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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..71cd50c --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #51861 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51861) diff --git a/old/51861-0.txt b/old/51861-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 602dfa8..0000000 --- a/old/51861-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1538 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Victoria C. Woodhull, by Theodore Tilton - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Victoria C. Woodhull - A Biographical Sketch - -Author: Theodore Tilton - -Release Date: April 25, 2016 [EBook #51861] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VICTORIA C. WOODHULL *** - - - - -Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - BIOGRAPHY - - OF - - -[Illustration: Victoria C. Woodhull,] - - BY - - THEODORE TILTON. - -[Illustration: The Golden Age] - - TRACTS. - - No. 3. - - - - - Victoria C. Woodhull. - A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. - - - BY - - THEODORE TILTON. - - "_He that uttereth a slander is a fool._" - —SOLOMON: Prov. x. 18. - - PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICE OF - THE GOLDEN AGE, - 9 Spruce St., New York. - 1871. - - - - - _Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by Theodore - Tilton - in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington._ - - - - - MR. TILTON'S ACCOUNT OF MRS. WOODHULL. - - - "_He that uttereth a slander is a fool._" - —SOLOMON: Prov. x. 18. - -I shall swiftly sketch the life of Victoria Claflin Woodhull; a young -woman whose career has been as singular as any heroine's in a romance; -whose ability is of a rare and whose character of the rarest type; whose -personal sufferings are of themselves a whole drama of pathos; whose -name (through the malice of some and the ignorance of others) has caught -a shadow in strange contrast with the whiteness of her life; whose -position as a representative of her sex in the greatest reform of modern -times renders her an object of peculiar interest to her fellow-citizens; -and whose character (inasmuch as I know her well) I can portray without -color or tinge from any other partiality save that I hold her in -uncommon respect. - -In Homer, Ohio, in a small cottage, white-painted and high-peaked, with -a porch running round it and a flower garden in front, this daughter, -the seventh of ten children of Roxana and Buckman Claflin, was born -September 23d, 1838. As this was the year when Queen Victoria was -crowned, the new-born babe, though clad neither in purple nor fine -linen, but comfortably swaddled in respectable poverty, was immediately -christened (though without chrism) as the Queen's namesake; her parents -little dreaming that their daughter would one day aspire to a higher -seat than the English throne. The Queen, with that early matronly -predilection which her subsequent life did so much to illustrate, -foresaw that many glad mothers, who were to bring babes into the world -during that coronation year, would name them after the chief lady of the -earth; and accordingly she ordained a gift to all her little namesakes -of Anno Domini 1838. As Victoria Claflin was one of these, she has -lately been urged to make a trip to Windsor Castle, to see the -illustrious giver of these gifts, and to receive the special souvenir -which the Queen's bounty is supposed to hold still in store for the Ohio -babe that uttered its first cry as if to say "Long live the Queen!" Mrs. -Woodhull, who is now a candidate for the Presidency of the United -States, should defer this visit till after her election, when she will -have a beautiful opportunity to invite her elder sister in -sovereignty—the mother of our mother country—to visit her fairest -daughter, the Republic of the West. - -It is pitiful to be a child without a childhood. Such was she. Not a -sunbeam gilded the morning of her life. Her girlish career was a -continuous bitterness—an unbroken heart-break. She was worked like a -slave—whipped like a convict. Her father was impartial in his cruelty to -all his children; her mother, with a fickleness of spirit that renders -her one of the most erratic of mortals, sometimes abetted him in his -scourgings, and at other times shielded the little ones from his blows. -In a barrel of rain-water he kept a number of braided green withes made -of willow or walnut twigs, and with these stinging weapons, never with -an ordinary whip, he would cut the quivering flesh of the children till -their tears and blood melted him into mercy. Sometimes he took a handsaw -or a stick of firewood as the instrument of his savagery. Coming home -after the children were in bed, on learning of some offence which they -had committed, he has been known to waken them out of sleep, and to whip -them till morning. In consequence of these brutalities, one of the sons, -in his thirteenth year, burst away from home, went to sea, and still -bears in a shattered constitution the damning memorial of his father's -wrath. "I have no remembrance of a father's kiss," says Victoria. Her -mother has on occasions tormented and harried her children until they -would be thrown into spasms, whereat she would hysterically laugh, clap -her hands, and look as fiercely delighted as a cat in playing with a -mouse. At other times, her tenderness toward her offspring would appear -almost angelic. She would fondle them, weep over them, lift her arms and -thank God for such children, caress them with ecstatic joy, and then -smite them as if seeking to destroy at a blow both body and soul. This -eccentric old lady, compounded in equal parts of heaven and hell, will -pray till her eyes are full of tears, and in the same hour curse till -her lips are white with foam. The father exhibits a more tranquil -bitterness, with fewer spasms. These parental peculiarities were lately -made witnesses against their possessors in a court of justice. - -If I must account for what seems unaccountable, I may say that with -these parents, these traits are not only constitutional but have been -further developed by circumstances. The mother, who has never in her -life learned to read, was during her maidenhood the petted heiress of -one of the richest German families of Pennsylvania, and was brought up -not to serve but to be served, until in her ignorance and vanity she -fancied all things her own, and all people her ministers. The father, -partly bred to the law and partly to real-estate speculations, early in -life acquired affluence, but during Victoria's third year suddenly lost -all that he had gained, and sat down like a beggar in the dust of -despair. The mother, from her youth, had been a religious monomaniac—a -spiritualist before the name of spiritualism was coined, and before the -Rochester knockings had noised themselves into the public ear. She saw -visions and dreamed dreams. During the half year preceding Victoria's -birth, the mother became powerfully excited by a religious revival, and -went through the process known as "sanctification." She would rise in -prayer-meetings and pour forth passionate hallelujahs that sometimes -electrified the worshippers. The father, colder in temperament, yet -equally inclined to the supernatural, was her partner in these -excitements. When the stroke of poverty felled them to the earth, these -exultations were quenched in grief. The father, in the opinion of some, -became partially crazed; he would take long and rapid walks, sometimes -of twenty miles, and come home with bleeding feet and haggard face. The -mother, never wholly sane, would huddle her children together as a hen -her chickens, and wringing her hands above them, would pray by the hour -that God would protect her little brood. Intense melancholy—a -misanthropic gloom thick as a sea-fog—seized jointly upon both their -minds, and at intervals ever since has blighted them with its mildew. It -is said that a fountain cannot send forth at the same time sweet waters -and bitter, and yet affection and enmity will proceed from this couple -almost at the same moment. At times, they are full of craftiness, low -cunning, and malevolence; at other times, they beam with sunshine, -sweetness, and sincerity. I have seen many strange people, but the -strangest of all are the two parents whose commingled essence -constitutes the spiritual principle of the heroine of this tale. - -Just here, if any one asks, "How is it that such parents should not have -reproduced their eccentricities in their children?" I answer, "This is -exactly what they have done." The whole brood are of the same -feather—except Victoria and Tennie. What language shall describe them? -Such another family-circle of cats and kits, with soft fur and sharp -claws, purring at one moment and fighting the next, never before filled -one house with their clamors since Babel began. They love and hate—they -do good and evil—they bless and smite each other. They are a sisterhood -of furies, tempered with love's melancholy. Here and there one will drop -on her knees and invoke God's vengeance on the rest. But for years there -has been one common sentiment sweetly pervading the breasts of a -majority towards a minority of the offspring, namely, a determination -that Victoria and Tennie should earn all the money for the support of -the numerous remainder of the Claflin tribe—wives, husbands, children, -servants, and all. Being daughters of the horse-leech, they cry "give." -It is the common law of the Claflin clan that the idle many shall eat up -the substance of the thrifty few. Victoria is a green leaf, and her -legion of relatives are caterpillars who devour her. Their sin is that -they return no thanks after meat; they curse the hand that feeds them. -They are what my friend Mr. Greeley calls "a bad crowd." I am a little -rough in saying this, I admit; but I have a rude prejudice in favor of -the plain truth. - -Victoria's school-days comprised, all told, less than three -years—stretching with broken intervals between her eighth and eleventh. -The aptest learner of her class, she was the pet alike of scholars and -teacher. Called "The Little Queen" (not only from her name but her -demeanor) she bore herself with mimic royalty, like one born to command. -Fresh and beautiful, her countenance being famed throughout the -neighborhood for its striking spirituality, modest, yet energetic, and -restive from the over-fulness of an inward energy such as quickened the -young blood of Joan of Arc, she was a child of genius, toil, and grief. -The little old head on the little young shoulders was often bent over -her school-book at the midnight hour. Outside of the school-room, she -was a household drudge, serving others so long as they were awake, and -serving herself only when they slept. Had she been born black, or been -chained to a cart-wheel in Alabama, she could not have been a more -enslaved slave. During these school-years, child as she was, she was the -many-burdened maid-of-all-work in the large family of a married sister; -she made fires, she washed and ironed, she baked bread, she cut wood, -she spaded a vegetable garden, she went on errands, she tended infants, -she did everything. "Victoria! Victoria!" was the call in the morning -before the cock-crowing; when, bouncing out of bed, the "little steam -engine," as she was styled, began her buzzing activities for the day. -Light and fleet of step, she ran like a deer. She was everybody's -favorite—loved, petted, and by some marveled at as a semi-supernatural -being. Only in her own home (not a sweet but bitter home) was she -treated with the cruelty that still beclouds the memory of her early -days. - -I must now let out a secret. She acquired her studies, performed her -work, and lived her life by the help (as she believes) of heavenly -spirits. From her childhood till now (having reached her thirty-third -year) her anticipation of the other world has been more vivid than her -realization of this. She has entertained angels, and not unawares. These -gracious guests have been her constant companions. They abide with her -night and day. They dictate her life with daily revelation; and like St. -Paul, she is "not disobedient to the heavenly vision." She goes and -comes at their behest. Her enterprises are not the coinage of her own -brain, but of their divine invention. Her writings and speeches are the -products, not only of their indwelling in her soul, but of their -absolute control of her brain and tongue. Like a good Greek of the olden -time, she does nothing without consulting her oracles. Never, as she -avers, have they deceived her, nor ever will she neglect their decrees. -One-third of human life is passed in sleep; and in her case, a goodly -fragment of this third is spent in trance. Seldom a day goes by but she -enters into this fairy-land, or rather into this spirit-realm. In -pleasant weather, she has a habit of sitting on the roof of her stately -mansion on Murray Hill, and there communing hour by hour with the -spirits. She as a religious devotee—her simple theology being an -absorbing faith in God and the angels. - -Moreover, I may as well mention here as later, that every characteristic -utterance which she gives to the world is dictated while under -spirit-influence, and most often in a totally unconscious state. The -words that fall from her lips are garnered by the swift pen of her -husband, and published almost verbatim as she gets and gives them. To -take an illustration, after her recent nomination to the Presidency by -"The Victoria League," she sent to that committee a letter of superior -dignity and moral weight. It was a composition which she had dictated -while so outwardly oblivious to the dictation, that when she ended and -awoke, she had no memory at all of what she had just done. The product -of that strange and weird mood was a beautiful piece of English, not -unworthy of Macaulay; and to prove what I say, I adduce the following -eloquent passage, which (I repeat) was published without change as it -fell from her unconscious lips: - -"I ought not to pass unnoticed," she says, "your courteous and graceful -allusion to what you deem the favoring omen of my name. It is true that -a Victoria rules the great rival nation opposite to us on the other -shore of the Atlantic, and it might grace the amity just sealed between -the two nations, and be a new security of peace, if a twin sisterhood of -Victorias were to preside over the two nations. It is true, also, that -in its mere etymology the name signifies _Victory!_ and the victory for -the right is what we are bent on securing. It is again true, also, that -to some minds there is a consonant harmony between the idea and the -word, so that its euphonious utterance seems to their imaginations to be -itself a genius of success. However this may be, I have sometimes -imagined that there is perhaps something providential and prophetic in -the fact that my parents were prompted to confer on me a name which -forbids the very thought of failure; and, as the great Napoleon believed -the star of his destiny, you will at least excuse me, and charge it to -the credulity of the woman, if I believe also in fatality of triumph as -somehow inhering in my name." - -In quoting this passage, I wish to add that its author is a person of no -special literary training; indeed, so averse to the pen that, of her own -will, she rarely dips it into ink, except to sign her business -autograph; nor would she ever write at all except for those -spirit-promptings which she dare not disobey; and she could not possibly -have produced the above peroration except by some strange intellectual -quickening—some over-brooding moral help. This (as she says) she derives -from the spirit-world. One of her texts is, "I will lift up mine eyes -unto the hills whence cometh my help—my help cometh from the Lord who -made Heaven and Earth." She reminds me of the old engraving of St. -Gregory dictating his homilies under the outspread wing of the Holy -Dove. - -It has been so from her childhood. So that her school studies were, -literally, a daily miracle. She would glance at a page, and know it by -heart. The tough little mysteries which bother the bewildered brains of -country-school dullards were always to her as vivid as the sunshine. And -when sent on long and weary errands, she believes that she has been -lifted over the ground by her angelic helpers—"lest she should dash her -feet against a stone." When she had too heavy a basket to carry, an -unseen hand would sometimes carry it for her. Digging in the garden as -if her back would break, occasionally a strange restfulness would -refresh her, and she knew that the spirits were toiling in her stead. -All this may seem an illusion to everybody else, but will never be other -than a reality to her. - -Let me cite some details of these spiritual phenomena, curious in -themselves, and illustrating the forces that impel her career. - -"My spiritual vision," she says, "dates back as early as my third year." -In Victoria's birth place, a young woman named Rachel Scribner, about -twenty-five years of age, who had been Victoria's nurse, suddenly died. -On the day of her death, Victoria was picked up by her departing spirit, -and borne off into the spirit-world. To this day Mrs. Woodhull describes -vividly her childish sensations as she felt herself gliding through the -air—like St. Catharine winged away by the angels. Her mother testifies -that while this scene was enacting to the child's inner consciousness, -her little body lay as if dead for three hours. - -Two of her sisters, who had died in childhood, were constantly present -with her. She would talk to them as a girl tattles to her dolls. They -were her most fascinating playmates, and she never cared for any others -while she had their invisible society. - -In her tenth year, one day while sitting by the side of a cradle rocking -a sick babe to sleep, she says that two angels came, and gently pushing -her away, began to fan the child with their white hands, until its face -grew fresh and rosy. Her mother then