I felt real eloquent as I said this, and it seemed to impress ’em as I wanted it to. They both of ’em have got good faces. Though I didn’t like their belief, I liked their looks. They looked sincere and honest.
Agin I repeated, “Marriage is a solemn thing.”
I heard a deep sithe behind me, and a sorrowful voice exclaimed,
“It is solemn then both ways, you say it is solemn to marry, and I know”—here was another deep sithe “I know it is solemn not to.” It was Betsey, she was a thinkin’ of the Editer of the Augur, and of Ebineezer, and of all the other dear gazelles, that lay cold and lifeless in her buryin’ ground. I felt that I could not comfort her, and I was silent. Miss Woodhull is a well bread woman, and so to kinder notice Betsey, and make talk with her, says she,
“I believe you are the author of these lines
‘If wimmen had a mice’s will,
They would arise and get a bill?’”
“Yes,” says Betsey, tryin’ to put on the true modesty of jenieus look.
Miss Woodhull said “she had heard it sung to several free love conventions.”
“How true it is,” says Betsey glancin’ towards Mr. Tilton, “that deathless fame sometimes comes by reason of what you feel in your heart haint the best part of you. Now in this poem I speak hard of man, but I didn’t feel it Miss Woodhull, I didn’t feel it at the time, I wrote it jest for fame and to please Prof. Gusheh. I love men,” says she, glancin’ at Mr. Tilton’s handsome face, and hitchin’ her chair up closer to his’en.