Spiritual vampirism: The history of Etherial Softdown, and her friends of the "New Light"

We continue our reports of the police of the “Conclave,” so far as we find them relating to Etherial Softdown and her friends.

This report says of Eusedora Polypheme:—“This woman is between thirty and thirty-five years of age. She is of New England birth, and commenced her education at what we consider the female high-schools of demoralisation on the Continent—’the factories.’

“These establishments are especially patronised by the ‘Council of Disorganisation,’ who consider them of vast efficiency, on account of the well-understood certainty with which the results we aim at are achieved, under this system. So great is this certainty, indeed, that we may always safely calculate that eight-tenths of the females who seek employment in them come forth, if they ever do alive, inoculated with just such principles and habits as we desire to have spread among the rural population to which the majority of them return. Corrupted themselves, they act as admirable mediums and conductors of corruption to the class from whom they went forth innocent, and which receives them again without suspicion.

“Besides the spinal diseases, affections of the lungs, twisted bodies, and deformed limbs, which the greater number of these girls take home with them, all the foolish romanticism of girlhood has been thoroughly crushed out of them, by the morale which we have promoted in these institutions, and their minds and tastes have become even more vitiated than their bodies.

“It will thus be seen that this factory system is our chef-d’œuvre of demoralisation of the simple agricultural classes.

“But in yet another aspect the results, it will be perceived, are still more brilliant. We soon found the necessity of creating a public sentiment in favor of our system, which would put a stop to officious investigation and interference with our plans. We accordingly established a defensive literature, in the shape of dainty serials, announced as being edited by the factory-girls themselves. These were filled with sentimental effusions, written principally to order, outside the factories, the general burden of which consisted in poetico-rural pictures of the joys brought home by the patient and industrious factory-girl, to some hipshotten father or bedridden grand-papa. These little incidents were studiously invested with all that charming unexpectedness and die-away bathos, which is so attractive to girlish imaginations, and so satisfactory to elder philanthropists. Then there was still another class of romances, cultivated with yet more fervid unction. These consisted in stories of a lovely young girl, who, all for ‘love of independence,’ gave up a home of luxury, to come to the factories and make a living for herself, independent of her natural guardians. How this stout-hearted young lady one day attracted, by her beauty, the attention of a handsome young gentleman of romantic appearance, who visited the mills along with a party of other strangers. How the romantic young gentleman was very much struck, while the strong-minded Angelina was rendered nervous; how the heart-stricken, after many trials, succeeded in moving upon the heart of the ‘sleepless gryphon’ of morality with whom Angelina boarded, to permit him to have an interview—at least in said gryphon’s presence; how that then and there the young gentleman, in the most ‘proper’ way declared himself, sought Angelina’s hand, and was accepted; and how he turned out to be the son of a Southern nabob, and Angelina, from a poor factory-girl, became one of the foremost ladies of the land; and how, though, she never forgot her dear and happy companions of the factory. This same susceptible young Southerner is the standing hero of four-fifths of these girls, and, as he does not come every year to make them all rich, we may congratulate ourselves upon the general morals consequent upon such reasonable expectations.

“Out of one or two thousand girls, there are usually a few who exhibit some sprightliness. In the ratio of the ductility of their characters, are they sure to be selected, and brought forward by our managers; and in proportion as they exhibit their availability, are they readily promoted to editorships. They receive private salaries, and are released from any other than nominal participation in the routine of factory labor. From this distinguished caste of young ladies of the factory, Eusedora Polypheme originated.

“We expect gratitude from all such favored parties; and Eusedora proved the most grateful of the grateful. She as readily took to the shallow limpidity of Mr. Little, alias Tommy Moore, as ever did callow cygnet to the drains of a Holland flat.

“She possessed, indeed, a marvellous gift of sentiment—a sacchariferous faculty, that would have caused Cerberus himself to have licked his jagged lips. She was accordingly encouraged to cultivate transcendental tendencies, exchanged with the Dial, and, after a few months’ exercise, she spoke like a veritable Pythoness.

“Considering that she had now made herself sufficiently familiar with

to make her of value to us abroad, we placed her on our pension-list, and turned her loose upon society.

