Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1878-04-26
WnahIngtOn Letter.

WashingtOn letter.
THE ADVENTURES IN wAsHISGToN-Ho THE
DUALITY OF THE DEVIL AND THE GRACEs"
MIGHT HAVE MET HIS EQUALIZER RELIGION,
HER LOVE, HER MOTTO, AND HER ALrs-A
sPmITUALIsTIo ENTERTAIEMENT-AN oHIoAN
PAYS 81, 400 FOR CLAIBvoYANT PAINTING
OF THE WOMAN HE Is TO WED IN THE SPIRIT
LAND, but Is AFRAID TO SHOW IT TO HIs
WIFE.
Especial Correspondence Of THE PnUNix.l
When Chesterfield said that women were
only children of n larger growth, with an in
teresting tattle, and sometimes wit, but that
he had never known one TO possess solid rea-
son and good sense, or TO act consequcntially
for four-and-twenty hours together it is quite
evident that he had never come in contact
with the Washington species, maid, wife or
widow. Had he met Washington ndyentur-
ess-and if he had gone into good society he
would certainly have found her-he would
have met his oqual and more too. If he had
begun to flatter her, as he 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 &c
cept the smallest compliment, and greedily
swallow the grossest, what would have be-
come of that 'dualty of the devil and the
graces," Lord Chesterfield He would have
been taken in" destroyed. He might prac-
tice his graces, his flattery, his diabolical je ne
Scdi quoj, upon Il United States Senator, on
Ben Butler or Sam Cox but with all his
knowledge of the beau mOHde as it was, the
Becky Sharpe of Washington might teach
him II thing or two that would cause him to
admire The century and quarter that has
elapsed since Chesterfield wrote, has not left
woman becalmed in the wake of its mighty
evolutions and revolutions. The queen of
the Cannibal islands is more tastefully tat
toocd than was her grandmother, and the
belle of this habitat has more in her hoad if
not in her heart, than had her progrenitress
of the day of Chesterfield. The Washington
society woman has one grand absorbing pas
son-an enthusiastic devotion to herself that
has made her stoical on every other subject
she may have her smiles and her tears, her
joys and her sorrows, but they are not for
others She adores dress, kneels at the shrine
of Mammon burns incense to dear mealy
mouthed society fawns upon the powerful
and eleyatcs her exquisite nose at the knock
kneed, pot-bellied and weak. She is an au-
dacious, perseyering, pioneering, little body
her motto is excelsior, and her Alps is the so
cinl ladder Sooner or later probably later,
she will get married to sentimental youth,
with well balanced hair, and money; or, to
what she would prefer, money with only sep
tuagenerion encumbrance. Money, subsidia-
ry to self, is the supreme object of her life,
and she will secure it, through marriage if
she can, but at any rate she will secure it.
Since the days of Babylon there have been
other careers for women at capitals than mat
rimony.
Yesterday evening in passing Tallmadge
hall, which ad Joins the old theatre where Lin
coin was murdered l observed that it was H.
Illuminated, and asking the long haired man at
the door what he was to have, he replied
"A lecture by the great high priest of spirit
ualism, Mr.. Davis" l remembered that when
quite boy l had read book on spiritual
ism, by Davis full of transcendental jargon,
the fly leaf of which was adorned with n por-
trait of the writer, trying to look like a man
of genius and sensibilty so l paid ten cents
and strolled in to hear him. One sees some
queer looking people in large hall full of
spiritualists. 1t is said that every man has
his insanity, but spectacle of room full of
middlc-aged men and women, elated with II
homogeneous insanity, is spectacle. From
Mr.. Dayis's lecture / would infer that his in
sanity is of the milder, more refined, and
ETHEREAL type His rhapsody was as convinc-
ing as chaste rhetoric, poetical hypothesis,
and unimpassioned dicton could make it.
The philosophy, or rather ''misophy," which
he taught was to distrust the senses with their
love of science, and listen only to instinct and
longing, which was real wisdom, and the he
reditary experience of infinite generations of
the human soul. He denounced spectacular
spiritualism and so called materializatons,
and reproached spiritualists for wasting mon
ey on them. The best part of his lecture was
that in which he ridiculed wealthy Ohoan
whose business detained him in New York
while his wife took care of his family in the
Buckeye State, for paying 81 400 for an oil
was to wed in the spirit world. He said this
man would spend hours in enamOred contem-
plation of the painting, while his good, home
ly wife in Ohio was engaged in the care of
their numerous progeny. When he asked him
why he did not take the picture home, he re-
piled that he was afraid it might make trouble I!
c. A. 5.