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Newcastle
April 1st
Dear Lucretia,
Reached here last evening. Cold better! I have thought much since leaving of our dear Woodhull, all the gossip about her, came to the conclusion that it is great impertinence in any of us to pry into her affairs, How should we feel to have everybody overhauling our antecedents and turning up the whites of their eyes over each new discovery or invention. There is to me a sacredness in individual experience
______________________
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that seems like profanation to search into or expose. Victoria Woodhull stands before us to day one of the ablest speakers and writers of the century sound and radical, alike in political, religious, and social principles. Her face form manners and conversations, all indicate the triumph of the moral, intellectual, spiritual over the sensuous in her nature. The processes and localities of her education are little to us, but the grand result is everything. Are our brilliant flowers less fragrant our luscious fruits - less
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palatable because the debris of filthy streets and barn yards have enriched and developed them? Does not the man or woman that can pass through every phase of social degradation, poverty, crime, temptation in all its forms, and yet tower above all their kind, give unmistakable proof of their high origin, the moral grandeur of their true nature. The Lilium Candidum that magnificent lily
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that queen of flowers, so lofty, white, and pure, that looks, as if it ne’er had battled with the elements, flourishes in all soils, and many latitudes, it braves all winds and weather, heat, and cold and oftimes, with its feet in frozen clods, still lifts its pure, white face upward to the stars. Most women, who like the tender fuschia, perish in the first rude blast, think there must be something wrong, some subtle poison, in the hardy
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plants that grow stronger, braver, more beautiful in the poor soil, and rough exposure where they fell faded, withered, bleeding to the earth.
We have had women sacrificed to this sentiment, hyper critical, prating about purity, This is one of man’s most effective engines, for our decision, and subjugation. He creates the public sentiment, builds the gallows, and then makes us hangman for our sex, Women have crucified the Mary Wollstonecrafts, the Fanny Wrights, the George Sands
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the Fanny Kembles, the Lucretia Motts of all ages, and now men mock us with the fact, and say, we are ever cruel to each other. Let us end this ignoble record, and henceforth stand by womanhood. If Victoria Woodhull must be crucified, let men drive the spikes, and place the crown of thorns.
I do not believe your E.M.D. will help! I shall see the glorious victim as soon as I return to N.Y. I am visiting some friends who have a magnificent place on Delaware Bay
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Everything here is gorgeous and luxurious. The wife quite radical, the husband a member of the legislature who believes in the “whipping” post, (if I have too many p’s in this word excuse me. I suffer from a painful uncertainty about the allography, etymology, syntax and possibly of the language, oftimes imagining myself wrong when I am not and sometimes the reverse. Maggie and I have a delightful remembrance of our visit
Page 8
to you. Maggie thinks your two sons in law are especially charming and says if her brothers were like them she should not consider boys the nuisances she now does. I suggested that time might improve our boys, as it undoubtedly had thine. With our warmest love for you and your household I must say good night. Had a pleasant visit at Morristown, I hope your young boy may make the acquaintance of my niece
______________________
Page 9
[Left margin]
she’s a very good little woman
[right margin]
Lovingly your friend
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
______________________
Page 10
[typed transcript]
Stanton Library
COPY
Alma Lutz Collection
Stanton 1.19
New castle (Del.)
April 1st (1872)
Dear Lucretia,
Reached here last evening. Cold better! I have thought much since leaving of our dear Woodhull, all the gossip about her, came to the conclusion that it is great impertinence in any of us to pry into her affairs. How should we feel to have everybody overhauling our antecedents and turning up the whites of their eyes over each new discovery or invention. There is to me a sacredness in individual experience that seems like profanation to search into or expose. Victoria Woodhull stands before us to day one of the ablest speakers and writers of the century sound and radical, alike in political, religious, and racial principles. Her face, form manners, conversation, all indicate the triumph of the moral, intellectual, spiritual over the sensuous in her nature. The processes & localities of her education are little to us. But the grand result is everything. Are our brilliant flowers less fragrant, our luscious fruits - less palatable because the degree of filthy streets and barn yards have enriched and developed them? Does not the man or woman that can pass through every phase of social degradation, poverty, vice, temptation in all its forms, and yet tower above all their kind, give unmistakable proof of their high
______________________
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origin, the moral grandeur of their true nature. The lilium candidum that magnificent lily, that queen of flowers, so lofty, white, and pure, that looks, as if it ne’er had battled with the elements, flourishes in all soils, and many latitudes, it braves all wind and weather, heat, and cold and oftimes, with its feet in frozen clods, still lifts its pure, white face upward to the stars. Most women, who like the tender Fuschia, perish in the first rude blast, think there must be something wrong, some subtle poison, in the hardy plants that grow stronger, braver, more beautiful in the poor soil, and rough exposure where they fell faded, withered, bleeding to the earth.