“This step the Committee have never had cause to regret. She leaped upon the social stage, a specimen of what the factory system could produce—achieved the lioness at once, and had the honour of being hailed in all circles, a phenomenon, a lusus naturæ—the world was undecided which, considering she was nothing but a factory-girl. They must be eminent institutions surely, since they could turn out young ladies who talked so ‘divinely,’ possessed ‘such’ command of language, and were such favorites with the gentlemen!

“There was a society, too, not very far off from this, into which she had forced her way, and which haughtily called itself ‘the best,’ that held its court in houses with dingy outsides, that lined the back-alleys; but, amidst garish and sickening splendors within, the ‘highly intellectual’ character of the hollow-eyed and painted queens who presided there, was equally owing to the educations they had received at the same ‘eminent’ institutions—only they had had more soul and less cunning than Eusedora Polypheme, and would not, therefore, have been so available to the Committee.

“When a class is already sunk as low as it can sink, it is not our policy to go aside to interfere with them, for they are sure to fecundate in degradation fast enough; our sole aim is to drag the grades above down to their level, which we consider a safe one.

“There is nothing so dangerous to the designs of the Committee of Disorganisation, as soul—what the world calls heart. To an executive power, these are always considered intrusive and distasteful superfluities; and it was because Eusedora has managed, by some surprisingly efficient process, to rid herself of both, that she is to be so trusted.

“Besides parading her accomplishments everywhere, as merely a fair average of the education of a factory-girl, she very soon mapped out for herself a very peculiar field for operations. She became the leader of a new school of Platonic Sentimentalism, in New England. This was an achievement—a decided triumph. She soon gathered around her a host of feminine disciples—principally young and unmarried, with premature wrinkles on their brows.

“After years of close observation of the operations of this sect, its police would beg to express to the Committee their unqualified admiration of the results obtained. The increase of the number of suicides has been gratifying. The number of young men and girls rendered worthless for life; the number of elderly men plundered and cajoled out of their means and driven into dotage, is only equalled by the surprising rapidity with which the fanaticism has spread; indeed, it would seem as if the first step towards all the popular forms of fanaticism, is through Platonic Sentimentalism.

“It seems, that it is through the teachings of this school, of which Eusedora Polypheme is now the acknowledged priestess, that the hollowness and unsatisfactory character of all our natural sentiments and passions is first perceived. This illumination achieved, it becomes necessary that their place be supplied by what the world would call morbid sentimentality and unnatural passions, but which Eusedora Polypheme aptly terms, ‘spherical illuminations’ and ‘divine ecstacies.’ But since we know, as well as Eusedora, that flesh is flesh, and blood is blood, we can therefore calculate, with great precision, whither such mystifications must lead.

“Hardened and sharpened in mind and temper, by a graduation in this school, its disciples pass, not from it, but through it, into other, and, to us, not less important fields of activity. Hence come the fiercest and most unscrupulous partisans of Infidelity, Abolitionism, and Woman’s Rights. Having learned both theoretically and practically to disbelieve in themselves, by the most natural transition in the world, they become infidel of all other truths, and scorn all other sacrednesses alike. They are then prepared to be of use to us in a variety of ways. The spirit of antagonism, the love of strife and notoriety, have assumed in them the sense of duty, justice, and modesty; a spiritual diablerie has possessed itself of the emasculated remains of womanhood left in them. Only give them a chance for martyrdom—only give them an excuse for the cry of persecution, and upon whatever theme or theory, ology or ism, that may promise to afford them such healthful and natural excitements, they will at once seize, and, hugging the dear abstraction to their bosoms, do battle for the same, with a cunning and unscrupulous ferocity that has no parallel.

“But for their thorough training under the teaching of Eusedora Polypheme, they might, perhaps, be sometimes disposed to pause, and inquire if there might not be two sides to every question; whether they might not have made some slight mistake in crying out ‘Eureka’ so soon. But, fortunately, they are never troubled with this weakness; and, as their capacity for mischief is not, therefore, liable to be impaired by any maudlin conscientiousness, or feeble questioning of their own infallibility, or that of their teachers, they are from the beginning as valuable as trained veterans.