suddenly entered the chamber, and -beheld in amazement the little nurse lying in a trance on the floor, her -face turned upward toward the ceiling, and the pining babe apparently in -the bloom of health. - -The chief among her spiritual visitants, and one who has been a majestic -guardian to her from the earliest years of her remembrance, she -describes as a matured man of stately figure, clad in a Greek tunic, -solemn and graceful in his aspect, strong in his influence, and -altogether dominant over her life. For many years, notwithstanding an -almost daily visit to her vision, he withheld his name, nor would her -most importunate questionings induce him to utter it. But he always -promised that in due time he would reveal his identity. Meanwhile he -prophecied to her that she would rise to great distinction; that she -would emerge from her poverty and live in a stately house; that she -would win great wealth in a city which he pictured as crowded with -ships; that she would publish and conduct a journal; and that finally, -to crown her career, she would become the ruler of her people. At -length, after patiently waiting on this spirit-guide for twenty years, -one day in 1868, during a temporary sojourn in Pittsburgh, and while she -was sitting at a marble table, he suddenly appeared to her, and wrote on -the table in English letters the name "Demosthenes." At first the -writing was indistinct, but grew to such a luster that the brightness -filled the room. The apparition, familiar as it had been before, now -affrighted her to trembling. The stately and commanding spirit told her -to journey to New York, where she would find at No. 17 Great Jones -street a house in readiness for her, equipped in all things to her use -and taste. She unhesitatingly obeyed, although she never before had -heard of Great Jones street, nor until that revelatory moment had -entertained an intention of taking such a residence. On entering the -house, it fulfilled in reality the picture which she saw of it in her -vision—the self-same hall, stairways, rooms, and furniture. Entering -with some bewilderment into the library, she reached out her hand by -chance, and without knowing what she did, took up a book which, on idly -looking at its title, she saw (to her blood-chilling astonishment) to be -"The Orations of Demosthenes." From that time onward, the Greek -statesman has been even more palpably than in her earlier years her -prophetic monitor, mapping out the life which she must follow, as a -chart for a ship sailing the sea. She believes him to be her familiar -spirit—the author of her public policy, and the inspirer of her -published words. Without intruding my own opinion as to the authenticity -of this inspiration, I have often thought that if Demosthenes could -arise and speak English, he could hardly excel the fierce light and heat -of some of the sentences which I have heard from this singular woman in -her glowing hours. - -I now turn back to her first marriage. The bride (pitiful to tell) was -in her fourteenth year, the bridegroom in his twenty-eighth. It was a -fellowship of misery—and her parents, who abetted it, ought to have -prevented it. The Haytians speak of escaping out of the river by leaping -into the sea. From the endurable cruelty of her parents, she fled to the -unendurable cruelty of her husband. She had been from her twelfth to her -fourteenth year a double victim, first to chills and fever, and then to -rheumatism, which had jointly played equal havoc with her beauty and -health, until she was brought within a step of "the iron door." Dr. -Canning Woodhull, a gay rake, but whose habits were kept hid from _her_ -under the general respectability of his family connections (his father -being an eminent judge, and his uncle the mayor of New York), was -professionally summoned to visit the child, and being a trained -physician arrested her decline. Something about her artless manners and -vivacious mind captivated his fancy. Coming as a prince, he found her as -Cinderella—a child of the ashes. Before she entirely recovered, and -while looking haggard and sad, one day he stopped her in the street, and -said, "My little chick, I want you to go with me to the -pic-nic"—referring to a projected Fourth of July excursion then at hand. -The promise of a little pleasure acted like a charm on the house-worn -and sorrow-stricken child. She obtained her mother's assent to her -going, but her father coupled it with the condition that she should -first earn money enough to buy herself a pair of shoes. So the little -fourteen-year-old drudge became for the nonce an apple-merchant, and -with characteristic business energy sold her apples and bought her -shoes. She went to the pic-nic with Dr. Woodhull, like a ticket-of-leave -juvenile-delinquent on a furlough. On coming home from the festival, the -brilliant fop who, tired of the demi-monde ladies whom he could purchase -for his pleasure, and inspired with a sudden and romantic interest in -this artless maid, said to her, "My little puss, tell your father and -mother that I want you for a wife." The startled girl quivered with -anger at this announcement, and with timorous speed fled to her mother -and repeated the tale, feeling as if some injury was threatened her, and -some danger impended. But the parents, as if not unwilling to be rid of -a daughter whose sorrow was ripening her into a woman before her time, -were delighted at the unexpected offer. They thought it a grand match. -They helped the young man's suit, and augmented their persecutions of -the child. Ignorant, innocent, and simple, the girl's chief thought of -the proffered marriage was as an escape from the parental yoke. Four -months later she accepted the change—flying from the ills she had to -others that she knew not of. Her captor, once possessed of his treasure, -ceased to value it. On the third night after taking his child-wife to -his lodgings, he broke her heart by remaining away all night at a house -of ill-repute. Then for the first time she learned, to her dismay, that -he was habitually unchaste, and given to long fits of intoxication. She -was stung to the quick. The shock awoke all her womanhood. She grew ten -years older in a single day. A tumult of thoughts swept like a whirlwind -through her mind, ending at last in one predominant purpose, namely, to -reclaim her husband. She set herself religiously to this pious -task—calling on God and the spirits to help her in it. - -Six weeks after her marriage (during which time her husband was mostly -with his cups and his mistresses), she discovered a letter addressed to -him in a lady's elegant penmanship, saying, "Did you marry that child -because she too was _en famille_?" This was an additional thunderbolt. -The fact was that her husband, on the day of his marriage, had sent away -into the country a mistress who a few months later gave birth to a -child. - -Squandering his money like a prodigal, he suddenly put his wife into the -humblest quarters, where, left mostly to herself, she dwelt in -bitterness of spirit, aggravated from time to time by learning of his -ordering baskets of champagne and drinking himself drunk in the company -of harlots. - -Sometimes, with uncommon courage, through rain and sleet, half clad and -shivering, she would track him to his dens, and by the energy of her -spirit compel him to return. At other times, all night long she would -watch at the window, waiting for his footsteps, until she heard them -languidly shuffling along the pavement with the staggering reel of a -drunken man, in the shameless hours of the morning. - -During all this time, she passionately prayed Heaven to give her the -heart of her husband, but Heaven, decreeing otherwise, withheld it from -her, and for her good. - -In fifteen months after her marriage, while living in a little low -frame-house in Chicago, in the dead of winter, with icicles clinging to -her bed-post, and attended only by her half-drunken husband, she brought -forth in almost mortal agony her first-born child. In her ensuing -helplessness, she became an object of pity to a next-door neighbor who, -with a kindness which the sufferer's unhomelike home did not afford, -brought her day by day some nourishing dish. This same ministering hand -would then wrap the babe in a blanket, and take it to a happier mother -in the near neighborhood, who was at the same time nursing a new-born -son. In this way Victoria and her child—themselves both children—were -cared for with mingled gentleness and neglect. - -At the end of six days, the little invalid attempted to rise and put her -sick-room in order, when she was taken with delirium, during which her -mother visited her just in time to save her life. - -On her recovery, and after a visit to her father's house, she returned -to her own to be horror-struck at discovering that her bed had been -occupied the night before by her husband in company with a wanton of the -streets, and that the room was littered with the remains of their -drunken feast. - -Once, after a month's desertion by him, until she had no money and -little to eat, she learned that he was keeping a mistress at a -fashionable boarding-house, under the title of wife. The true wife, -still wrestling with God for the renegade, sallied forth into the wintry -street, clad in a calico dress without undergarments, and shod only with -india-rubbers without shoes or stockings, entered the house, confronted -the household as they sat at table, told her story to the confusion of -the paramour and his mistress, and drew tears from all the company till, -by a common movement, the listeners compelled the harlot to pack her -trunk and flee the city, and shamed the husband into creeping like a -spaniel back into the kennel which his wife still cherished as her home. - -To add to her misery, she discovered that her child, begotten in -drunkenness, and born in squalor, was a half idiot; predestined to be a -hopeless imbecile for life; endowed with just enough intelligence to -exhibit the light of reason in dim eclipse:—a sad and pitiful spectacle -in his mother's house to-day, where he roams from room to room, -muttering noises more sepulchral than human; a daily agony to the woman -who bore him, hoping more of her burden; and heightening the pathos of -the perpetual scene by the uncommon sweetness of his temper which, by -winning every one's love, doubles every one's pity. - -Journeying to California as a region where she might inspire her husband -to begin a new life freed from old associations, she there found herself -and her little family strangers in a strange city—beggars in a land of -plenty. Change of sky is not change of mind. Dr. Woodhull took his -habits, his wife took her necessities, and both took their misery, from -East to West. In San Francisco, the girlish woman, with unrelaxed -energy, and as part of that life-long heroism which will one day have -its monument, set herself to supporting the man by whom she ought to -have been supported. A morning journal had an advertisement—"A cigar -girl wanted." The wife, with her face of sweet sixteen, presented -herself as the first candidate, and was accepted on the spot. The -proprietor was a stalwart Californian—one of those men who catch from a -new country something of the liberality which the sailor brings from the -sea. She served for one day behind his counter—blushing, modest, and -sensitive, her ears tingling at every rude remark by every uncouth -customer—and at nightfall her employer, who had noticed the blood coming -and going in her cheeks, said to her, "My little lady, you are not the -clerk I want; I must have somebody who can rough it; you are too fine." -Inquiring into her case, he was surprised to find her married and a -mother. At first he discredited this information, but there was no -denying the truth of her story. He accompanied her to her husband, and -as the two men discovered themselves to each other as brother -free-masons, he gave his fair clerk of a day a twenty-dollar gold piece, -and dismissed her with his blessing. And I hope this has been revisited -on his own head. - -Resorting to her needle, she carried from house to house this only -weapon which many women possess wherewith to fight the battle of life. -She chanced to come upon Anna Cogswell, the actress, who wanted a -sempstress to make her a theatrical wardrobe. The winsome dressmaker was -engaged at once. But her earnings at this new calling did not keep pace -with her expenses. "It is no use," said she to her dramatic friend; "I -am running behindhand. I must do something better." "Then," replied the -actress, "you too must be an actress." And, nothing loth to undertake -anything new and difficult, Victoria, who never before had dreamed of -such a possibility, was engaged as a lesser light to the Cogswell star. -For a first appearance, she was cast in the part of the "Country Cousin" -in "New York by Gaslight." The text was given to her in the morning, she -learned and rehearsed it during the day, and made a fair hit in it at -night. For six weeks thereafter, she earned fifty-two dollars a week as -an actress. - -"Never leave the stage," said some of her fellow-performers, all of whom -admired her simplicity and spirituality. "But I do not care for the -stage," she said, "and I shall leave it at the first opportunity. I am -meant for some other fate. But what it is, I know not." - -It came—as all things have came to her—through the agency of spirits. -One night while on the boards, clad in a pink silk dress and slippers, -acting in the ballroom scene in the "Corsican Brothers," suddenly a -spirit-voice addressed her, saying, "Victoria, come home!" Thrown -instantly into clairvoyant condition, she saw a vision of her young -sister Tennie, then a mere child—standing by her mother, and both -calling the absent one to return. Her mother and Tennie were then in -Columbus, Ohio. She saw Tennie distinctly enough to notice that she wore -a striped French calico frock. "Victoria come home!" said the little -messenger, beckoning with her childish forefinger. The apparition would -not be denied. Victoria, thrilled and chilled by the vision and voice, -burst away at a bound behind the scenes, and without waiting to change -her dress, ran, clad with all her dramatic adornments, through a foggy -rain to her hotel, and packing up her few things that night, betook -herself with her husband and child next morning to the steamer bound for -New York. On the voyage she was thrown into such vivid spiritual states, -that she produced a profound excitement among the passengers. On -reaching her mother's home, she came upon Tennie dressed in the same -dress as in the vision; and on inquiring the meaning of the message, -"Victoria, come home!" was told that at the time it was uttered, her -mother had said to Tennie, "My dear, send the spirits after Victoria to -bring her home;" and moreover the French calico dress had appeared to -her spirit-sight at the very first moment its wearer had put it on. - -This homeward trip, and its consequences, marked a new phase in her -career—a turning point in her life. - -Hitherto her clairvoyant faculty had been put to no pecuniary use, but -she was now directed by the spirits to repair to Indianapolis, there to -announce herself as a medium, and to treat patients for the cure of -disease. Taking rooms in the Bates House, and publishing a card in the -journals, she found herself able, on saluting her callers, to tell by -inspiration their names, their residences, and their maladies. In a few -days she became the town's talk. Her marvellous performances in -clairvoyance being noised abroad, people flocked to her from a distance. -Her rooms were crowded and her purse grew fat. She reaped a golden -harvest—including, as its worthiest part, golden opinions from all sorts -of people. Her countenance would often glow as with a sacred light, and -she became an object of religious awe to many wonder-stricken people -whose inward lives she had revealed. Moreover, her unpretentious -modesty, and her perpetual disclaimer of any merit or power of her own, -and the entire crediting of this to spirit-influence, augmented the -interest with which all spectators regarded the amiable prodigy. First -at Indianapolis, and afterward at Terre Haute, she wrought some -apparently miraculous cures. She straightened the feet of the lame; she -opened the ears of the deaf; she detected the robbers of a bank; she -brought to light hidden crimes; she solved physiological problems; she -unveiled business secrets; she prophecied future events. Knowing the -wonders which she wrought, certain citizens disguised themselves and -came to her purporting to be strangers from a distant town, but she -instantly said, "Oh, no; you all live here." "How can you tell?" they -asked. "The spirits say so," she replied. - -Benedictions followed her; gifts were lavished upon her; money flowed in -a stream toward her. Journeying from city to city in the practice of her -spiritual art, she thereby supported all her relatives far and near. Her -income in one year reached nearly a hundred thousand dollars. She -received in one day, simply as fees for cures which she had wrought, -five thousand dollars. The sum total of the receipts of her practice, -and of her investments growing out of it, up to the time of its -discontinuance by direction of the spirits in 1869, was $700,000. The -age of wonders has not ceased! - -During all this period, though outwardly prosperous, she was inwardly -wretched. The dismal fact of her son's half-idiocy so preyed upon her -mind that, in a heat of morbid feeling, she fell to accusing her -innocent self for his misfortunes. The sight of his face rebuked her, -until, in brokenness of spirit, she prayed to God for another child—a -daughter, to be born with a fair body and a sound mind. Her prayer was -granted, but not without many accompaniments of inhumanity. Once during -her carriage of her unborn charge, she was kicked by its father in a fit -of drunkenness—inflicting a bruise on her body and a greater bruise to -her spirit. Profound as