We have had women sacrificed to this sentiment, hyper critical, prating about purity. This is one of man’s most effective engines, for our decision, and subjugation. He creates the public sentiment, builds the gallows, and then makes us hangman for our sex, Women have crucified the Mary Wolstencrafts, the Fanny Wrights, the George Sands the Fanny Kembles, the Lucretia Motts of all ages, and now men mock us with the fact, and say, we are ever cruel to each other. Let us end this ignoble record, and henceforth stand by womanhood. If Victoria Woodhull must be crucified, let men drive the spikes, and place the crown of thorns.
I do not believe your E.M.D. will help! I shall see the glorious victim as soon as I return to N.Y. I am visiting some friends who have a magnificent place in Delaware Bay. Everything here is gorgeous and luxurious. The wife quite radical, the husband a member of the legislature who believes
______________________
Page 12
in the “whipping” post, (if I have too many p’s in this word excuse me. I suffer from a painful uncertainty about the orthography Etemmology syntax & ? of the language, oftimes imagining myself wrong when I am not and sometimes the reverse. Maggie and I have a delightful remembrance of our visit to you. Maggie thinks your two sons in law are especially charming and says if her brothers were like them she should not consider boys the nuisances she now does. I suggested that time might improve our boys, as it undoubtedly had thine. With our warmest love for you and your household I want to say good night. Had a pleasant visit at Morristown, I hope your young boy may make the acquaintance of my niece - she is a very good little woman.
Lovingly your friend
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Newcastle
April 1st
Dear Lucretia,
Reached here last evening. Cold better! I have thought much since leaving of our dear Woodhull, all the gossip about her, came to the conclusion that it is great impertinence in any of us to pry into her affairs, How should we feel to have everybody overhauling our antecedents and turning up the whites of their eyes over each new discovery or invention. There is to me a sacredness in individual experience
______________________
Page 2
that seems like profanation to search into or expose. Victoria Woodhull stands before us to day one of the ablest speakers and writers of the century sound and radical, alike in political, religious, and social principles. Her face form manners and conversations, all indicate the triumph of the moral, intellectual, spiritual over the sensuous in her nature. The processes and localities of her education are little to us, but the grand result is everything. Are our brilliant flowers less fragrant our luscious fruits - less
______________________
Page 3
palatable because the debris of filthy streets and barn yards have enriched and developed them? Does not the man or woman that can pass through every phase of social degradation, poverty, crime, temptation in all its forms, and yet tower above all their kind, give unmistakable proof of their high origin, the moral grandeur of their true nature. The Lilium Candidum that magnificent lily
______________________
Page 4
that queen of flowers, so lofty, white, and pure, that looks, as if it ne’er had battled with the elements, flourishes in all soils, and many latitudes, it braves all winds and weather, heat, and cold and oftimes, with its feet in frozen clods, still lifts its pure, white face upward to the stars. Most women, who like the tender fuschia, perish in the first rude blast, think there must be something wrong, some subtle poison, in the hardy
______________________
Page 5
plants that grow stronger, braver, more beautiful in the poor soil, and rough exposure where they fell faded, withered, bleeding to the earth.
We have had women sacrificed to this sentiment, hyper critical, prating about purity, This is one of man’s most effective engines, for our decision, and subjugation. He creates the public sentiment, builds the gallows, and then makes us hangman for our sex, Women have crucified the Mary Wollstonecrafts, the Fanny Wrights, the George Sands
______________________
Page 6
the Fanny Kembles, the Lucretia Motts of all ages, and now men mock us with the fact, and say, we are ever cruel to each other. Let us end this ignoble record, and henceforth stand by womanhood. If Victoria Woodhull must be crucified, let men drive the spikes, and place the crown of thorns.