“The jargon of the sect, which they acquire with wonderful facility, constitutes their logic; and their efficiency in the use of this weapon, consists in the savage, waspish, and persevering iteration of its phrases, at all times and on all occasions.

“It is astonishing, the ease with which the majority of mankind can be bullied, especially from within the bulwark of petticoats. But when at once the terrible aspect is hid behind the mask of Circe, as the followers of Polypheme know so well to accomplish, the power becomes resistless indeed.

“The principal weapons of offence used by the followers of Polypheme, in all their subsequent metamorphoses, are, first and foremost, what is technically termed the ‘electrical eye.’ This is the most brilliant and effective of their weapons. It is not by any means necessary that the spiritual Amazon should have been gifted by Nature, in this respect; for the arts of Polypheme were clearly inspired from

“After long practice, the power is acquired of dilating or straining the eyes wide open, and suffusing them at the same time. The moisture gives them a marvellous effect of electrical splendor. As this habitual tension can only be sustained for a few seconds at a time, Polypheme happily offsets it by the modest habit of dropping her eyes towards the floor, or a flower or book in her hand; then up go the

‘Downy windows close,’

and out leaps another humid flash, to electrify her audience.

“Great energy and activity of gesticulation is recommended, in order to distract attention, as much as possible, from the fact, that these cruelly-worked eyes sometimes run over with the ‘salt-rheum’—of any thing but ‘grief.’ A loud voice, too, is especially recommended—as, without it, somebody else might be heard in the room.

“Secondly, a thorough knowledge of the minor dramatics of emphasis is also suggested. Sneers should be thoroughly practised before the glass, as well as interjections, exclamations, shrieks of wonder and surprise. The grimaces of rage, worked up with great ferocity, without the slightest regard to the poor victim. Scorn should be lofty and incredibly superb; archness, irresistible, taking care not to pucker the wrinkles in the brow too much; sentiment, nothing short of the white rolling-up of two huge spheres in spasm. Childlike simplicity requires great practice in the dancing-room; it is very effective, when artistically done. Favorite poets—Petrarch, Shelley, Mrs. Elizabeth Brownson, and her husband, ‘poor Keats.’ Gods—Tom Moore, Byron, and Author of Festus. High-priest of the Arcana—Emerson. Priestess—Margaret Fuller Ossoli. Apocalypse—The Dial, &c., &c.

“Travelling should be studied as an art. The many correspondences held in different portions of the country should be made the dutiful occasion of sentimental visits, which, as they may be protracted for a month or two, will, no doubt, result in the effectual ‘saving’ of some half-dozen, at the very least, of both sexes. Neither scrip nor money need be provided for the journey; for is not the laborer worthy of his hire? Besides, who ever heard of a lioness carrying a purse? The world owes all its benefactors a living.

“It is necessary to be an authoress—abundantly prolific and intensely literary: to write dashing, slashing, graceful letters, in which your own superb horsewomanship shall always figure most prominently; next, your own disinterestedness; next, your own amiability, and dangerous powers of attraction; and, last, the dashing, slashing, graceful character of your own wit; your romantic love-affairs, by brook and meadow, on highway and in byway, by ocean-side or in greenwood.

“These, with a lofty scorn of the commonplace, a darling love of the arts—that is, you must know the names of the pictures, and what they are all about, but most particularly the names of the painters. And if somebody says the picture is a good one, be on terms of intimacy with the painter, or at least in close correspondence with him; and be sure he is a ‘noble spirit,’ a ‘divine creature,’ one of the ‘elect of genius,’ whose ‘eyes have been unsealed to the touch of the Promethean fire.’

“Must know French, Italian, German, and Spanish phrases, out of the Pronouncing Dictionary. Quote these occasionally, but very guardedly, when you are certain there are no apeish foreigners or troublesome old fogy scholars present.

“Thus panoplied, the novitiate will be, in every sense, the equal of Eusedora Polypheme herself, and entitled to go upon the pension-list of the Committee. Indeed, we are booking them rapidly, and sending out missionaries in every direction.

“The disciples of this school are among the chief favorites of the ‘Committee of Disorganisation.’”