her double suffering was, in its lowest depth -there was a deeper still. She was plunged into this at the child's -birth. This event occurred at No. 53 Bond Street, New York, April 23d, -1861. She and her husband were at the time the only occupants of the -house—her trial coming upon her while no nurse, or servant, or other -human helper was under the roof. The babe entered the world at four -o'clock in the morning, handled by the feverish and unsteady hands of -its intoxicated father, who, only half in possession of his professional -skill, cut the umbilical cord too near the flesh and tied it so loose -that the string came off—laid the babe in its mother's arms—in an hour -afterward left them asleep and alone—and then staggered out of the -house. Nor did he remember to return. Meanwhile, the mother, on waking, -was startled to find that her head on the side next to her babe's body -was in a pool of blood—that her hair was soaked and clotted in a little -red stream oozing drop by drop from the bowels of the child. In her -motherly agony, reaching a broken chair-rung which happened to be lying -near, she pounded against the wall to summon help from the next house. -At intervals for several hours she continued this pounding, no one -answering—until at length one of the neighbors, a resolute woman, who -was attracted toward the noise, but unable to get in at the front-door, -removed the grating of the basement, and made her way up stairs to the -rescue of the mother and her babe. On the third day after, the mother, -on sitting propped in her bed and looking out of the window, caught -sight of her husband staggering up the steps of a house across the way, -mistaking it for his own! - -It was this horrible experience that first awoke her mind to the -question, "Why should I any longer live with this man?" Hitherto she had -entertained an almost superstitious idea of the devotion with which a -wife should cling to her husband. She had always been so faithful to him -that, in his cups, he would mock and jeer at her fidelity, and call her -a fool for maintaining it. At length the fool grew wiser, and after -eleven years of what, with conventional mockery, was called a -marriage—during which time her husband had never spent an evening with -her at home, had seldom drawn a sober breath, and had spent on other -women, not herself, all the money he had ever earned—she applied in -Chicago for a divorce, and obtained it. - -Previous to this crisis, there had occurred a remarkable incident which -more than ever confirmed her faith in the guardianship of spirits. One -day, during a severe illness of her son, she left him to visit her -patients, and on her return was startled with the news that the boy had -died two hours before. "No," she exclaimed, "I will not permit his -death." And with frantic energy she stripped her bosom naked, caught up -his lifeless form, pressed it to her own, and sitting thus, flesh to -flesh, glided insensibly into a trance in which she remained seven -hours; at the end of which time she awoke, a perspiration started from -his clammy skin, and the child that had been thought dead was brought -back again to life—and lives to this day in sad half-death. It is her -belief that the spirit of Jesus Christ brooded over the lifeless form, -and re-wrought the miracle of Lazarus for a sorrowing woman's sake. - -Victoria's father and mother, growing still more fanatical with their -advancing years, had all along subjected her to a series of singular -vexations. And the elder sisters had joined in the mischief-making, -outdoing the parents. Sometimes they would burst in upon Mrs. Woodhull's -house, and attempt to govern its internal economy; sometimes they would -carry off the furniture, or garments, or pictures; sometimes they would -crown her with eulogies as the greatest of human beings, and in the same -breath defame her as an agent of the devil. - -But their great cause of persecution grew out of her younger sister -Tennie's career. This young woman developed, while a child in her -father's house, a similar power to Victoria's. It was a penetrating -spiritual insight applied to the cure of disease. But her father and -mother, who regarded their daughter in the light of the damsel mentioned -in the Acts of the Apostles, who "brought her masters much gain by -soothsaying," put her before the public as a fortune-teller. By adding -to much that was genuine in her mediumship more that was charlatanry, -they aroused against this fraudulent business the indignation of the -sincere soul of Victoria who, more than most human beings, scorns a lie, -and would burn at the stake rather than practise a deceit. She clutched -Tennie as by main force and flung her out of this semi-humbug, to the -mingled astonishment of her money-greedy family, one and all. At this -time Tennie was supporting a dozen or twenty relatives by her ill-gotten -gains. Victoria's rescue of her excited the wrath of all these -parasites—which has continued hot and undying against both to this day. -The fond and fierce mother alternately loves and hates the two united -defiers of her morbid will; and the father, at times a Mephistopheles, -waits till the inspiration of cunning overmasters his parental instinct, -and watching for a moment when his ill word to a stranger will blight -their business schemes, drops in upon some capitalist whose money is in -their hands, lodges an indictment against his own flesh and blood, takes -out his handkerchief to hide a few well-feigned tears, clasps his hands -with an unfelt agony, hobbles off smiling sardonically at the mischief -which he has done, and the next day repents his wickedness with genuine -contrition and manlier woe. These parents would cheerfully give their -lives as a sacrifice to atone for the many mischiefs which they have -cast like burrs at their children; but if all the scars which they and -their progeny have inflicted on one another could be magically healed -to-day, they would be scratched open by the same hands and set stinging -and tingling anew to-morrow. - -There is a maxim that marriages are made in heaven, albeit contradicted -by the Scripture which declares that in heaven there is neither marrying -nor giving in marriage. But, even against the Scripture, it is safe to -say that Victoria's second marriage was made in Heaven; that is, it was -decreed by the self-same spirits whom she is ever ready to follow, -whether they lead her for discipline into the valley of the shadow of -death, or for comfort in those ways of pleasantness which are paths of -peace. Col. James H. Blood, commander of the 6th Missouri Regiment, who -at the close of the war was elected City Auditor of St. Louis, who -became President of the Society of Spiritualists in that place, and who -had himself been, like Victoria, the legal partner of a morally sundered -marriage, called one day on Mrs. Woodhull to consult her as a -spiritualistic physician (having never met her before), and was startled -to see her pass into a trance, during which she announced, unconsciously -to herself, that his future destiny was to be linked with hers in -marriage. Thus, to their mutual amazement, but to their subsequent -happiness, they were betrothed on the spot by "the powers of the air." -The legal tie by which at first they bound themselves to each other was -afterward by mutual consent annulled—the necessary form of Illinois law -being complied with to this effect. But the marriage stands on its -merits, and is to all who witness its harmony known to be a sweet and -accordant union of congenial souls. - -Col. Blood is a man of a philosophic and reflective cast of mind, an -enthusiastic student of the higher lore of spiritualism, a recluse from -society, and an expectant believer in a stupendous destiny for Victoria. -A modesty not uncommon to men of intellect prompts him to sequester his -name in the shade rather than to set it glittering in the sun. But he is -an indefatigable worker—driving his pen through all hours of the day and -half of the night. He is an active editor of _Woodhull & Claflin's -Weekly_, and one of the busy partners in the firm of Woodhull, Claflin & -Co., Brokers, at 44 Broad street, New York. His civic views are (to use -his favorite designation of them) cosmopolitical; in other words, he is -a radical of extreme radicalism—an internationalist of the most -uncompromising type—a communist who would rather have died in Paris than -be the president of a pretended republic whose first official act has -been the judicial murder of the only republicans in France. His -spiritualistic habits he describes in a letter to his friend, the writer -of this memorial, as follows: "At about eleven or twelve o'clock at -night, two or three times a week, and sometimes without nightly -interval, Victoria and I hold parliament with the spirits. It is by this -kind of study that we both have learned nearly all the valuable -knowledge that we possess. Victoria goes into a trance, during which her -guardian spirit takes control of her mind, speaking audibly through her -lips, propounding various matters for our subsequent investigation and -verification, and announcing principles, detached thoughts, hints of -systems, and suggestions for affairs. In this way, and in this spiritual -night-school, began that process of instruction by which Victoria has -risen to her present position as a political economist and politician. -During her entranced state, which generally lasts about an hour, but -sometimes twice as long, I make copious notes of all she says, and when -her speech is unbroken, I write down every word, and publish it without -correction or amendment. She and I regard all the other portion of our -lives as almost valueless compared with these midnight hours." The -preceding extract shows that this fine-grained transcendentalist is a -reverent husband to his spiritual wife, the sympathetic companion of her -entranced moods, and their faithful historian to the world. - -After her union with Col. Blood, instead of changing her name to his, -she followed the example of many actresses, singers, and other -professional women whose names have become a business property to their -owners, and she still continues to be known as Mrs. Woodhull. - -One night, about half a year after their marriage, she and her husband -were wakened at midnight in Cincinnati by the announcement that a man by -the name of Dr. Woodhull had been attacked with delirium tremens at the -Burnet House, and in a lucid moment had spoken of the woman from whom he -had been divorced, and begged to see her. Col. Blood immediately took a -carriage, drove to the hotel, brought the wretched victim home, and -jointly with Victoria took care of him with life-saving kindness for six -weeks. On his going away they gave him a few hundred dollars of their -joint property to make him comfortable in another city. He departed full -of gratitude, bearing with him the assurance that he would always be -welcome to come and go as a friend of the family. And from that day to -this, the poor man, dilapidated in body and emasculated in spirit, has -sometimes sojourned under Victoria's roof and sometimes elsewhere, -according to his whim or will. In the present ruins of the young gallant -of twenty years ago, there is more manhood (albeit an expiring spark -like a candle at its socket) than during any of the former years; and to -be now turned out of doors by the woman whom he wronged, but who would -not wrong him in return, would be an act of inhumanity which it would be -impossible for Mrs. Woodhull and Col. Blood either jointly or separately -to commit. For this piece of noble conduct—what is commonly called her -living with two husbands under one roof—she has received not so much -censure on earth as I think she will receive reward in heaven. No other -passage of her life more signally illustrates the nobility of her moral -judgments, or the supernal courage with which she stands by her -convictions. Not all the clamorous tongues in Christendom, though they -should simultaneously cry out against her "Fie, for shame!" could -persuade her to turn this wretched wreck from her home. And I say she is -right; and I will maintain this opinion against the combined Pecksniffs -of the whole world. - -This act, and the malice of enemies, together with her bold opinions on -social questions, have combined to give her reputation a stain. But no -slander ever fell on any human soul with greater injustice. A more -unsullied woman does not walk the earth. She carries in her very face -the fair legend of a character kept pure by a sacred fire within. She is -one of those aspiring devotees who tread the earth merely as a -stepping-stone to Heaven, and whose chief ambition is finally to present -herself at the supreme tribunal "spotless, and without wrinkle, or -blemish, or any such thing." Knowing her as well as I do, I cannot hear -an accusation against her without recalling Tennyson's line of King -Arthur, - - "Is thy white blamelessness accounted blame?" - -Fulfilling a previous prophecy, and following a celestial mandate, in -1869 she founded a bank and published a journal. These two events took -the town by storm. When the doors of her office in Broad street were -first thrown open to the public, several thousand visitors came in a -flock on the first day. The "lady brokers," as they were called (a -strange confession that brokers are not always gentlemen) were besieged -like lionesses in a cage. The daily press interviewed them; the weekly -wits satirized them; the comic sheets caricatured them; but like a -couple of fresh young dolphins, breasting the sea side by side, they -showed themselves native to the element, and cleft gracefully every -threatening wave that broke over their heads. The breakers could not -dash the brokers. Indomitable in their energy, the sisters won the good -graces of Commodore Vanderbilt—a fine old gentleman of comfortable -means, who of all the lower animals prefers the horse, and of all the -higher virtues admires pluck. Both with and without Commodore -Vanderbilt's help, Mrs. Woodhull has more than once shown the pluck that -has held the rein of the stock market as the Commodore holds his horse. -Her journal, as one sees it week by week, is generally a willow-basket -full of audacious manuscripts, apparently picked up at random and thrown -together pell-mell, stunning the reader with a medley of politics, -finance, free-love, and the pantarchy. This sheet, when the divinity -that shapes its ends shall begin to add to the rough-hewing a little -smooth-shaping; in other words, when its unedited chaos shall come to be -moulded by the spirits to that order which is Heaven's first law; this -not ordinary but "cardinary" journal, which is edited in one world, and -published in another, will become less a confusion to either, and more a -power for both. - -In 1870, following the English plan of self-nomination, Mrs. Woodhull -announced herself as a candidate for the Presidency—mainly for the -purpose of drawing public attention to the claims of woman to political -equality with man. She accompanied this announcement with a series of -papers in the _Herald_ on politics and finance, which have since been -collected into a volume entitled "The Principles of Government." She has -lately received a more formal nomination to that high office by "The -Victoria League," an organization which, being somewhat Jacobinical in -its secrecy, is popularly supposed, though not definitely known, to be -presided over by Commodore Vanderbilt, who is also similarly imagined to -be the golden corner-stone of the business house of Woodhull, Claflin & -Co. Should she be elected to the high seat to which she aspires, (an -event concerning which I make no prophecy,) I am at least sure that she -would excel any Queen now on any throne in her native faculty to govern -others. - -One night in December, 1869, while she lay in deep sleep, her Greek -guardian came to her, and sitting transfigured by her couch, wrote on a -scroll (so that she could not only see the words, but immediately -dictated them to her watchful amanuensis) the memorable document now -known in history as "The Memorial of Victoria C. Woodhull"—a petition -addressed to Congress, claiming under the Fourteenth Amendment the right -of women as of other "citizens of the United States" to vote in "the -States wherein they reside"—asking, moreover, that the State of New -York, of which she was a citizen, should be restrained by Federal -authority from preventing her exercise of this constitutional right. As -up to this time neither she nor her husband had been greatly interested -in woman suffrage, he had no sooner written this manifesto from her -lips, than he awoke her from the trance, and protested against the -communication as nonsense, believing it to be a trick of some -evil-disposed spirits. In the morning the document was shown to a number -of friends, including one eminent judge, who ridiculed its logic and -conclusions. But the lady herself, from whose sleeping and yet -unsleeping brain the strange document had sprung like Minerva from the -head of Jove, simply answered that her antique instructor, having never -misled her before, was guiding her aright then. Nothing doubting, but -much wondering, she took the novel demand to Washington, where, after a -few days of laughter from the shallow-minded, and of neglect from the -indifferent, it suddenly burst upon the Federal Capitol like a storm, -and then spanned it like a rainbow. She went before the Judiciary -Committee, and delivered an argument in support of her claim to the -franchise under the new Amendments, which some who heard it pronounced -one of the ablest efforts which they had ever heard on any subject. She -caught the listening ears of Senator Carpenter, Gen. Butler, Judge -Woodward, George W. Julian, Gen. Ashley, Judge Loughridge, and other -able statesmen in Congress, and harnessed these gentlemen as steeds to -her chariot. Such was the force of her appeal that the whole city rushed -together to hear it, like the Athenians to the market-place