I do not believe your E.M.D. will help! I shall see the glorious victim as soon as I return to N.Y. I am visiting some friends who have a magnificent place on Delaware Bay
______________________
Page 7
Everything here is gorgeous and luxurious. The wife quite radical, the husband a member of the legislature who believes in the “whipping” post, (if I have too many p’s in this word excuse me. I suffer from a painful uncertainty about the allography, etymology, syntax and possibly of the language, oftimes imagining myself wrong when I am not and sometimes the reverse. Maggie and I have a delightful remembrance of our visit
Page 8
to you. Maggie thinks your two sons in law are especially charming and says if her brothers were like them she should not consider boys the nuisances she now does. I suggested that time might improve our boys, as it undoubtedly had thine. With our warmest love for you and your household I must say good night. Had a pleasant visit at Morristown, I hope your young boy may make the acquaintance of my niece
______________________
Page 9
[Left margin]
she’s a very good little woman
[right margin]
Lovingly your friend
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
______________________
Page 10
[typed transcript]
Stanton Library
COPY
Alma Lutz Collection
Stanton 1.19
New castle (Del.)
April 1st (1872)
Dear Lucretia,
Reached here last evening. Cold better! I have thought much since leaving of our dear Woodhull, all the gossip about her, came to the conclusion that it is great impertinence in any of us to pry into her affairs. How should we feel to have everybody overhauling our antecedents and turning up the whites of their eyes over each new discovery or invention. There is to me a sacredness in individual experience that seems like profanation to search into or expose. Victoria Woodhull stands before us to day one of the ablest speakers and writers of the century sound and radical, alike in political, religious, and racial principles. Her face, form manners, conversation, all indicate the triumph of the moral, intellectual, spiritual over the sensuous in her nature. The processes & localities of her education are little to us. But the grand result is everything. Are our brilliant flowers less fragrant, our luscious fruits - less palatable because the degree of filthy streets and barn yards have enriched and developed them? Does not the man or woman that can pass through every phase of social degradation, poverty, vice, temptation in all its forms, and yet tower above all their kind, give unmistakable proof of their high
______________________
Page 11
origin, the moral grandeur of their true nature. The lilium candidum that magnificent lily, that queen of flowers, so lofty, white, and pure, that looks, as if it ne’er had battled with the elements, flourishes in all soils, and many latitudes, it braves all wind and weather, heat, and cold and oftimes, with its feet in frozen clods, still lifts its pure, white face upward to the stars. Most women, who like the tender Fuschia, perish in the first rude blast, think there must be something wrong, some subtle poison, in the hardy plants that grow stronger, braver, more beautiful in the poor soil, and rough exposure where they fell faded, withered, bleeding to the earth.
We have had women sacrificed to this sentiment, hyper critical, prating about purity. This is one of man’s most effective engines, for our decision, and subjugation. He creates the public sentiment, builds the gallows, and then makes us hangman for our sex, Women have crucified the Mary Wolstencrafts, the Fanny Wrights, the George Sands the Fanny Kembles, the Lucretia Motts of all ages, and now men mock us with the fact, and say, we are ever cruel to each other. Let us end this ignoble record, and henceforth stand by womanhood. If Victoria Woodhull must be crucified, let men drive the spikes, and place the crown of thorns.
I do not believe your E.M.D. will help! I shall see the glorious victim as soon as I return to N.Y. I am visiting some friends who have a magnificent place in Delaware Bay. Everything here is gorgeous and luxurious. The wife quite radical, the husband a member of the legislature who believes
______________________
Page 12
in the “whipping” post, (if I have too many p’s in this word excuse me. I suffer from a painful uncertainty about the orthography Etemmology syntax & ? of the language, oftimes imagining myself wrong when I am not and sometimes the reverse. Maggie and I have a delightful remembrance of our visit to you. Maggie thinks your two sons in law are especially charming and says if her brothers were like them she should not consider boys the nuisances she now does. I suggested that time might improve our boys, as it undoubtedly had thine. With our warmest love for you and your household I want to say good night. Had a pleasant visit at Morristown, I hope your young boy may make the acquaintance of my niece - she is a very good little woman.
Lovingly your friend
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
