“Finding this to be poor business on the whole, she deserted him, taking her child with her. The next occupation in which we find her versatile genius engaged, was that of teaching French; a more humble employment, surely, but one for which she was equally well fitted. This, however, soon disgusted her, as her unreasonable patrons would insist upon the vulgar necessity of her being able to speak French, as well as teach it. It was at best but a tame avocation, and one entirely unsuited to her ambitious temper.
“Having now fairly assayed her wings for flight, she soared aloft at once, in full career, through mid-air. She became first a preacher of Universalism; but meeting, about this time, with the celebrated Boanerges Phospher, she, in a few weeks, turned out full-plumed, as a lecturer on Elocution. To this she soon added a knowledge of Phrenology, which, in her active zeal, she took care to impart to the world, as fast as acquired, and in the same public manner.
“Then, as a natural consequence, came Mesmerism; then Neurology. Of all these sciences she became the prompt expounder, after a few days’ investigation.
“From this point she immediately ascended a step higher, and announced herself as a revelator in Clairvoyance; and, by an inevitable progression, she at once found admission, along with Andrew Jackson Davis and a host of other seers, into the Swedenborgian Arcana, and held herself on terms of frequent intercourse and positive intimacy with the angel Gabriel, and, indeed, the whole heavenly host.
“They revealed to her that the great and unpardonable sins of humanity were, first, eating pork; second, using tobacco, whether snuffing, smoking, or chewing; and, third, wine-drinking in all its forms. They accordingly commissioned her, formally, to go forth into the world as a missionary, to warn mankind against the fearful consequences of these vices, and to ‘save’ them therefrom.
“The exposition of Grahamism and Bran-bread was now added to the enlarged circle of her enlightened Professorships; and, by this aid, and that of her spiritual commission, she wrought wonders, in assailing the camps of the great foes of humanity—Pork, Tobacco, and Wine!
“Many were the brands plucked by her from the burning, or rather ‘saved’—preachers, lawyers, editors, artists, and watery-eyed young gentlemen, in particular. It was on this grand tour that she first assumed her most distinguished attribute, the Patroness of Art—particularly of the Artists.
“Returning to civilization once more, she again assumed her cast-off Professorship of Physiology, and began lecturing to classes of her own sex. Now, with the first gleam of light from Græfenberg, she pronounced herself as having been, for many years before, a practitioner of the system; and at once proceeded to combine Grahamism, Mesmerism, Water-cure, and Physiology.
“While in the vein of Physiology, she also lectured on the benefits of Amalgamation, Abolitionism, and Non-resistance. About this time, having met with one of the chief expounders of Fourierism, whom she also undertook to ‘save,’ she turned out in a few weeks a Phalanxsterian lecturer. That bubble had barely exploded, when she came forth a Communist. Shortly afterwards, having one or two editors separately undergoing the process of being ‘saved,’ she became authoress! She produced several physiological novels, a number of essays, poems, volumes of lectures, &c., &c.
“The police which obey the mandates of the formidable Regulus, have kept the changes of this feminine Proteus for now upward of forty years, steadily in view; and the Council of Disorganisation report, through their committee, that they have ample reason to be pleased with this Etherial Softdown, as the most indefatigable, active, unscrupulous, and energetic of the agents of Demoralisation in the employment of the Secret Conclave.