when -Demosthenes stood in his own and not a borrowed clay. A great audience, -one of the finest ever gathered in the capital, assembled to hear her -defend her thesis in the first public speech of her life. At the moment -of rising, her face was observed to be very pale, and she appeared about -to faint. On being afterward questioned as to the cause of her emotion, -she replied that, during the first prolonged moment, she remembered an -early prediction of her guardian-spirit, until then forgotten, that she -would one day speak in public, and that her first discourse would be -pronounced in the capital of her country. The sudden fulfilment of this -prophecy smote her so violently that for a moment she was stunned into -apparent unconsciousness. But she recovered herself, and passed through -the ordeal with great success—which is better luck than happened to the -real Demosthenes, for Plutarch mentions that his maiden speech was a -failure, and that he was laughed at by the people. - -Assisted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Paulina Wright Davis, Isabella -Beecher Hooker, Susan B. Anthony, and other staunch and able women whom -she swiftly persuaded into accepting this construction of the -Constitution, she succeeded, after her petition was denied by a majority -of the Judiciary Committee, in obtaining a minority report in its favor, -signed jointly by Gen. Benj. F. Butler of Massachusetts and Judge -Loughridge of Iowa. To have clutched this report from Gen. Butler—as it -were a scalp from the ablest head in the House of Representatives—was a -sufficient trophy to entitle the brave lady to an enrolment in the -political history of her country. She means to go to Washington again -next winter to knock at the half-opened doors of the Capitol until they -shall swing wide enough asunder to admit her enfranchised sex. - -I must say something of her personal appearance although it defies -portrayal, whether by photograph or pen. Neither tall nor short, stout -nor slim, she is of medium stature, lithe and elastic, free and -graceful. Her side face, looked at over her left shoulder, is of perfect -aquiline outline, as classic as ever went into a Roman marble, and -resembles the masque of Shakespeare taken after death; the same view, -looking from the right, is a little broken and irregular; and the front -face is broad, with prominent cheek bones, and with some unshapely nasal -lines. Her countenance is never twice alike, so variable is its -expression and so dependent on her moods. Her soul comes into it and -goes out of it, giving her at one time the look of a superior and almost -saintly intelligence, and at another leaving her dull, commonplace, and -unprepossessing. When under a strong spiritual influence, a strange and -mystical light irradiates from her face, reminding the beholder of the -Hebrew Lawgiver who gave to men what he received from God and whose face -during the transfer shone. Tennyson, as with the hand of a gold-beater, -has beautifully gilded the same expression in his stanza of St. Stephen -the Martyr in the article of death: - - "And looking upward, full of grace, - He prayed, and from a happy place, - God's glory smote him on the face." - -In conversation, until she is somewhat warmed with earnestness, she -halts, as if her mind were elsewhere, but the moment she brings all her -faculties to her lips for the full utterance of her message, whether it -be of persuasion or indignation, and particularly when under spiritual -control, she is a very orator for eloquence—pouring forth her sentences -like a mountain stream, sweeping away everything that frets its flood. - -Her hair which, when left to itself is as long as those tresses of -Hortense in which her son Louis Napoleon used to play hide-and-seek, she -now mercilessly cuts close like a boy's, from impatience at the daily -waste of time in suitably taking care of this prodigal gift of nature. - -She can ride a horse like an Indian, and climb a tree like an athlete; -she can swim, row a boat, play billiards, and dance; moreover, as the -crown of her physical virtues, she can walk all day like an -Englishwoman. - -"Difficulties," says Emerson, "exist to be surmounted." This might be -the motto of her life. In her lexicon (which is still of youth) there is -no such word as fail. Her ambition is stupendous—nothing is too great -for her grasp. Prescient of the grandeur of her destiny, she goes -forward with a resistless fanaticism to accomplish it. Believing -thoroughly in herself (or rather not in herself but in her spirit-aids) -she allows no one else to doubt either her or them. In her case the old -miracle is enacted anew—the faith which removes mountains. A soul set on -edge is a conquering weapon in the battle of life. Such, and of Damascus -temper, is hers. - -In making an epitome of her views, I may say that in politics she is a -downright democrat, scorning to divide her fellow-citizens into upper -and lower classes, but ranking them all in one comprehensive equality of -right, privilege, and opportunity; concerning finance, which is a -favorite topic with her, she holds that gold is not the true standard of -money-value, but that the government should abolish the gold-standard, -and issue its notes instead, giving to these a fixed and permanent -value, and circulating them as the only money; on social questions, her -theories are similar to those which have long been taught by John Stuart -Mill and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and which are styled by some as -free-love doctrines, while others reject this appellation on account of -its popular association with the idea of a promiscuous intimacy between -the sexes—the essence of her system being that marriage is of the heart -and not of the law, that when love ends marriage should end with it, -being dissolved by nature, and that no civil statute should outwardly -bind two hearts which have been inwardly sundered; and finally, in -religion, she is a spiritualist of the most mystical and ethereal type. - -In thus speaking of her views, I will add to them another fundamental -article of her creed, which an incident will best illustrate. Once a -sick woman who had been given up by the physicians, and who had received -from a Catholic priest extreme unction in expectation of death, was put -into the care of Mrs. Woodhull, who attempted to lure her back to life. -This zealous physician, unwilling to be baffled, stood over her patient -day and night, neither sleeping nor eating for ten days and nights, at -the end of which time she was gladdened not only at witnessing the sick -woman's recovery, but at finding that her own body, instead of weariness -or exhaustion from the double lack of sleep and food, was more fresh and -bright than at the beginning. Her face, during this discipline, grew -uncommonly fair and ethereal; her flesh wore a look of transparency; and -the ordinary earthiness of mortal nature began to disappear from her -physical frame and its place to be supplied with what she fancied were -the foretokens of a spiritual body. These phenomena were so vivid to her -own consciousness and to the observation of her friends, that she was -led to speculate profoundly on the transformation from our mortal to our -immortal state, deducing the idea that the time will come when the -living human body, instead of ending in death by disease, and -dissolution in the grave, will be gradually refined away until it is -entirely sloughed off, and the soul only, and not the flesh, remains. It -is in this way that she fulfils to her daring hope the prophecy that -"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." - -Engrossed in business affairs, nevertheless at any moment she would -rather die than live—such is her infinite estimate of the other world -over this. But she disdains all commonplace parleyings with the -spirit-realm such as are had in ordinary spirit-manifestations. On the -other hand, she is passionately eager to see the spirits face to face—to -summon them at her will and commune with them at her pleasure. Twice (as -she unshakenly believes) she has seen a vision of Jesus Christ—honored -thus doubly over St. Paul, who saw his Master but once, and then was -overcome by the sight. She never goes to any church—save to the solemn -temple whose starry arch spans her housetop at night, where she sits -like Simeon Stylites on his pillar, a worshipper in the sky. Against the -inculcations of her childish education, the spirits have taught her that -he whom the church calls the Saviour of the world is not God but man. -But her reverence for him is supreme and ecstatic. The Sermon on the -Mount fills her eyes with tears. The exulting exclamations of the -Psalmist are her familiar outbursts of devotion. For two years, as a -talisman against any temptation toward untruthfulness (which, with her, -is the unpardonable sin), she wore, stitched into the sleeve of every -one of her dresses, the 2d verse of the 120th Psalm, namely, "Deliver my -soul, O Lord, from lying lips, and from a deceitful tongue." Speaking -the truth punctiliously, whether in great things or small, she so -rigorously exacts the same of others, that a deceit practised upon her -enkindles her soul to a flame of fire; and she has acquired a -clairvoyant or intuitive power to detect a lie in the moment of its -utterance, and to smite the liar in his act of guilt. She believes that -intellectual power has its fountains in spiritual inspiration. And once -when I put to her the searching question, "What is the greatest truth -that has ever been expressed in words?" she thrilled me with the sudden -answer, "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God." - -As showing that her early clairvoyant power still abides, I will mention -a fresh instance. An eminent judge in Pennsylvania, in whose court-house -I had once lectured, called lately to see me at the office of The Golden -Age. On my inquiring after his family, he told me that a strange event -had just happened in it. "Three months ago," said he, "while I was in -New York, Mrs. Woodhull said to me, with a rush of feeling, 'Judge, I -foresee that you will lose two of your children within six weeks.'" This -announcement, he said, wounded him as a tragic sort of trifling with -life and death. "But," I asked, "did anything follow the prophecy?" -"Yes," he replied, "fulfilment; I lost two children within six weeks." -The Judge, who is a Methodist, thinks that Victoria the clairvoyant is -like "Anna the prophetess." - -Let me say that I know of no person against whom there are more -prejudices, nor any one who more quickly disarms them. This strange -faculty is the most powerful of her powers. She shoots a word like a -sudden sunbeam through the thickest mist of people's doubts and -accusations, and clears the sky in a moment. Questioned by some -committee or delegation who have come to her with idle tales against her -busy life, I have seen her swiftly gather together all the stones which -they have cast, put them like the miner's quartz into the furnace, melt -them with fierce and fervent heat, bring out of them the purest gold, -stamp thereon her image and superscription as if she were sovereign of -the realm, and then (as the marvel of it all) receive the sworn -allegiance of the whole company on the spot. At one of her public -meetings when the chair (as she hoped) would be occupied by Lucretia -Mott, this venerable woman had been persuaded to decline this -responsibility, but afterward stepped forward on the platform and -lovingly kissed the young speaker in presence of the multitude. Her -enemies (save those of her own household,) are strangers. To see her is -to respect her—to know her is to vindicate her. She has some impetuous -and headlong faults, but were she without the same traits which produce -these she would not possess the mad and magnificent energies which (if -she lives) will make her a heroine of history. - -In conclusion, amid all the rush of her active life, she believes with -Wordsworth that - - "The gods approve the depth and not - The tumult of the soul." - -So, whether buffeted by criticism or defamed by slander, she carries -herself in that religious peace which, through all turbulence, is "a -measureless content." When apparently about to be struck down, she -gathers unseen strength and goes forward conquering and to conquer. -Known only as a rash iconoclast, and ranked even with the most uncouth -of those noise-makers who are waking a sleepy world before its time, she -beats her daily gong of business and reform with notes not musical but -strong, yet mellows the outward rudeness of the rhythm by the inward and -devout song of one of the sincerest, most reverent, and divinely-gifted -of human souls. - -[Illustration: The Golden Age] - - _A Weekly Journal devoted to the Free Discussion of all Living - Questions of Church, State, Society, Literature, - Art, and Moral Reform._ - - Published every Wednesday at No. 9 Spruce Street, - New York City. - - THEODORE TILTON, - EDITOR AND PUBLISHER. - - W. T. CLARKE, Associate Editor. - O. W. RULAND, Associate Publisher. - - TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. - -Single copies, $3 per annum; four copies, $10, which is $2 50 a copy; -eight copies, $20. The party who sends $20 for a club of eight copies -(all sent at one time) will be entitled to a copy _free_. Postmasters -and others who get up clubs in their respective towns, can afterward add -single copies at $2 50. - - THE GOLDEN AGE TRACTS. - -No. 1. "THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN." A Letter to Horace Greeley by Theodore -Tilton. Price 5 cents; $3 per hundred. - -No. 2. "THE CONSTITUTION A TITLE-DEED TO WOMAN'S FRANCHISE." A Letter to -Charles Sumner by Theodore Tilton. Price 5 cents; $3 per hundred. - -No. 3. "VICTORIA C. WOODHULL." A Biographical Sketch. By Theodore -Tilton. 36 pages. Price 10 cents. - -No. 4. "THE SIN OF SINS." A tractate on what are called "fallen women." -By Theodore Tilton. Price 5 cents; $3 per hundred. - -The above pamphlets will be sent to any part of the United States -postage paid on receipt of the price. - -After you read this notice, and before you forget it, sit down and write -a letter to Mr. Tilton, subscribing for the paper and ordering some of -the tracts. - - All letters should be addressed to THEODORE TILTON, - Post-office Box 2848, - New York City. - - - - - TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES - - - 1. Silently corrected simple spelling, grammar, and typographical - errors. - 2. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed. - 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Victoria C. Woodhull, by Theodore Tilton - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VICTORIA C. 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Woodhull, by Theodore Tilton - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Victoria C. Woodhull - A Biographical Sketch - -Author: Theodore Tilton - -Release Date: April 25, 2016 [EBook #51861] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VICTORIA C. WOODHULL *** - - - - -Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class='tnotes covernote'> - -<p class='c000'> <strong>Transcriber's Note:</strong></p> - -<p class='c000'> The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.</p> - -</div> - -<div class='ph1'> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c001'> - <div>BIOGRAPHY</div> - <div class='c002'>OF</div> - </div> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/i_001.jpg' alt='Victoria C. Woodhull,' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div>BY</div> - <div class='c002'>THEODORE TILTON.</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='figcenter id001'> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_1'>1</span> -<img src='images/i_003.jpg' alt='The Golden Age' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div><span class='xlarge'>TRACTS.</span></div> - <div class='c002'>No. 3.</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div> - <h1 class='c004'>Victoria C. Woodhull.<br /><span class='large'><span class='sc'>A Biographical Sketch.</span></span></h1> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div>BY</div> - <div class='c002'><span class='large'>THEODORE TILTON.</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>"<em>He that uttereth a slander is a fool.</em>"</div> - <div class='line in18'>—<span class='sc'>Solomon</span>: Prov. x. 18.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div><span class='sc'>Published at the Office of</span></div> - <div><span class='large'>THE GOLDEN AGE,</span></div> - <div>9 Spruce St., New York.</div> - <div>1871.</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c001'> - <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_2'>2</span><em>Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by Theodore Tilton</em></div> - <div><em>in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.</em></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span> - <h2 class='c005'>MR. TILTON'S ACCOUNT OF MRS. WOODHULL.</h2> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b c006'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>"<em>He that uttereth a slander is a fool.</em>"</div> - <div class='line in23'>—<span class='sc'>Solomon</span>: Prov. x. 18.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c000'>I shall swiftly sketch the life of Victoria Claflin -Woodhull; a young woman whose career has been as -singular as any heroine's in a romance; whose ability is -of a rare and whose character of the rarest type; -whose personal sufferings are of themselves a whole -drama of pathos; whose name (through the malice of -some and the ignorance of others) has caught a shadow -in strange contrast with the whiteness of her life; whose -position as a representative of her sex in the greatest -reform of modern times renders her an object of peculiar -interest to her fellow-citizens; and whose character -(inasmuch as I know her well) I can portray without -color or tinge from any other partiality save that -I hold her in uncommon respect.