� You kin ketch more fies wif honey than wif vinegar
Now that's how josh allen's wife would put it. And what was she writing about? Why women's liberation (women's rights in her day) was something up there with prohibition, the gold standard, international do-nothing ism, and dare I say racism. Who was josh allen's wife? Marietta Holley who took on the church, the social snobs and most any other afront that occurred to her. All this just before the turn of the century and just after.
Let me quote from the first pages of Samantha at Saratoga. ""It duz seem sort o' pitiful, don't it, to think how sort o' homeless the Americans are a gettin'? How the posys that blow under the winders of Home are left to waste their sweet breaths amongs the weeds, while them that used to love 'em are a climbin' mountains tops after strange nosegays."
"The smoke that curled up from the chimbleys, a wreathin' its way up to the heavens -- all dead and gone. The bright light that shone out of the winder through the dark a tellin' everbody that there was a Home, and some one a waitin' for somebody -- all dark and lonesome.
Yes, the waiter and the waited for are all a rushin' round somewhere, on the cars, mebby, or a yot, a chasin' Pleasure, that like as not settled roght down on the eves of the old house they left, and stayed there.
I wonder if they will find her there when they go back again. Mebby they will, and then agin, mebby they won't. For Happiness haint one to set round and lame herself a waitin' for folks to make up their minds.
Sometimes she looks folks full in the face, sort o' solemn like and heart-searchin' , and gives 'em a fair chance whet they will chuse. And then if they chuse wrong, she'll turn her back to 'em for always. I've hearn of jest such cases."
Samantha goes on to tell how Sarah Abraham (wife of Jacob) sat by his side for the hundred years "settled down, and stiddy, staying right to home for hundreds of years. Not gettin' rampent for a wider spear, not a coaxin' old Mr. Abraham nights to take her to summer resorts, and winter hants of fashion."
No, Marietta Holley gently and with humor prods the reader to consider her point of view and when it is over, of course your can only be supportive and even wait for the next assault from her pen. How different is the writing by Gerda Lerner in The Creation of Patriarchy. In a very scholarly fashion tries to make the point that all the problems of the world are due to men and their attempts to keep woman subordinate. She's preaching to the choir. Of course, say her fellow libers. But really after perusing her book, who but they really care. She makes no converts.
May I recommend Samantha to Ms. C and the others who, as Samantha would say "have girded their lions for battle an 'aven't the foggiest ider of whut's goin on in the real world about 'em." And for the rest of us, we can enjoy the truths of Samantha at Saratoga and there's more. An earlier book Samantha among the Bretheren does a job on the pillars of the church.
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