The spirit-rapper; an autobiography
participate their creator, for they are nothing without him, and
therefore all that exists must participate intelligence, or be a
participated intelligence, and, of course, the higher the order of
existence, the greater and more comprehensive its intelligence. All
nature bears evidence that its laws are the laws of reason, and that its
primitive forces are intelligent forces. How, then, should this force
not be intelligent, and if intelligent, far more intelligent than I?
I resolved to prepare for placing myself in immediate relation with
infinite power and intelligence. I thought I caught a glimpse of a
deeper significance in the words, “ye shall be as gods,” than had been
generally suspected, and I began to think in real earnest that my sweet
lady friend in Philadelphia, who had so eloquently and lovingly defended
Eve in eating the forbidden fruit, was quite right, and that her
disobedience was really a brave and heroic act. Man could really become
as a god, but the priests had invented the prohibition to prevent him.
The god of the priests, then, could not be the true God, and Satan,
instead of being regarded as the enemy, should be, as the author of
_Festus_ seems to teach, loved and honored as the friend of man. A new
light seemed to break in at once upon my mind. The world had hitherto
worshipped a false god; it had called evil good, and good evil; it had
enshrined in its temples the enemy of man, and chained to the Caucasian
rock that god Prometheus, who was the true and noble friend and
benefactor of the race.
CHAPTER VII.
A LESSON IN PHILANTHROPY.
Full of my new resolution, I immediately set myself at work to carry it
into effect. The safest and most expeditious way of doing it, I thought,
would be to place myself at once in communication with some prominent
and well-instructed philanthropist. Accordingly, I started forthwith for
Philadelphia, to consult the beautiful and fascinating young lady, who,
in my previous visit, had so warmly and energetically defended the
eating of the forbidden fruit at the suggestion of that first of
philanthropists, as a brave, heroic, and disinterested act. She, of all
my acquaintances and friends, was unquestionably the one best fitted to
complete my initiation into the mysteries of philanthropy, and to
inspire and direct me in my efforts at world-reform.
This lady, whom, out of respect to the great Montanus, who claimed to be
the Paraclete or Comforter, and professed to have the power of working
miracles very much of the character of those wrought by our modern
mesmerizers and spiritualists, I must be permitted to call Priscilla,
had some years before touched my fancy, and if the truth must be
confessed, had made more than an ordinary impression on my heart. She
had often visited me in my waking dreams, as a lovely, though flitting
vision. She was at my last visit at least twenty-five years old, but as
fresh and as blooming as at seventeen, when first I had the pleasure of
meeting her. She was a sweet lady, with a lovely and graceful figure,
exquisitely moulded, regular and expressive features, and as learned, as
brilliant, as fascinating, and as enthusiastic as the celebrated Hypatia
of Alexandria, who stirred up the zeal of the good monks of Nitria, gave
so much trouble to Saint Cyrill, and spread such a halo around expiring
paganism. She had been sent by the Abolition Society as a delegate to
the great Anti-Slavery World’s Convention at London, and being denied a
seat in that illustrious body, because a woman, she had turned her
attention to the question of woman’s rights, and, after travelling a few
months on the continent, had returned home well instructed in Godwin’s
Political Justice, and a devout believer in Mary Wolstonecroft. She was
liberal in her views, and very far from being a “one-idea” woman. Her
mind was large and comprehensive, and her heart was capacious and loving
enough to embrace and warm all classes of reformers, white, red, black,
religious, moral, political, social, and domestic.
The morning after my arrival in the City of Brotherly Love, I called on
Priscilla at her residence in Arch Street, as I supposed with her
mother. I found her surrounded by some ten or a dozen reformers,
variously dressed; some in petticoats, some in pantaloons: some with and
some without beards; the majority appearing to be of what grammarians
call the epicene gender. She greeted me kindly, and requested me to be
seated; she would be disengaged in a few moments. I took a seat, and
amused myself as well as I could in studying the interesting group
before me, and considering the sort of materials that go to the making
up of a world-reformer, and the charming associates I was likely to have
in my new career. Having listened to their several reports, heard their
suggestions, and given them her directions, Priscilla soon dismissed
them with a sweet smile, and a graceful salute with her hand, that would
have done credit to the grace and dignity of an empress. She then seated
herself near me, and welcomed me most cordially and affectionately to
Philadelphia. My visit was an unexpected pleasure, but all the more
welcome. “But,” she exclaimed, looking me more closely in the face, and
struck with my changed and careworn expression, “what in the world, my
friend, has happened to you?”
I was about to reply, when I observed that we were not alone. An
exceedingly meek and submissive-looking man, if man he could be called,
had just entered the room, and seemed to be hesitating whether to
advance or retreat. I looked inquiringly at Priscilla.
“O, it is only my husband,” she replied. Then turning, with her sweet
face to him, with an indefinable charm in her soft musical tones, said,
“You may leave us, dear James. This gentleman and I would be alone.”
