirt and waist.
She never said a word about my dress, but I see she looked awful scornful
on to it. But she went on to talk about Wimmen’s Rights, and I see she
was one of the wild eyed ones, that don’t use no reason. I see here was
another chance for me to do good--to act up to principle. And as she give
another humiliatin’ look onto my dress, I become fully determined in my
own mind, that I wouldn’t shirk out from doin’ my duty by her, and tell
her jest what I thought of her looks. She said she had just returned from
a lecturin’ tower out in the Western States, and that she had addressed a
great many audiences, and had come pretty near gettin’ a Wimmen’s Rights
Governor chosen in one of the States. She got to kinder preachin’ after a
while, and stood lookin’ up towards the cealin’, and her hands stretched
out as if she was a lecturin’. Says she,
“Tyrant man shan’t never rule us.” Says I, “I haint no objection to your
makin’ tyrant man better, if you can--there is a chance for improvement
in ’em--but while we are handlin’ ‘motes,’ sister, let us remember that
we have got considerable to do in the line of ‘beams.’” Says I, “To see a
lot of immortal wimmen together, sometimes, you would think the Lord had
forgot to put any brains into their heads, but had filled it all up with
dress patterns, and gossip, and beaux, and tattan.”
[Illustration: ON A LECTURIN’ TOWER.]
“Tyrant man has encouraged this weakness of intellect. He has for ages
made woman a plaything; a doll; a menial slave. He has encouraged her
weakness of comprehension, because it flattered his self love and vanity,
to be looked up to as a superior bein’. He has enjoyed her foolishness.”
“No doubt there is some truth in what you say, sister, but them days are
past. A modest, intelligent woman is respected and admired now, more than
a fool. It is so in London and New York village, and,” says I with some
modesty, “it is so in Jonesville.”
“Tyrant man,” begun the woman agin. “Tyrant man thinks that wimmen are
weak, slavish idiots, that don’t know enough to vote. But them tyrants
will find themselves mistaken.”
The thought that Josiah was a man, came to me then as it never had
before. And as she looked down from the cealin’ a minute on to my dress
with that scornful mene, principle nerved me up to give her a piece of my
mind.
Says I, “No wonder men don’t think that we know enough to vote when they
see the way some wimmen rig themselves out. Why says I, a bachelder that
had always kept house in a cave, that had read about both and hadn’t
never seen neither, would as soon take you for a dromedary as a woman.”
She turned round quicker’n lightnin’, and as she did so, I see her hump
plainer’n ever.
Says she, “Do you want to insult me?”
“No,” says I, “my intentions are honorable, mom.
“But,” says I, puttin’ the question plain to her, “would you vote for
a man, that had his pantaloons made with trails to ’em danglin’ on the
ground, and his vest drawed in to the bottom tight enough to cut him
into, and his coat tails humped out with a bustle, and somebody else’s
hair pinned on the back of his head? Would you?” says I solemnly fixin’
my spectacles keenly onto her face. “Much as I respect and honor Horace
Greeley, if that pure-minded and noble man should rig himself out with
a bustle and trailin’ pantaloons, I wouldn’t vote for him, and Josiah
shouldn’t neither.”
[Illustration: HOW WOULD YOU LIKE IT?]
But she went right on without mindin’ me--“Man has always tried to dwarf
our intellects; cramp our souls. The sore female heart pants for freedom.
It is sore! and it pants.”
Her eyes was rolled up in her head, and she had lifted both hands in
a eloquent way, as she said this, and I had a fair view of her waist,
it wasn’t much bigger than a pipe’s tail. And I says to her in a low,
friendly tone. “Seein’ we are only females present, let me ask you in
a almost motherly way, when your heart felt sore and pantin’ did you
ever loosen your cosset strings? Why,” says I, “no wonder your heart
feels sore, no wonder it pants, the only wonder is, that it don’t get
discouraged and stop beatin’ at all.”
She wanted to waive off the subject, I knew, for she rolled up her eyes
higher than ever, and agin she began “Tyrant man”--
Agin I thought of Josiah, and agin I interrupted her by sayin’ “Men haint
the worst critters in the world, they are as generous and charitable
agin, as wimmen are, as a general thing.”
“Then what do you want wimmen to vote for, if you think so?”
“Because I want justice done to every human bein’. Justice never hurt
nobody yet, and rights given through courtesy and kindness, haint so
good in the long run, as rights given by law. And besides, there are
exceptions to every rule. There are mean men in the world as well as
good ones. Justice to wimmen won’t prevent charitable men from bein’
charitable, generous men from bein’ generous, and good men from bein’
good, while it will restrain selfishness and tyrany. One class was never
at the mercy of another, in any respect, without that power bein’ abused
in some instances. Wimmen havin’ the right to vote haint a goin’ to turn
the world over to once, and make black, white, in a minute, not by no
means. But I sincerely believe it will bring a greater good to the female
race and to the world.”
Says I, in my most eloquent way, “There is a star of hope a risin’ in
the East for wimmen. Let us foller on after it through the desert of the
present time, not with our dresses trailin’ down onto the sandy ground,
and our waists lookin’ like pismires, and our hair frizzled out like
maniacs. Let us go with our own hair on our heads, soberly, decently, and
in order; let us behave ourselves in such a sober, christian way, that we
can respect ourselves, and then men will respect us.”
“I thought,” says she, “that you was a pure Wimmen’s Righter! I thought
you took part with us in our warfare with our foeman man! I thought you
was a firm friend to wimmen, but I find I am mistaken.”
[Illustration: FEMALE STATESMANSHIP.]