The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1878-04-24
From Our Regular Correspondent
OUR WASHINGTON LETTER.

OUR WASHINGTON LETTER.
WASHINGTON, ID. C., Apr 20.-lS1S.
When Chesterfield said that wo-
men were only children of a larger
growth, with an interesting %tattle,
and sometimes wit, but that be had
never known one to possess solid
reason and good sense, or to act con-
sequentially for four and twenty
hours tGgether-it is quite evident
that be had never come in contact
with the Washington species, maid,
wife, or widow. Had he met a
Washington adventures, and if he
had gone into good society be would
certainly have found her, he would
have met his equal, and more too.
If he had begun TO fstter her, as be
advised his son to do, on any subject,
from her understanding down TO the
exquisite taste of her fan, under the
impression that she would gratefully
accept the smallest compliment, and
greedily swallow the grossest-
what would have become Of that
duality of the devil and the graces;
Lord Chesterfield He would have
been taken in" destroyed. He
might practice his graces, his fattery,
his diabolical je ne scat qHot, upon a
United States Senator, on Ben But
Ter, or Sam Cox; but with all his
knowledge of the beau monde, as 1t
was, the Becky Sharpe of Washing
ton might teach him Q thing or two
that would cause him to admire. The
century and a quarter that has
elapsed since Chesterfield wrote, has
not left women becalmed in the wake
Of its mighty eyolutions and reVolu-
tons. the queen of the Cannibal
islands is more i~astefully tGttooed
than was her grandmother. and the
belle of this habitat has more in her
head, if not in her heart, than had
her p~rogenitress Of the day OF Ches-
terield. The Washington society
woman mas one grand absorbing pas
sion-sn enthusiastic devotion TO
herself that has made her stoieal on
every other subject; she may have
her smiles and her tears, her joys
and her sorrows, but they were not
for others. She adores dress, kneels
ct the shrine Of Mammon, burns in
cense to dear mealy-mopthed society,
fawns upon the powerful and Gle
Yates her requisite nose at the knock
kneed, pot-bellied, and weak. She
is an audacio4s, ~Ps:severing, pioneer,
ing, little body; her motto is eycel-
sior. and her Alps is the social lad
der. Sooner or later, probably later,
she viii get married 20 c sentimental
youth, With well balanced hair, ana
money; or, to what she would pre-
fer, money, with only q septusgena,
rian eneumbrance. Money, Subsidiary
to self, is the supreme object of her
life, end she will secure it, through
marriage if she can, but, at any rate,
she will secure it. Since thS days
of Babylon there baye been other
careers for women ct capitals than
matrimony.
Yesterday evening in passing Tall
madge hall which adjoins the old
theatre where LINCOLN was murder
ed, ! observed that it was illpmina-
ted, end asking the Iong-haired map
at the door what be was to have, he
replied: "a lecture by TIC great high
priest Of spiritualism Mr.. Davis" /
remembered that when quite a boy
| had read 6 book on s%piritualism, by
Davis, full of trsnseeldagtal jargon,
the fly leaf of which was adorned
with a portrait of the writer, trying
to look Ike q man of genius and SEN
sibility; so | paid ten cents and stroll
ed in to hear him. One sess some
queer locking people in a large hall
.nll of spiritualists. 1t is said that
every NAP has his insanity, but q
spectacle Of g Foom full of middle
aged men and women, elstel with a
homogeneous insanity. is @ spectacle.
From Mr.. Davis lecture / would in
ies that his insanity is of the milder,
more reaned, s2a ETHEREAL, type. Ills
rhapsody al az convincing as
ehast rhetoric, poeiical hypothesis,
and pnippassioned dic;ion could
make IT, Che philosophy or rather
"misoPby" which be laugh; was to
distrust the senses, with their loye Of
science, and listen ouly to INSTINCT
and longing, which was real wisdom,
and the hereditary experiences of in
snite generations of the human soul.
He DENOUNCED spectacular spiritual
ism and so-eslied NATURALIZATION,
and reproacbed spiritsaiista for,
wasting money on them. The best
part of his lecture was that 10 which
he riaicnled a wealthy Ohioan, whose
business detained him in New York,
while bis wife took care OF bis fami-
~ 10 the Buckeye state, for paying
Sl,i06 for ep oi! painting of bis Esprit
bride. the woman he was to wed in
the spirit world. He said that this
man would spend hours in enamored
contemplation of the painting, while
his good homely, wife, in Ohio, was
engaged in the care of their numer-
Gus progeny. When be asked him
why be did cot tate the picture home,
be replied that he was asraiS i. might
make ,rogblel
Gas $.