</p> - -<p class='c000'>In Homer, Ohio, in a small cottage, white-painted and -high-peaked, with a porch running round it and a flower -garden in front, this daughter, the seventh of ten -children of Roxana and Buckman Claflin, was born September -23d, 1838. As this was the year when Queen -Victoria was crowned, the new-born babe, though clad -neither in purple nor fine linen, but comfortably -swaddled in respectable poverty, was immediately -christened (though without chrism) as the Queen's -namesake; her parents little dreaming that their -daughter would one day aspire to a higher seat -than the English throne. The Queen, with that -early matronly predilection which her subsequent -life did so much to illustrate, foresaw that many glad -mothers, who were to bring babes into the world during -that coronation year, would name them after the chief -lady of the earth; and accordingly she ordained a gift to -all her little namesakes of <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Anno Domini</span> 1838. As Victoria -<span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>Claflin was one of these, she has lately been urged -to make a trip to Windsor Castle, to see the illustrious -giver of these gifts, and to receive the special -souvenir which the Queen's bounty is supposed to hold -still in store for the Ohio babe that uttered its first cry -as if to say "Long live the Queen!" Mrs. Woodhull, -who is now a candidate for the Presidency of the -United States, should defer this visit till after her election, -when she will have a beautiful opportunity to -invite her elder sister in sovereignty—the mother of -our mother country—to visit her fairest daughter, the -Republic of the West.</p> - -<p class='c000'>It is pitiful to be a child without a childhood. Such -was she. Not a sunbeam gilded the morning of her -life. Her girlish career was a continuous bitterness—an -unbroken heart-break. She was worked like -a slave—whipped like a convict. Her father was -impartial in his cruelty to all his children; her -mother, with a fickleness of spirit that renders her one -of the most erratic of mortals, sometimes abetted him -in his scourgings, and at other times shielded the little -ones from his blows. In a barrel of rain-water he kept -a number of braided green withes made of willow or -walnut twigs, and with these stinging weapons, never -with an ordinary whip, he would cut the quivering flesh -of the children till their tears and blood melted him into -mercy. Sometimes he took a handsaw or a stick of firewood -as the instrument of his savagery. Coming home -after the children were in bed, on learning of some -offence which they had committed, he has been known -to waken them out of sleep, and to whip them till -morning. In consequence of these brutalities, one of -the sons, in his thirteenth year, burst away from home, -went to sea, and still bears in a shattered constitution -the damning memorial of his father's wrath. "I have -no remembrance of a father's kiss," says Victoria. -Her mother has on occasions tormented and harried her -children until they would be thrown into spasms, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>whereat she would hysterically laugh, clap her hands, and -look as fiercely delighted as a cat in playing with a mouse. -At other times, her tenderness toward her offspring -would appear almost angelic. She would fondle them, -weep over them, lift her arms and thank God for such -children, caress them with ecstatic joy, and then smite -them as if seeking to destroy at a blow both body and -soul. This eccentric old lady, compounded in equal -parts of heaven and hell, will pray till her eyes are full -of tears, and in the same hour curse till her lips are -white with foam. The father exhibits a more tranquil -bitterness, with fewer spasms. These parental peculiarities -were lately made witnesses against their possessors -in a court of justice.</p> - -<p class='c000'>If I must account for what seems unaccountable, I -may say that with these parents, these traits are not -only constitutional but have been further developed by -circumstances. The mother, who has never in her life -learned to read, was during her maidenhood the petted -heiress of one of the richest German families of Pennsylvania, -and was brought up not to serve but to be -served, until in her ignorance and vanity she fancied -all things her own, and all people her ministers. The father, -partly bred to the law and partly to real-estate -speculations, early in life acquired affluence, but -during Victoria's third year suddenly lost all that he -had gained, and sat down like a beggar in the dust -of despair. The mother, from her youth, had been a -religious monomaniac—a spiritualist before the name of -spiritualism was coined, and before the Rochester -knockings had noised themselves into the public ear. -She saw visions and dreamed dreams. During the -half year preceding Victoria's birth, the mother became -powerfully excited by a religious revival, and -went through the process known as "sanctification." -She would rise in prayer-meetings and pour forth -passionate hallelujahs that sometimes electrified the -worshippers. The father, colder in temperament, yet -<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>equally inclined to the supernatural, was her partner -in these excitements. When the stroke of poverty -felled them to the earth, these exultations were -quenched in grief. The father, in the opinion of -some, became partially crazed; he would take long and -rapid walks, sometimes of twenty miles, and come home -with bleeding feet and haggard face. The mother, -never wholly sane, would huddle her children together -as a hen her chickens, and wringing her hands above -them, would pray by the hour that God would protect -her little brood. Intense melancholy—a misanthropic -gloom thick as a sea-fog—seized jointly upon both -their minds, and at intervals ever since has blighted -them with its mildew. It is said that a fountain cannot -send forth at the same time sweet waters and bitter, -and yet affection and enmity will proceed from this -couple almost at the same moment. At times, they are -full of craftiness, low cunning, and malevolence; at other -times, they beam with sunshine, sweetness, and sincerity. -I have seen many strange people, but the -strangest of all are the two parents whose commingled -essence constitutes the spiritual principle of the heroine -of this tale.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Just here, if any one asks, "How is it that such parents -should not have reproduced their eccentricities in -their children?" I answer, "This is exactly what they -have done." The whole brood are of the same feather—except -Victoria and Tennie. What language shall -describe them? Such another family-circle of cats and -kits, with soft fur and sharp claws, purring at one moment -and fighting the next, never before filled one -house with their clamors since Babel began. They -love and hate—they do good and evil—they bless and -smite each other. They are a sisterhood of furies, tempered -with love's melancholy. Here and there one will -drop on her knees and invoke God's vengeance on the -rest. But for years there has been one common sentiment -sweetly pervading the breasts of a majority towards -<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>a minority of the offspring, namely, a determination -that Victoria and Tennie should earn all the money -for the support of the numerous remainder of the Claflin -tribe—wives, husbands, children, servants, and all. -Being daughters of the horse-leech, they cry "give." -It is the common law of the Claflin clan that the idle -many shall eat up the substance of the thrifty few. -Victoria is a green leaf, and her legion of relatives are -caterpillars who devour her. Their sin is that they -return no thanks after meat; they curse the hand that -feeds them. They are what my friend Mr. Greeley -calls "a bad crowd." I am a little rough in saying this, -I admit; but I have a rude prejudice in favor of the -plain truth.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Victoria's school-days comprised, all told, less than -three years—stretching with broken intervals between -her eighth and eleventh. The aptest learner of her -class, she was the pet alike of scholars and teacher. -Called "The Little Queen" (not only from her name -but her demeanor) she bore herself with mimic royalty, -like one born to command. Fresh and beautiful, her -countenance being famed throughout the neighborhood -for its striking spirituality, modest, yet energetic, and -restive from the over-fulness of an inward energy -such as quickened the young blood of Joan of Arc, she -was a child of genius, toil, and grief. The little old -head on the little young shoulders was often bent over -her school-book at the midnight hour. Outside of -the school-room, she was a household drudge, serving -others so long as they were awake, and serving herself -only when they slept. Had she been born black, or -been chained to a cart-wheel in Alabama, she could not -have been a more enslaved slave. During these school-years, -child as she was, she was the many-burdened -maid-of-all-work in the large family of a married sister; -she made fires, she washed and ironed, she baked bread, -she cut wood, she spaded a vegetable garden, she went -on errands, she tended infants, she did everything. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>"Victoria! Victoria!" was the call in the morning before -the cock-crowing; when, bouncing out of bed, the -"little steam engine," as she was styled, began her -buzzing activities for the day. Light and fleet of step, -she ran like a deer. She was everybody's favorite—loved, -petted, and by some marveled at as a semi-supernatural -being. Only in her own home (not a sweet but -bitter home) was she treated with the cruelty that still -beclouds the memory of her early days.</p> - -<p class='c000'>I must now let out a secret. She acquired her -studies, performed her work, and lived her life by the -help (as she believes) of heavenly spirits. From her -childhood till now (having reached her thirty-third -year) her anticipation of the other world has been more -vivid than her realization of this. She has entertained -angels, and not unawares. These gracious guests have -been her constant companions. They abide with her -night and day. They dictate her life with daily revelation; -and like St. Paul, she is "not disobedient to the -heavenly vision." She goes and comes at their behest. -Her enterprises are not the coinage of her own -brain, but of their divine invention. Her writings and -speeches are the products, not only of their indwelling -in her soul, but of their absolute control of her -brain and tongue. Like a good Greek of the olden -time, she does nothing without consulting her oracles. -Never, as she avers, have they deceived her, nor -ever will she neglect their decrees. One-third of human -life is passed in sleep; and in her case, a goodly -fragment of this third is spent in trance. Seldom a day -goes by but she enters into this fairy-land, or rather into -this spirit-realm. In pleasant weather, she has a habit -of sitting on the roof of her stately mansion on Murray -Hill, and there communing hour by hour with the -spirits. She as a religious devotee—her simple theology -being an absorbing faith in God and the angels.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Moreover, I may as well mention here as later, that -every characteristic utterance which she gives to the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>world is dictated while under spirit-influence, and most -often in a totally unconscious state. The words that -fall from her lips are garnered by the swift pen of her -husband, and published almost verbatim as she gets and -gives them. To take an illustration, after her recent nomination -to the Presidency by "The Victoria League," -she sent to that committee a letter of superior dignity -and moral weight. It was a composition which -she had dictated while so outwardly oblivious to the -dictation, that when she ended and awoke, she had no -memory at all of what she had just done. The product -of that strange and weird mood was a beautiful piece of -English, not unworthy of Macaulay; and to prove -what I say, I adduce the following eloquent passage, -which (I repeat) was published without change as -it fell from her unconscious lips:</p> - -<p class='c000'>"I ought not to pass unnoticed," she says, "your -courteous and graceful allusion to what you deem the -favoring omen of my name. It is true that a Victoria -rules the great rival nation opposite to us on the other -shore of the Atlantic, and it might grace the amity just -sealed between the two nations, and be a new security -of peace, if a twin sisterhood of Victorias were to -preside over the two nations. It is true, also, that in -its mere etymology the name signifies <em>Victory!</em> and the -victory for the right is what we are bent on securing. -It is again true, also, that to some minds there is a -consonant harmony between the idea and the word, -so that its euphonious utterance seems to their imaginations -to be itself a genius of success. However this -may be, I have sometimes imagined that there -is perhaps something providential and prophetic in -the fact that my parents were prompted to confer on -me a name which forbids the very thought of failure; -and, as the great Napoleon believed the star of his -destiny, you will at least excuse me, and charge it to -the credulity of the woman, if I believe also in fatality -of triumph as somehow inhering in my name."</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>In quoting this passage, I wish to add that its author -is a person of no special literary training; indeed, so -averse to the pen that, of her own will, she rarely dips it -into ink, except to sign her business autograph; nor -would she ever write at all except for those spirit-promptings -which she dare not disobey; and she could -not possibly have produced the above peroration except -by some strange intellectual quickening—some over-brooding -moral help. This (as she says) she derives -from the spirit-world. One of her texts is, "I will lift -up mine eyes unto the hills whence cometh my help—my -help cometh from the Lord who made Heaven and -Earth." She reminds me of the old engraving of -St. Gregory dictating his homilies under the outspread -wing of the Holy Dove.</p> - -<p class='c000'>It has been so from her childhood. So that her -school studies were, literally, a daily miracle. She -would glance at a page, and know it by heart. The -tough little mysteries which bother the bewildered -brains of country-school dullards were always to her as -vivid as the sunshine. And when sent on long and -weary errands, she believes that she has been lifted -over the ground by her angelic helpers—"lest she -should dash her feet against a stone." When she had -too heavy a basket to carry, an unseen hand would -sometimes carry it for her. Digging in the garden as -if her back would break, occasionally a strange restfulness -would refresh her, and she knew that the spirits -were toiling in her stead. All this may seem an illusion -to everybody else, but will never be other than -a reality to her.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Let me cite some details of these spiritual phenomena, -curious in themselves, and illustrating the -forces that impel her career.</p> - -<p class='c000'>"My spiritual vision," she says, "dates back as early -as my third year." In Victoria's birth place, a young -woman named Rachel Scribner, about twenty-five -years of age, who had been Victoria's nurse, suddenly -<span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>died. On the day of her death, Victoria was picked -up by her departing spirit, and borne off into the -spirit-world. To this day Mrs. Woodhull describes vividly -her childish sensations as she felt herself gliding -through the air—like St. Catharine winged away by -the angels. Her mother testifies that while this scene -was enacting to the child's inner consciousness, her -little body lay as if dead for three hours.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Two of her sisters, who had died in childhood, were -constantly present with her. She would talk to them -as a girl tattles to her dolls. They were her most fascinating -playmates, and she never cared for any others -while she had their invisible society.</p> - -<p class='c000'>In her tenth year, one day while sitting by the side -of a cradle rocking a sick babe to sleep, she says that -two angels came, and gently pushing her away, began -to fan the child with their white hands, until its face -grew fresh and rosy. Her mother then suddenly entered -the chamber, and beheld in amazement the -little nurse lying in a trance on the floor, her face turned -upward toward the ceiling, and the pining babe apparently -in the bloom of health.