The Wit of Women

Such eager salutations were never heard before.

After due deliberation on the importance of the occasion,

To begin the organization, Mr. Pompous took the floor

With an air quite self-complacent, strutted up and took the floor,

As he’d often done before!

With an air of condescension he bespoke their close attention

To an essay from a Wiseman versed in theologic lore;

He himself had had the pleasure of a short glance at the treasure,

And in no stinted measure said we had a treat in store;

Then he waved his hand to Wiseman and resigned to him the floor;

Only this and nothing more.

Quick and nervous, short and wiry, with a look profound, yet fiery,

Mr. Wiseman now stepped forward and eyed us darkly o’er,

Then an arm-chair, quaint and olden, gay with colors green and golden,

By the pretty hostess rolled in from its place behind the door,

Was offered to the reader, in the centre of the floor,

And he took the chair be sure.

Then with arguments elastic, and a voice and eye sarcastic,

Mr. Wiseman into flinders the Holy Bible tore;

And he proved beyond all question that the God of Moses’ mention

Was a fraudulent invention of some Hebrews, three or four,

And the Son of God’s ascension an imaginary soar!

Only this and nothing more.

Each member then admitted that his part was well acquitted,

For his strong, impassioned reasoning had touched them to the core;

He felt sure, as he surveyed them through his specs, that

he had “played” them,

And was proud that he had made them all astonished by his lore;

Not a continental cared he for the fruits such lessons bore,

So he bowed and left the floor.

Then a Colonel, cold and smiling, with a stately air beguiling,

Who punctuates his paragraphs on Newport’s sounding shore,

Said his friend was wise and witty, and yet it seemed a pity

To destroy in this old city the belief it had before

In the ancient superstitions of the days of yore.

This he said, and something more.

Orthodoxy, he lamented, thought the Christian world demented,

Yet still he felt a rev’rence as he read the Bible o’er,

And he thought the modern preacher, though a poor stick for a teacher,

Or a broken reed, like Beecher, ought to have his claims looked o’er,

And the “tyranny of science” was indeed, he felt quite sure,

Our danger more and more.

His remarks our pulses quicken, when a British Lion, stricken

With his wondrous self-importance—he knew everything and more—

Said he loathed such moderation; and he made his declaration

That, in spite of all creation, he found no God to adore;

And his voice was like the ocean as its surges loudly roar;

Only this and nothing more.

But the interest now grew lukewarm, for an ancient Concord book-worm

With authoritative tramping, forward came and took the floor,

And in Orphic mysticisms talked of life and light and prisms,

And the Infinite baptisms on a transcendental shore,

And the concrete metaphysic, till we yawned in anguish sore;

But still he kept the floor.

Then uprose a kindred spirit almost ready to inherit

The rare and radiant Aiden that he begged us to adore;

His smile was beaming brightly, and his soft hair floated whitely

Round a face as fair and sightly as a pious priest’s of yore;

And we forgave the arguments worn out years before,

For we loved this saintly bore.

Then a lively little charmer, noted as a dress reformer,

Because that mystic garment, chemiloon, she wore,

Said she had no “views” of Jesus, and therefore would not tease us,

But that she thought ‘twould please us to look her figure o’er,

For she wore no bustles anywhere, and corsets, she felt sure,

Should squeeze her nevermore.

This pretty little pigeon said of course the true religion

Demanded ease of body before the mind could soar;

But that no emancipation could come unto our nation

Until the aggregation of the clothes that women wore

Were suspended from the shoulders, and smooth with many a gore,

Plain behind and plain before!

Her remarks were full of reason, but a little out of season,

And the proper tone of talking Mr. Fairman did restore,

When he sneered at priests and preaching, and indorsed

the Index teaching,

And with philanthropic screeching, said he sought for evermore

The light of sense and freedom into darkened minds to pour;

Truly this, but something more!

Then with eyes as bright as Phoebus, and hair dark as Erebus,

A maid with stunning eye-glass next appeared upon the floor;

In her aspect she looked regal, though her words were few and feeble,

But she vowed his logic legal and as pure as golden ore,

And indorsed the Index editor in every word he swore,

And then—said nothing more.

Then a tall and red-faced member, large and loose and somewhat limber

(And though his creed was shaky, he the name of Bishop bore),

Said that if he lived forever, he should forget, ah! never,

The Radicals so clever, in Boston by the shore;

But a bad gold in his ‘ead bust stop his saying bore,

And we all cried encore.

Then a rarely gifted mortal, to whom the triple portal

Of Music, Art, and Poesy had opened years before,

With a look of sombre feeling, depths within his soul revealing,

Leaving room for no appealing, he decided o’er and o’er

The old, old vexing questions of the why and the wherefore,

And taught us—nothing more.

There are others I could mention who took part in this contention,

And at first ‘twas my intention, but at present I forbear;

There’s young Look-sharp, and Wriggle, who would make an angel giggle,

And a young conceited Zeigel, who was seated near the door;

If you could only see them, you’d laugh till you were sore,

And then you’d laugh some more.

But, dear friends, I now must close, of these Radicals dispose,

For I am sad and weary as I view their folly o’er;

In their wild Utopian dreaming, and impracticable scheming

For a sinful world’s redeeming, common sense flies out the door,

And the long-drawn dissertations come to—words and nothing more;

Only words, and nothing more.

Mary Clemmer Hudson has spoken of Phoebe Cary as “the wittiest woman in America.” But she truly adds:

“A flash of wit, like a flash of lightning, can only be remembered, it cannot be reproduced. Its very marvel lies in its spontaneity and evanescence; its power is in being struck from the present. Divorced from that, the keenest representation of it seems cold and dead. We read over the few remaining sentences which attempt to embody the repartees and bon mots of the most famous wits of society, such as Beau Nash, Beau Brummel, Madame du Deffand, and Lady Mary Montagu; we wonder at the poverty of these memorials of their fame. Thus it must be with Phoebe Cary. Her most brilliant sallies were perfectly unpremeditated, and by herself never repeated or remembered. When she was in her best moods they came like flashes of heat lightning, like a rush of meteors, so suddenly and constantly you were dazzled while you were delighted, and afterward found it difficult to single out any distinct flash or separate meteor from the multitude…. This most wonderful of her gifts can only be represented by a few stray sentences gleaned here and there from the faithful memories of loving friends….