He quietly retreated through the door he had entered, gently closed it,
and went away without speaking a word, or betraying the least sign of
discontent.
“But, my dear madam,” said I, “this takes me by surprise. I was not
aware that you had a husband.”
“Possibly not; yet I have been married these five years.”
“What! you were married when I was in the city last year and had the
pleasure of meeting you, and having that most pleasant and instructive
conversation with you?”
“Most assuredly.”
“This alters my plan. I had made up my mind,—”
“Not to marry me yourself?”
“Pardon me, my dear madam, but I own that I had dreamed of something of
the sort.”
“You might have done worse. I could have made you a good wife, but you
would never have made me a good husband.”
“Why not? I am not precisely a man to be slightly rejected.”
“That may be; and had you proposed in season, I might not have rejected
you. I am glad, however, that you did not, for I might have loved you,
and you alone, and then I should never have become a philanthropist, and
devoted all my sympathies and energies to the emancipation of my sex,
and to the development and progress of my race. You would have engrossed
all my thoughts and affections, and have been my tyrant.”
“But if I had loved you in return, and laid my own heart at your feet?”
“That would have made the matter worse. In loving me you would only have
loved yourself, and sought only your own pleasure. Men usually love only
to sacrifice her they love to themselves; while woman, when she loves,
is ready to sacrifice herself to her beloved. Man’s love is selfish;
woman’s is disinterested.”
“Women are disinterested creatures, and never exact any return for their
love!”
“They are more disinterested than you believe. There is nothing that a
true woman will not do for him she loves. She will abandon herself
without reserve to his wishes, go through fire and water, nay, hell
itself, for him, and take delight in damning her own soul, to please
him.”
“That is because her love is an instinct, a blind passion, a sort of
madness or frenzy, not a sober, rational affection.”
“Perhaps so; but it is rather because her love is love. Unhappily, woman
feels, she does not reason, or if she reasons, it is only in the
interest of her feeling. Reason is cold, calculating; love is warm and
self-sacrificing. It is heedless of consequences.”
“And therefore is the better for having reason or prudence for a
companion.”
“It is clear that you have never loved.”
“Perhaps not; but at any rate I think I could have loved you very much
in your own fashion.”
“That is not improbable, at least, as far as it is in your calculating
nature; for I have been thought to have my attractions, and it would not
be difficult to make any man my slave—unless I loved him. Yet you would
always have loved me as a master, and have always held me in subjection.
There are natures born to command. You would never have loved me as my
dear James loves me, and never have been the meek, submissive, quiet,
dear good man that he is. His love is not tyrannical, and it imposes no
burden on me. He interferes with none of my plans, restrains none of my
movements, and is satisfied with feeling that he is my husband and
belongs to me, without once presuming to think of me as his wife and as
belonging to him.”
“That is charming, and must, no doubt, entirely satisfy your heart.”
“That is my own affair. But I will tell you that it does not, and that
it does.”
“But that is a riddle; pray rede it.”
“It does not satisfy the deep want of the heart to love, for no woman
can love, with all her heart, a man she can make her slave, or who does
not maintain himself as her master. But as I would not become any one’s
slave, as I would not that any man should engross all my affections, and
compel me to live all my life in love’s delirium, it satisfies, and more
than satisfies me. It leaves me free to be a philanthropist, and does
not compel me to give up to one what was meant for mankind. If my
husband engrossed all my affections I should be happy and contented at
home, and should never seek relief in going abroad.”
“And should it not be so?”
“Consult the parsons and old-fashioned moralists, and they will tell you
that it should. But I am a philanthropist. My James loves me sincerely,
warmly, disinterestedly, consults my wishes, does whatever I require of
him, has full confidence in me, is proud of me, and never doubts that
whatever I do is perfect. That is enough.”
“But do you return his love with a disinterestedness and generosity
equal to his own?”
“Why should I? It is enough for him that I permit him to love me, and to
call himself my husband. For myself, I remain free to be a
philanthropist. I cannot give my heart to any individual. I reserve its
deepest and holiest affections for mankind.”
“But mankind, without individuals, is an abstraction, a nullity; and to
love the race, without loving individuals, is worse than loving a statue
or a shadow.”
“Ah! my dear friend, I see that you have not studied the profound
philosophy of Plato, and are still a Nominalist, and therefore an
egotist. You are still a psychologist, stuck fast in the slough of
individualism.”
“It may be so, my dear Priscilla, but I am willing and even anxious to
be liberated and set right. I have resolved, let come what will, to be a
philanthropist, and to become a world-reformer; and it is to solicit
your instructions and assistance to this end that I have visited your
city, and sought my interview with you this morning.”
She shook her head and looked doubtingly.
“Do not doubt it,” I said, “I am serious, never more serious in my life.
I am on the verge of important discoveries, and perhaps well-nigh within
reach of a more than human power. But it is necessary that I at first
become a philanthropist, unite myself with the movement party of the