</p> - -<p class='c000'>The chief among her spiritual visitants, and one who -has been a majestic guardian to her from the earliest -years of her remembrance, she describes as a matured -man of stately figure, clad in a Greek tunic, solemn and -graceful in his aspect, strong in his influence, and altogether -dominant over her life. For many years, notwithstanding -an almost daily visit to her vision, he -withheld his name, nor would her most importunate -questionings induce him to utter it. But he always promised -that in due time he would reveal his identity. Meanwhile -he prophecied to her that she would rise to great -distinction; that she would emerge from her poverty -and live in a stately house; that she would win great -wealth in a city which he pictured as crowded with -ships; that she would publish and conduct a journal; -and that finally, to crown her career, she would become -<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>the ruler of her people. At length, after patiently -waiting on this spirit-guide for twenty years, one day -in 1868, during a temporary sojourn in Pittsburgh, and -while she was sitting at a marble table, he suddenly appeared -to her, and wrote on the table in English letters -the name "Demosthenes." At first the writing was indistinct, -but grew to such a luster that the brightness -filled the room. The apparition, familiar as it had been -before, now affrighted her to trembling. The stately -and commanding spirit told her to journey to New York, -where she would find at No. 17 Great Jones street a -house in readiness for her, equipped in all things to her -use and taste. She unhesitatingly obeyed, although -she never before had heard of Great Jones street, nor -until that revelatory moment had entertained an intention -of taking such a residence. On entering the -house, it fulfilled in reality the picture which she saw of -it in her vision—the self-same hall, stairways, rooms, -and furniture. Entering with some bewilderment into -the library, she reached out her hand by chance, and -without knowing what she did, took up a book which, -on idly looking at its title, she saw (to her blood-chilling -astonishment) to be "The Orations of Demosthenes." -From that time onward, the Greek statesman has been -even more palpably than in her earlier years her prophetic -monitor, mapping out the life which she must -follow, as a chart for a ship sailing the sea. She believes -him to be her familiar spirit—the author of her -public policy, and the inspirer of her published words. -Without intruding my own opinion as to the authenticity -of this inspiration, I have often thought that if -Demosthenes could arise and speak English, he could -hardly excel the fierce light and heat of some of the -sentences which I have heard from this singular woman -in her glowing hours.</p> - -<p class='c000'>I now turn back to her first marriage. The bride (pitiful -to tell) was in her fourteenth year, the bridegroom in -his twenty-eighth. It was a fellowship of misery—and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>her parents, who abetted it, ought to have prevented it. -The Haytians speak of escaping out of the river by -leaping into the sea. From the endurable cruelty of -her parents, she fled to the unendurable cruelty of her -husband. She had been from her twelfth to her fourteenth -year a double victim, first to chills and fever, and -then to rheumatism, which had jointly played equal -havoc with her beauty and health, until she was brought -within a step of "the iron door." Dr. Canning Woodhull, -a gay rake, but whose habits were kept hid from -<em>her</em> under the general respectability of his family connections -(his father being an eminent judge, and his -uncle the mayor of New York), was professionally summoned -to visit the child, and being a trained physician -arrested her decline. Something about her artless -manners and vivacious mind captivated his fancy. -Coming as a prince, he found her as Cinderella—a -child of the ashes. Before she entirely recovered, and -while looking haggard and sad, one day he stopped her -in the street, and said, "My little chick, I want you -to go with me to the pic-nic"—referring to a projected -Fourth of July excursion then at hand. The promise -of a little pleasure acted like a charm on the house-worn -and sorrow-stricken child. She obtained her -mother's assent to her going, but her father coupled it -with the condition that she should first earn money -enough to buy herself a pair of shoes. So the little -fourteen-year-old drudge became for the nonce an apple-merchant, -and with characteristic business energy -sold her apples and bought her shoes. She went to the -pic-nic with Dr. Woodhull, like a ticket-of-leave juvenile-delinquent -on a furlough. On coming home from the -festival, the brilliant fop who, tired of the demi-monde -ladies whom he could purchase for his pleasure, and inspired -with a sudden and romantic interest in this artless -maid, said to her, "My little puss, tell your father -and mother that I want you for a wife." The -startled girl quivered with anger at this announcement, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>and with timorous speed fled to her mother and repeated -the tale, feeling as if some injury was threatened her, -and some danger impended. But the parents, as if not -unwilling to be rid of a daughter whose sorrow was -ripening her into a woman before her time, were delighted -at the unexpected offer. They thought it a -grand match. They helped the young man's suit, and -augmented their persecutions of the child. Ignorant, -innocent, and simple, the girl's chief thought of the -proffered marriage was as an escape from the parental -yoke. Four months later she accepted the change—flying -from the ills she had to others that she -knew not of. Her captor, once possessed of his treasure, -ceased to value it. On the third night after -taking his child-wife to his lodgings, he broke her -heart by remaining away all night at a house of ill-repute. -Then for the first time she learned, to her dismay, -that he was habitually unchaste, and given to -long fits of intoxication. She was stung to the quick. -The shock awoke all her womanhood. She grew ten -years older in a single day. A tumult of thoughts swept -like a whirlwind through her mind, ending at last in one -predominant purpose, namely, to reclaim her husband. -She set herself religiously to this pious task—calling -on God and the spirits to help her in it.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Six weeks after her marriage (during which time her -husband was mostly with his cups and his mistresses), -she discovered a letter addressed to him in a lady's elegant -penmanship, saying, "Did you marry that child -because she too was <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">en famille</span></i>?" This was an additional -thunderbolt. The fact was that her husband, on -the day of his marriage, had sent away into the country -a mistress who a few months later gave birth to -a child.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Squandering his money like a prodigal, he suddenly -put his wife into the humblest quarters, where, left -mostly to herself, she dwelt in bitterness of spirit, -aggravated from time to time by learning of his ordering -<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>baskets of champagne and drinking himself drunk -in the company of harlots.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Sometimes, with uncommon courage, through rain -and sleet, half clad and shivering, she would track him -to his dens, and by the energy of her spirit compel him -to return. At other times, all night long she would -watch at the window, waiting for his footsteps, until -she heard them languidly shuffling along the pavement -with the staggering reel of a drunken man, in the shameless -hours of the morning.</p> - -<p class='c000'>During all this time, she passionately prayed Heaven -to give her the heart of her husband, but Heaven, decreeing -otherwise, withheld it from her, and for her -good.</p> - -<p class='c000'>In fifteen months after her marriage, while living in a -little low frame-house in Chicago, in the dead of winter, -with icicles clinging to her bed-post, and attended only -by her half-drunken husband, she brought forth in almost -mortal agony her first-born child. In her ensuing -helplessness, she became an object of pity to a next-door -neighbor who, with a kindness which the sufferer's -unhomelike home did not afford, brought her day by -day some nourishing dish. This same ministering -hand would then wrap the babe in a blanket, and take it -to a happier mother in the near neighborhood, who was -at the same time nursing a new-born son. In this -way Victoria and her child—themselves both children—were -cared for with mingled gentleness and neglect.</p> - -<p class='c000'>At the end of six days, the little invalid attempted to -rise and put her sick-room in order, when she was -taken with delirium, during which her mother visited -her just in time to save her life.</p> - -<p class='c000'>On her recovery, and after a visit to her father's -house, she returned to her own to be horror-struck at -discovering that her bed had been occupied the night before -by her husband in company with a wanton of the -streets, and that the room was littered with the remains -of their drunken feast.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>Once, after a month's desertion by him, until she -had no money and little to eat, she learned that he was -keeping a mistress at a fashionable boarding-house, -under the title of wife. The true wife, still wrestling -with God for the renegade, sallied forth into -the wintry street, clad in a calico dress without undergarments, -and shod only with india-rubbers without -shoes or stockings, entered the house, confronted the -household as they sat at table, told her story to the confusion -of the paramour and his mistress, and drew tears -from all the company till, by a common movement, the -listeners compelled the harlot to pack her trunk and -flee the city, and shamed the husband into creeping -like a spaniel back into the kennel which his wife still -cherished as her home.</p> - -<p class='c000'>To add to her misery, she discovered that her child, -begotten in drunkenness, and born in squalor, was a -half idiot; predestined to be a hopeless imbecile for life; -endowed with just enough intelligence to exhibit the -light of reason in dim eclipse:—a sad and pitiful spectacle -in his mother's house to-day, where he roams from -room to room, muttering noises more sepulchral than -human; a daily agony to the woman who bore him, -hoping more of her burden; and heightening the pathos -of the perpetual scene by the uncommon sweetness of -his temper which, by winning every one's love, doubles -every one's pity.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Journeying to California as a region where she might -inspire her husband to begin a new life freed from old -associations, she there found herself and her little family -strangers in a strange city—beggars in a land of -plenty. Change of sky is not change of mind. Dr. -Woodhull took his habits, his wife took her necessities, -and both took their misery, from East to West. -In San Francisco, the girlish woman, with unrelaxed -energy, and as part of that life-long heroism -which will one day have its monument, set herself to -supporting the man by whom she ought to have been -<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>supported. A morning journal had an advertisement—"A -cigar girl wanted." The wife, with her face of -sweet sixteen, presented herself as the first candidate, -and was accepted on the spot. The proprietor was a -stalwart Californian—one of those men who catch from -a new country something of the liberality which the -sailor brings from the sea. She served for one day behind -his counter—blushing, modest, and sensitive, her -ears tingling at every rude remark by every uncouth customer—and -at nightfall her employer, who had noticed -the blood coming and going in her cheeks, said to her, -"My little lady, you are not the clerk I want; I must -have somebody who can rough it; you are too fine." -Inquiring into her case, he was surprised to find her -married and a mother. At first he discredited this information, -but there was no denying the truth of her -story. He accompanied her to her husband, and as the -two men discovered themselves to each other as brother -free-masons, he gave his fair clerk of a day a twenty-dollar -gold piece, and dismissed her with his blessing. -And I hope this has been revisited on his own head.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Resorting to her needle, she carried from house to house -this only weapon which many women possess wherewith -to fight the battle of life. She chanced to come upon -Anna Cogswell, the actress, who wanted a sempstress to -make her a theatrical wardrobe. The winsome dressmaker -was engaged at once. But her earnings at this -new calling did not keep pace with her expenses. "It -is no use," said she to her dramatic friend; "I am running -behindhand. I must do something better." -"Then," replied the actress, "you too must be an actress." -And, nothing loth to undertake anything new -and difficult, Victoria, who never before had dreamed of -such a possibility, was engaged as a lesser light to the -Cogswell star. For a first appearance, she was cast in the -part of the "Country Cousin" in "New York by Gaslight." -The text was given to her in the morning, -she learned and rehearsed it during the day, and made -<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>a fair hit in it at night. For six weeks thereafter, she -earned fifty-two dollars a week as an actress.</p> - -<p class='c000'>"Never leave the stage," said some of her fellow-performers, -all of whom admired her simplicity and spirituality. -"But I do not care for the stage," she said, -"and I shall leave it at the first opportunity. I am -meant for some other fate. But what it is, I know -not."</p> - -<p class='c000'>It came—as all things have came to her—through the -agency of spirits. One night while on the boards, clad -in a pink silk dress and slippers, acting in the ballroom -scene in the "Corsican Brothers," suddenly a -spirit-voice addressed her, saying, "Victoria, come -home!" Thrown instantly into clairvoyant condition, -she saw a vision of her young sister Tennie, -then a mere child—standing by her mother, -and both calling the absent one to return. Her -mother and Tennie were then in Columbus, Ohio. -She saw Tennie distinctly enough to notice that she -wore a striped French calico frock. "Victoria come -home!" said the little messenger, beckoning with -her childish forefinger. The apparition would not -be denied. Victoria, thrilled and chilled by the vision -and voice, burst away at a bound behind the scenes, -and without waiting to change her dress, ran, clad with -all her dramatic adornments, through a foggy rain to her -hotel, and packing up her few things that night, betook -herself with her husband and child next morning -to the steamer bound for New York. On the voyage -she was thrown into such vivid spiritual states, -that she produced a profound excitement among -the passengers. On reaching her mother's home, -she came upon Tennie dressed in the same -dress as in the vision; and on inquiring the meaning -of the message, "Victoria, come home!" was -told that at the time it was uttered, her mother had -said to Tennie, "My dear, send the spirits after Victoria -to bring her home;" and moreover the French -<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>calico dress had appeared to her spirit-sight at the very -first moment its wearer had put it on.</p> - -<p class='c000'>This homeward trip, and its consequences, marked a -new phase in her career—a turning point in her life.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Hitherto her clairvoyant faculty had been put to no -pecuniary use, but she was now directed by the spirits -to repair to Indianapolis, there to announce herself as -a medium, and to treat patients for the cure of disease. -Taking rooms in the Bates House, and publishing a -card in the journals, she found herself able, on saluting -her callers, to tell by inspiration their names, their residences, -and their maladies. In a few days she became -the town's talk. Her marvellous performances in -clairvoyance being noised abroad, people flocked to her -from a distance. Her rooms were crowded and her -purse grew fat. She reaped a golden harvest—including, -as its worthiest part, golden opinions from all sorts -of people. Her countenance would often glow as with -a sacred light, and she became an object of religious -awe to many wonder-stricken people whose inward lives -she had revealed. Moreover, her unpretentious modesty, -and her perpetual disclaimer of any merit or power of -her own, and the entire crediting of this to spirit-influence, -augmented the interest with which all spectators -regarded the amiable prodigy. First at Indianapolis, -and afterward at Terre Haute, she wrought some apparently -miraculous cures. She straightened the feet -of the lame; she opened the ears of the deaf; she detected -the robbers of a bank; she brought to light hidden -crimes; she solved physiological problems; she -unveiled business secrets; she prophecied future events. -Knowing the wonders which she wrought, certain citizens -disguised themselves and came to her purporting -to be strangers from a distant town, but she instantly -said, "Oh, no; you all live here." "How can you -tell?" they asked. "The spirits say so," she replied.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Benedictions followed her; gifts were lavished upon -her; money flowed in a stream toward her. Journeying -<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>from city to city in the practice of her spiritual art, she -thereby supported all her relatives far and near. Her -income in one year reached nearly a hundred thousand -dollars. She received in one day, simply as fees for cures -which she had wrought, five thousand dollars. The sum -total of the receipts of her practice, and of her investments -growing out of it, up to the time of its discontinuance -by direction of the spirits in 1869, was $700,000. The -age of wonders has not ceased!