Part 17
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.”
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.”
“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.”
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.”
“I _am_ a friend to wimmen,” says I, “and because I am, I don’t want her to make a natural born fool of herself. And I say agin, I don’t wonder sometimes, that men don’t think that wimmen know enough to vote, when they see ’em go on. If a woman don’t know enough to make a dress so she can draw a long breath in it, how is she goin’ to take deep and broad views of public affairs? If she puts 30 yards of calico into a dress, besides the trimmin’s, how is she goin’ to preach acceptably on political economy? If her face is covered with paint, and her curls and frizzles all danglin’ down onto her eyes, how can she look straight and keenly into foreign nations and see our relations there? If a woman don’t know enough to keep her dress out of the mud, how is she goin’ to steer the nation through the mud puddle of politics? If a woman humps herself out, and makes a camel of herself, how is she goin’ through the eye of a needle?”
I said these last words in a real solemn camp meetin’ tone, but they seemed to mad her, for she started right up and went out, and I didn’t care a cent if she did, I had seen enough of her. She ketched her trail in the door and tore off pretty nigh a yard of it, and I didn’t cry about that, not a mite. I don’t like these bold brazen faced wimmen that go a rantin’ round the country, rigged out in that way, jest to make themselves notorious. Thier names hadn’t ought to be mentioned in the same day, with true earnest wimmen who take thier reputations in thier hands, and give thier lives to the cause of Right, goin’ ahead walkin’ afoot through the wilderness, cuttin’ down trees, and diggin’ out stumps, makin’ a path for the car of Freedom, that shall yet roll onward into Liberty.
As soon as she was gone, I went down and eat my dinner, for I was hungry as a bear. At the dinner table Jonothan Beans’es ex wife asked me “what I would like for desert.”