</p> - -<p class='c000'>During all this period, though outwardly prosperous, -she was inwardly wretched. The dismal fact of her -son's half-idiocy so preyed upon her mind that, in a -heat of morbid feeling, she fell to accusing her innocent -self for his misfortunes. The sight of his face rebuked -her, until, in brokenness of spirit, she prayed to -God for another child—a daughter, to be born with a -fair body and a sound mind. Her prayer was granted, -but not without many accompaniments of inhumanity. -Once during her carriage of her unborn charge, she -was kicked by its father in a fit of drunkenness—inflicting -a bruise on her body and a greater bruise to her spirit. -Profound as her double suffering was, in its lowest -depth there was a deeper still. She was plunged into this -at the child's birth. This event occurred at No. 53 Bond -Street, New York, April 23d, 1861. She and her husband -were at the time the only occupants of the house—her -trial coming upon her while no nurse, or servant, -or other human helper was under the roof. The -babe entered the world at four o'clock in the morning, -handled by the feverish and unsteady hands of its intoxicated -father, who, only half in possession of his -professional skill, cut the umbilical cord too near the -flesh and tied it so loose that the string came off—laid -the babe in its mother's arms—in an hour afterward left -them asleep and alone—and then staggered out of the -house. Nor did he remember to return. Meanwhile, -the mother, on waking, was startled to find that her -head on the side next to her babe's body was in a pool -<span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>of blood—that her hair was soaked and clotted in a -little red stream oozing drop by drop from the bowels of -the child. In her motherly agony, reaching a broken -chair-rung which happened to be lying near, she -pounded against the wall to summon help from the -next house. At intervals for several hours she continued -this pounding, no one answering—until at -length one of the neighbors, a resolute woman, who -was attracted toward the noise, but unable to get in at -the front-door, removed the grating of the basement, -and made her way up stairs to the rescue of the mother -and her babe. On the third day after, the mother, -on sitting propped in her bed and looking out of the -window, caught sight of her husband staggering up the -steps of a house across the way, mistaking it for his -own!</p> - -<p class='c000'>It was this horrible experience that first awoke her -mind to the question, "Why should I any longer -live with this man?" Hitherto she had entertained -an almost superstitious idea of the devotion with -which a wife should cling to her husband. She had -always been so faithful to him that, in his cups, he -would mock and jeer at her fidelity, and call her a fool -for maintaining it. At length the fool grew wiser, and -after eleven years of what, with conventional mockery, -was called a marriage—during which time her husband -had never spent an evening with her at home, had -seldom drawn a sober breath, and had spent on other -women, not herself, all the money he had ever earned—she -applied in Chicago for a divorce, and obtained it.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Previous to this crisis, there had occurred a remarkable -incident which more than ever confirmed her -faith in the guardianship of spirits. One day, -during a severe illness of her son, she left him to -visit her patients, and on her return was startled with -the news that the boy had died two hours before. -"No," she exclaimed, "I will not permit his death." -And with frantic energy she stripped her bosom naked, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>caught up his lifeless form, pressed it to her own, and -sitting thus, flesh to flesh, glided insensibly into a trance -in which she remained seven hours; at the end of which -time she awoke, a perspiration started from his clammy -skin, and the child that had been thought dead was -brought back again to life—and lives to this day in sad -half-death. It is her belief that the spirit of Jesus Christ -brooded over the lifeless form, and re-wrought the -miracle of Lazarus for a sorrowing woman's sake.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Victoria's father and mother, growing still more fanatical -with their advancing years, had all along subjected -her to a series of singular vexations. And -the elder sisters had joined in the mischief-making, outdoing -the parents. Sometimes they would burst in upon -Mrs. Woodhull's house, and attempt to govern its internal -economy; sometimes they would carry off the furniture, -or garments, or pictures; sometimes they would -crown her with eulogies as the greatest of human beings, -and in the same breath defame her as an agent of -the devil.</p> - -<p class='c000'>But their great cause of persecution grew out of her -younger sister Tennie's career. This young woman developed, -while a child in her father's house, a similar -power to Victoria's. It was a penetrating spiritual insight -applied to the cure of disease. But her father and -mother, who regarded their daughter in the light of -the damsel mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, who -"brought her masters much gain by soothsaying," -put her before the public as a fortune-teller. By adding -to much that was genuine in her mediumship -more that was charlatanry, they aroused against this -fraudulent business the indignation of the sincere soul -of Victoria who, more than most human beings, scorns -a lie, and would burn at the stake rather than practise -a deceit. She clutched Tennie as by main force -and flung her out of this semi-humbug, to the mingled -astonishment of her money-greedy family, one and all. -At this time Tennie was supporting a dozen or twenty -<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>relatives by her ill-gotten gains. Victoria's rescue of -her excited the wrath of all these parasites—which has -continued hot and undying against both to this day. -The fond and fierce mother alternately loves and hates -the two united defiers of her morbid will; and the father, -at times a Mephistopheles, waits till the inspiration of -cunning overmasters his parental instinct, and watching -for a moment when his ill word to a stranger will -blight their business schemes, drops in upon some capitalist -whose money is in their hands, lodges an indictment -against his own flesh and blood, takes out his -handkerchief to hide a few well-feigned tears, clasps his -hands with an unfelt agony, hobbles off smiling sardonically -at the mischief which he has done, and the next -day repents his wickedness with genuine contrition and -manlier woe. These parents would cheerfully give -their lives as a sacrifice to atone for the many mischiefs -which they have cast like burrs at their children; but -if all the scars which they and their progeny have inflicted -on one another could be magically healed to-day, -they would be scratched open by the same hands -and set stinging and tingling anew to-morrow.</p> - -<p class='c000'>There is a maxim that marriages are made in heaven, -albeit contradicted by the Scripture which declares that -in heaven there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage. -But, even against the Scripture, it is safe to say -that Victoria's second marriage was made in Heaven; -that is, it was decreed by the self-same spirits whom she -is ever ready to follow, whether they lead her for discipline -into the valley of the shadow of death, or for comfort -in those ways of pleasantness which are paths of -peace. Col. James H. Blood, commander of the 6th -Missouri Regiment, who at the close of the war was -elected City Auditor of St. Louis, who became President -of the Society of Spiritualists in that place, and who had -himself been, like Victoria, the legal partner of a morally -sundered marriage, called one day on Mrs. Woodhull to -consult her as a spiritualistic physician (having never -<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>met her before), and was startled to see her pass into a -trance, during which she announced, unconsciously to -herself, that his future destiny was to be linked with -hers in marriage. Thus, to their mutual amazement, -but to their subsequent happiness, they were betrothed -on the spot by "the powers of the air." The legal tie by -which at first they bound themselves to each other was afterward -by mutual consent annulled—the necessary form -of Illinois law being complied with to this effect. But the -marriage stands on its merits, and is to all who witness -its harmony known to be a sweet and accordant union -of congenial souls.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Col. Blood is a man of a philosophic and reflective -cast of mind, an enthusiastic student of the higher lore -of spiritualism, a recluse from society, and an expectant -believer in a stupendous destiny for Victoria. A -modesty not uncommon to men of intellect prompts him -to sequester his name in the shade rather than to set it -glittering in the sun. But he is an indefatigable -worker—driving his pen through all hours of the day -and half of the night. He is an active editor of <cite>Woodhull -& Claflin's Weekly</cite>, and one of the busy partners -in the firm of Woodhull, Claflin & Co., Brokers, at 44 -Broad street, New York. His civic views are (to use -his favorite designation of them) cosmopolitical; in -other words, he is a radical of extreme radicalism—an -internationalist of the most uncompromising type—a -communist who would rather have died in Paris -than be the president of a pretended republic whose -first official act has been the judicial murder of the only -republicans in France. His spiritualistic habits he -describes in a letter to his friend, the writer of this memorial, -as follows: "At about eleven or twelve o'clock -at night, two or three times a week, and sometimes -without nightly interval, Victoria and I hold parliament -with the spirits. It is by this kind of study -that we both have learned nearly all the valuable -knowledge that we possess. Victoria goes into a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>trance, during which her guardian spirit takes control -of her mind, speaking audibly through her lips, propounding -various matters for our subsequent investigation -and verification, and announcing principles, -detached thoughts, hints of systems, and suggestions -for affairs. In this way, and in this spiritual night-school, -began that process of instruction by which -Victoria has risen to her present position as a political -economist and politician. During her entranced -state, which generally lasts about an hour, but sometimes -twice as long, I make copious notes of all she -says, and when her speech is unbroken, I write down -every word, and publish it without correction or -amendment. She and I regard all the other portion -of our lives as almost valueless compared with these -midnight hours." The preceding extract shows that -this fine-grained transcendentalist is a reverent husband -to his spiritual wife, the sympathetic companion -of her entranced moods, and their faithful historian to -the world.</p> - -<p class='c000'>After her union with Col. Blood, instead of changing -her name to his, she followed the example of many -actresses, singers, and other professional women whose -names have become a business property to their owners, -and she still continues to be known as Mrs. Woodhull.</p> - -<p class='c000'>One night, about half a year after their marriage, she -and her husband were wakened at midnight in Cincinnati -by the announcement that a man by the name of -Dr. Woodhull had been attacked with delirium tremens -at the Burnet House, and in a lucid moment had spoken -of the woman from whom he had been divorced, and begged -to see her. Col. Blood immediately took a carriage, -drove to the hotel, brought the wretched victim home, -and jointly with Victoria took care of him with life-saving -kindness for six weeks. On his going away they -gave him a few hundred dollars of their joint property -to make him comfortable in another city. He departed -<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>full of gratitude, bearing with him the assurance that -he would always be welcome to come and go as a friend -of the family. And from that day to this, the poor man, -dilapidated in body and emasculated in spirit, has sometimes -sojourned under Victoria's roof and sometimes elsewhere, -according to his whim or will. In the present -ruins of the young gallant of twenty years ago, there is -more manhood (albeit an expiring spark like a candle -at its socket) than during any of the former years; and -to be now turned out of doors by the woman whom he -wronged, but who would not wrong him in return, would -be an act of inhumanity which it would be impossible -for Mrs. Woodhull and Col. Blood either jointly or -separately to commit. For this piece of noble conduct—what -is commonly called her living with two husbands -under one roof—she has received not so much censure -on earth as I think she will receive reward in heaven. -No other passage of her life more signally illustrates -the nobility of her moral judgments, or the supernal -courage with which she stands by her convictions. Not -all the clamorous tongues in Christendom, though they -should simultaneously cry out against her "Fie, for -shame!" could persuade her to turn this wretched wreck -from her home. And I say she is right; and I will -maintain this opinion against the combined Pecksniffs -of the whole world.</p> - -<p class='c000'>This act, and the malice of enemies, together with -her bold opinions on social questions, have combined -to give her reputation a stain. But no slander -ever fell on any human soul with greater injustice. A -more unsullied woman does not walk the earth. She -carries in her very face the fair legend of a character -kept pure by a sacred fire within. She is one of those -aspiring devotees who tread the earth merely as a -stepping-stone to Heaven, and whose chief ambition -is finally to present herself at the supreme tribunal -"spotless, and without wrinkle, or blemish, or any -such thing." Knowing her as well as I do, I cannot -<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>hear an accusation against her without recalling Tennyson's -line of King Arthur,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>"Is thy white blamelessness accounted blame?"</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c000'>Fulfilling a previous prophecy, and following a celestial -mandate, in 1869 she founded a bank and published -a journal. These two events took the town by storm. -When the doors of her office in Broad street were first -thrown open to the public, several thousand visitors came -in a flock on the first day. The "lady brokers," as they -were called (a strange confession that brokers are not -always gentlemen) were besieged like lionesses in a -cage. The daily press interviewed them; the weekly -wits satirized them; the comic sheets caricatured -them; but like a couple of fresh young dolphins, -breasting the sea side by side, they showed themselves -native to the element, and cleft gracefully every -threatening wave that broke over their heads. The -breakers could not dash the brokers. Indomitable -in their energy, the sisters won the good graces of -Commodore Vanderbilt—a fine old gentleman of comfortable -means, who of all the lower animals prefers the -horse, and of all the higher virtues admires pluck. Both -with and without Commodore Vanderbilt's help, Mrs. -Woodhull has more than once shown the pluck that has -held the rein of the stock market as the Commodore -holds his horse. Her journal, as one sees it week by -week, is generally a willow-basket full of audacious -manuscripts, apparently picked up at random and -thrown together pell-mell, stunning the reader with -a medley of politics, finance, free-love, and the pantarchy. -This sheet, when the divinity that shapes -its ends shall begin to add to the rough-hewing a little -smooth-shaping; in other words, when its unedited -chaos shall come to be moulded by the spirits to that -order which is Heaven's first law; this not ordinary -but "cardinary" journal, which is edited in one world, -and published in another, will become less a confusion -to either, and more a power for both.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>In 1870, following the English plan of self-nomination, -Mrs. Woodhull announced herself as a candidate -for the Presidency—mainly for the purpose of drawing -public attention to the claims of woman to political -equality with man. She accompanied this announcement -with a series of papers in the <em>Herald</em> on politics -and finance, which have since been collected into a -volume entitled "The Principles of Government." She -has lately received a more formal nomination to that -high office by "The Victoria League," an organization -which, being somewhat Jacobinical in its secrecy, is -popularly supposed, though not definitely known, to be -presided over by Commodore Vanderbilt, who is also -similarly imagined to be the golden corner-stone of the -business house of Woodhull, Claflin & Co. Should she -be elected to the high seat to which she aspires, (an -event concerning which I make no prophecy,) I am at -least sure that she would excel any Queen now on any -throne in her native faculty to govern others.</p> - -<p class='c000'>One night in December, 1869, while she lay in deep -sleep, her Greek guardian came to her, and sitting transfigured -by her couch, wrote on a scroll (so that she -could not only see the words, but immediately dictated -them to her watchful amanuensis) the memorable document -now known in history as "The Memorial of -Victoria C. Woodhull"—a petition addressed to -Congress, claiming under the Fourteenth Amendment -the right of women as of other "citizens of the -United States" to vote in "the States wherein they -reside"—asking, moreover, that the State of New York, -of which she was a citizen, should be restrained by Federal -authority from preventing her exercise of this constitutional -right. As up to this time neither she nor -her husband had been greatly interested in woman -suffrage, he had no sooner written this manifesto from -her lips, than he awoke her from the trance, and protested -against the communication as nonsense, believing it -to be a trick of some evil-disposed spirits. In the morning -<span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>the document was shown to a number of friends, -including one eminent judge, who ridiculed its logic -and conclusions. But the lady herself, from whose -sleeping and yet unsleeping brain the strange document -had sprung like Minerva from the head of Jove, simply -answered that her antique instructor, having never -misled her before, was guiding her aright then. Nothing -doubting, but much wondering, she took the novel -demand to Washington, where, after a few days of -laughter from the shallow-minded, and of neglect from -the indifferent, it suddenly burst upon the Federal Capitol -like a storm, and then spanned it like a rainbow. -She went before the Judiciary Committee, and delivered -an argument in support of her claim to the franchise -under the new Amendments, which some who heard it -pronounced one of the ablest efforts which they had ever -heard on any subject. She caught the listening ears -of Senator Carpenter, Gen. Butler, Judge Woodward, -George W. Julian, Gen. Ashley, Judge Loughridge, and -other able statesmen in Congress, and harnessed these -gentlemen as steeds to her chariot. Such was the force -of her appeal that the whole city rushed together to hear -it, like the Athenians to the market-place when Demosthenes -stood in his own and not a borrowed clay. A great -audience, one of the finest ever gathered in the capital, -assembled to hear her defend her thesis in the first public -speech of her life. At the moment of rising, her face -was observed to be very pale, and she appeared about -to faint. On being afterward questioned as to the cause -of her emotion, she replied that, during the first prolonged -moment, she remembered an early prediction -of her guardian-spirit, until then forgotten, that she -would one day speak in public, and that her first discourse -would be pronounced in the capital of her country. -The sudden fulfilment of this prophecy smote her -so violently that for a moment she was stunned into apparent -unconsciousness. But she recovered herself, and -passed through the ordeal with great success—which is -<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>better luck than happened to the real Demosthenes, -for Plutarch mentions that his maiden speech was a -failure, and that he was laughed at by the people.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Assisted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Paulina Wright -Davis, Isabella Beecher Hooker, Susan B. Anthony, -and other staunch and able women whom she swiftly -persuaded into accepting this construction of the Constitution, -she succeeded, after her petition was denied -by a majority of the Judiciary Committee, in obtaining -a minority report in its favor, signed jointly by -Gen. Benj. F. Butler of Massachusetts and Judge -Loughridge of Iowa. To have clutched this report -from Gen. Butler—as it were a scalp from the ablest head -in the House of Representatives—was a sufficient trophy -to entitle the brave lady to an enrolment in the -political history of her country. She means to go to -Washington again next winter to knock at the half-opened -doors of the Capitol until they shall swing wide -enough asunder to admit her enfranchised sex.</p> - -<p class='c000'>I must say something of her personal appearance -although it defies portrayal, whether by photograph -or pen. Neither tall nor short, stout nor slim, she -is of medium stature, lithe and elastic, free and -graceful. Her side face, looked at over her left -shoulder, is of perfect aquiline outline, as classic -as ever went into a Roman marble, and resembles the -masque of Shakespeare taken after death; the same -view, looking from the right, is a little broken and irregular; -and the front face is broad, with prominent -cheek bones, and with some unshapely nasal lines. -Her countenance is never twice alike, so variable is -its expression and so dependent on her moods. Her -soul comes into it and goes out of it, giving her at one -time the look of a superior and almost saintly intelligence, -and at another leaving her dull, commonplace, -and unprepossessing. When under a strong spiritual -influence, a strange and mystical light irradiates from -her face, reminding the beholder of the Hebrew Lawgiver -<span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>who gave to men what he received from God and -whose face during the transfer shone. Tennyson, as -with the hand of a gold-beater, has beautifully gilded -the same expression in his stanza of St. Stephen the -Martyr in the article of death:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>"And looking upward, full of grace,</div> - <div class='line'>He prayed, and from a happy place,</div> - <div class='line'>God's glory smote him on the face."</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c000'>In conversation, until she is somewhat warmed with -earnestness, she halts, as if her mind were elsewhere, -but the moment she brings all her faculties to her lips -for the full utterance of her message, whether it be -of persuasion or indignation, and particularly when -under spiritual control, she is a very orator for eloquence—pouring -forth her sentences like a mountain -stream, sweeping away everything that frets its -flood.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Her hair which, when left to itself is as long as those -tresses of Hortense in which her son Louis Napoleon -used to play hide-and-seek, she now mercilessly cuts -close like a boy's, from impatience at the daily waste of -time in suitably taking care of this prodigal gift of -nature.</p> - -<p class='c000'>She can ride a horse like an Indian, and climb a tree -like an athlete; she can swim, row a boat, play billiards, -and dance; moreover, as the crown of her physical -virtues, she can walk all day like an Englishwoman.</p> - -<p class='c000'>"Difficulties," says Emerson, "exist to be surmounted." -This might be the motto of her life. In her -lexicon (which is still of youth) there is no such word -as fail. Her ambition is stupendous—nothing is too -great for her grasp. Prescient of the grandeur of her -destiny, she goes forward with a resistless fanaticism -to accomplish it. Believing thoroughly in herself (or -rather not in herself but in her spirit-aids) she allows no -one else to doubt either her or them. In her case the -old miracle is enacted anew—the faith which removes -mountains. A soul set on edge is a conquering weapon -<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>in the battle of life. Such, and of Damascus temper, -is hers.</p> - -<p class='c000'>In making an epitome of her views, I may say that -in politics she is a downright democrat, scorning to -divide her fellow-citizens into upper and lower classes, -but ranking them all in one comprehensive equality of -right, privilege, and opportunity; concerning finance, -which is a favorite topic with her, she holds that gold -is not the true standard of money-value, but that the -government should abolish the gold-standard, and issue -its notes instead, giving to these a fixed and permanent -value, and circulating them as the only money; on social -questions, her theories are similar to those which -have long been taught by John Stuart Mill and Elizabeth -Cady Stanton, and which are styled by some as -free-love doctrines, while others reject this appellation -on account of its popular association with the idea -of a promiscuous intimacy between the sexes—the essence -of her system being that marriage is of the heart -and not of the law, that when love ends marriage should -end with it, being dissolved by nature, and that no civil -statute should outwardly bind two hearts which have -been inwardly sundered; and finally, in religion, she is -a spiritualist of the most mystical and ethereal type.</p> - -<p class='c000'>In thus speaking of her views, I will add to -them another fundamental article of her creed, -which an incident will best illustrate. Once a sick -woman who had been given up by the physicians, -and who had received from a Catholic priest -extreme unction in expectation of death, was put -into the care of Mrs. Woodhull, who attempted to -lure her back to life. This zealous physician, unwilling -to be baffled, stood over her patient day and night, -neither sleeping nor eating for ten days and nights, at -the end of which time she was gladdened not only at -witnessing the sick woman's recovery, but at finding -that her own body, instead of weariness or exhaustion -from the double lack of sleep and food, was more fresh -<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>and bright than at the beginning. Her face, during this -discipline, grew uncommonly fair and ethereal; her flesh -wore a look of transparency; and the ordinary earthiness -of mortal nature began to disappear from her -physical frame and its place to be supplied with what -she fancied were the foretokens of a spiritual body. -These phenomena were so vivid to her own consciousness -and to the observation of her friends, that she was -led to speculate profoundly on the transformation from -our mortal to our immortal state, deducing the idea -that the time will come when the living human body, -instead of ending in death by disease, and dissolution in -the grave, will be gradually refined away until it is entirely -sloughed off, and the soul only, and not the flesh, -remains. It is in this way that she fulfils to her daring -hope the prophecy that "The last enemy that shall be -destroyed is death."</p> - -<p class='c000'>Engrossed in business affairs, nevertheless at any moment -she would rather die than live—such is her infinite -estimate of the other world over this. But she disdains -all commonplace parleyings with the spirit-realm -such as are had in ordinary spirit-manifestations. On -the other hand, she is passionately eager to see -the spirits face to face—to summon them at her -will and commune with them at her pleasure. Twice -(as she unshakenly believes) she has seen a vision of Jesus -Christ—honored thus doubly over St. Paul, who -saw his Master but once, and then was overcome by the -sight. She never goes to any church—save to the solemn -temple whose starry arch spans her housetop at -night, where she sits like Simeon Stylites on his pillar, -a worshipper in the sky. Against the inculcations -of her childish education, the spirits have taught her -that he whom the church calls the Saviour of the world -is not God but man. But her reverence for him is supreme -and ecstatic. The Sermon on the Mount fills -her eyes with tears. The exulting exclamations of the -Psalmist are her familiar outbursts of devotion. For -<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>two years, as a talisman against any temptation toward -untruthfulness (which, with her, is the unpardonable -sin), she wore, stitched into the sleeve of every one of -her dresses, the 2d verse of the 120th Psalm, namely, -"Deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips, and from a -deceitful tongue." Speaking the truth punctiliously, -whether in great things or small, she so rigorously exacts -the same of others, that a deceit practised upon -her enkindles her soul to a flame of fire; and she has -acquired a clairvoyant or intuitive power to detect a lie -in the moment of its utterance, and to smite the liar in -his act of guilt. She believes that intellectual power -has its fountains in spiritual inspiration. And once -when I put to her the searching question, "What is the -greatest truth that has ever been expressed in words?" -she thrilled me with the sudden answer, "Blessed are -the pure in heart for they shall see God."</p> - -<p class='c000'>As showing that her early clairvoyant power still -abides, I will mention a fresh instance. An eminent -judge in Pennsylvania, in whose court-house I had once -lectured, called lately to see me at the office of The -Golden Age. On my inquiring after his family, he -told me that a strange event had just happened in it. -"Three months ago," said he, "while I was in New -York, Mrs. Woodhull said to me, with a rush of feeling, -'Judge, I foresee that you will lose two of your -children within six weeks.'" This announcement, he -said, wounded him as a tragic sort of trifling with life -and death. "But," I asked, "did anything follow the -prophecy?" "Yes," he replied, "fulfilment; I -lost two children within six weeks." The Judge, -who is a Methodist, thinks that Victoria the clairvoyant -is like "Anna the prophetess."</p> - -<p class='c000'>Let me say that I know of no person against whom -there are more prejudices, nor any one who more quickly -disarms them. This strange faculty is the most powerful -of her powers. She shoots a word like a sudden -sunbeam through the thickest mist of people's doubts -<span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>and accusations, and clears the sky in a moment. -Questioned by some committee or delegation who have -come to her with idle tales against her busy life, I have -seen her swiftly gather together all the stones which -they have cast, put them like the miner's quartz into -the furnace, melt them with fierce and fervent heat, -bring out of them the purest gold, stamp thereon her image -and superscription as if she were sovereign of the -realm, and then (as the marvel of it all) receive the -sworn allegiance of the whole company on the spot. -At one of her public meetings when the chair (as she -hoped) would be occupied by Lucretia Mott, this -venerable woman had been persuaded to decline -this responsibility, but afterward stepped forward on -the platform and lovingly kissed the young speaker -in presence of the multitude. Her enemies (save those -of her own household,) are strangers. To see her is to -respect her—to know her is to vindicate her. She has -some impetuous and headlong faults, but were she without -the same traits which produce these she would not -possess the mad and magnificent energies which (if -she lives) will make her a heroine of history.</p> - -<p class='c000'>In conclusion, amid all the rush of her active life, she -believes with Wordsworth that</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c007'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>"The gods approve the depth and not</div> - <div class='line in4'>The tumult of the soul."</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c000'>So, whether buffeted by criticism or defamed by slander, -she carries herself in that religious peace which, -through all turbulence, is "a measureless content." When -apparently about to be struck down, she gathers unseen -strength and goes forward conquering and to conquer. -Known only as a rash iconoclast, and ranked even with -the most uncouth of those noise-makers who are waking -a sleepy world before its time, she beats her daily gong -of business and reform with notes not musical but -strong, yet mellows the outward rudeness of the rhythm -by the inward and devout song of one of the sincerest, -most reverent, and divinely-gifted of human souls.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id001'> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span> -<img src='images/i_040.jpg' alt='The Golden Age' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div><em>A Weekly Journal devoted to the Free Discussion of all Living</em></div> - <div><em>Questions of Church, State, Society, Literature,</em></div> - <div><em>Art, and Moral Reform.</em></div> - <div class='c002'>Published every Wednesday at No. 9 Spruce Street,</div> - <div>New York City.</div> - <div class='c002'>THEODORE TILTON,</div> - <div><span class='sc'>Editor and Publisher</span>.</div> - </div> -</div> - -<table class='table0' summary=''> -<colgroup> -<col width='50%' /> -<col width='50%' /> -</colgroup> - <tr> - <td class='c008'>W. T. CLARKE,</td> - <td class='c009'>Associate Editor.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'>O. W. RULAND,</td> - <td class='c009'>Associate Publisher.</td> - </tr> -</table> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div>TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION.</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c000'>Single copies, $3 per annum; four copies, $10, which is $2 50 a copy; -eight copies, $20. The party who sends $20 for a club of eight -copies (all sent at one time) will be entitled to a copy <em>free</em>. Postmasters -and others who get up clubs in their respective towns, can afterward -add single copies at $2 50.</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div>THE GOLDEN AGE TRACTS.</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c000'>No. 1. "<span class='sc'>The Rights of Women.</span>" A Letter to Horace Greeley by -Theodore Tilton. Price 5 cents; $3 per hundred.</p> - -<p class='c000'>No. 2. "<span class='sc'>The Constitution a Title-Deed to Woman's Franchise.</span>" -A Letter to Charles Sumner by Theodore Tilton. Price 5 cents; $3 per -hundred.</p> - -<p class='c000'>No. 3. "<span class='sc'>Victoria C. Woodhull.</span>" A Biographical Sketch. By -Theodore Tilton. 36 pages. Price 10 cents.</p> - -<p class='c000'>No. 4. "<span class='sc'>The Sin of Sins.</span>" A tractate on what are called "fallen women." -By Theodore Tilton. Price 5 cents; $3 per hundred.</p> - -<p class='c000'>The above pamphlets will be sent to any part of the United States -postage paid on receipt of the price.</p> - -<p class='c000'>After you read this notice, and before you forget it, sit down and -write a letter to Mr. Tilton, subscribing for the paper and ordering -some of the tracts.</p> - -<table class='table1' summary=''> -<colgroup> -<col width='50%' /> -<col width='49%' /> -</colgroup> - <tr> - <td class='c008'>All letters should be addressed to</td> - <td class='c009'>THEODORE TILTON,</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'> </td> - <td class='c009'>Post-office Box 2848,</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'> </td> - <td class='c009'>New York City.</td> - </tr> -</table> - -<div class='tnotes'> - -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c005'>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES</h2> -</div> - <ol class='ol_1 c003'> - <li>Silently corrected simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors. - - </li> - <li>Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed. - - </li> - </ol> - -</div> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Victoria C. 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