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Show ?HE STUDIED MORMONISM. Ella Wheeeler Wilcox gives Her Impressions Im-pressions of Utah. Ella Wheeler Wilcox stayed in Salt Lake City for a day or two recently re-cently and in consequence thereof, this state gets the usual kind of an advertisement in the eastern papers. The Hearst syndicate papers publish the following from her pen: "I had met at a large reception in a beautiful home in Salt Lake. City the representative people of the place, from the Governor down. "The majority were members of the Mormon church. There were presidents of colleges and churches, apostles, professors and statesmen. Among them were a few of the old regime who had believed in and adopted polygamy, and who still support sup-port plural wives married before the passage of the Edmunds bill in 1882. "There were, too, in the throng men and women born and reared by polygamous parents, and a few wives still living in plural marriage. It was with one of these I talked the following follow-ing day when a party of some twenty-five ladies (and one man) invited me out on a special car to view what is left of Salt Lake that mysteriously mysterious-ly receding body of brine. "The people whom I met represented represent-ed the '400' of Salt Lake City. "They were, without exception, cultivated cul-tivated in mind, sympathetic, appreciative appre-ciative and refined! In dress and deportment de-portment resembling the 'best society' so-ciety' in any of our eastern cities, they were simpler and more cordial in manner man-ner and possessed or greater repose. The faces of the women . struck me as more serene than the faces of our eastern women. "I had been introduced to a very charming woman. 'Yes, you are talking talk-ing with the wife of a man wh,o has six wives,' the lady said to me. 'Do I look unhappy or neglected?' She was a handsome woman who appeared married before 18S2, when the anti-polygamy anti-polygamy law was passed. Yes, women's wo-men's faces in tuese days are not calendars. cal-endars. ' She was well dressed, soft-voiced, bright eyed, cultured. There was fire in her eye and color on her cheek and repose in her manner. ' 'But you are the last and latest wife,' I said; 'that makes it easier.' 'No, there are two later ones,' she replied, re-plied, and there was an undertone of reluctance in her voice as she made the assertion. " 'Will you look me. in the eyes,' I asked, 'and tell me as woman to woman wo-man that you felt no regret, no heartache, heart-ache, no sorrow, when your husband took the next wife after you ; that you were satisfied and happy to have it so?' "The lady' did not look at me, and the color deepened in her cheek. "'Remember,' I said, 'that you are not talking to a .bigot who regards you as a lost or depraved or martyred woman. I believe from what I have already seen here that the cultured class of polygamous wives have ds high ideals of marriage at least as many of our fashionable women who marry for money and position, and that they are entitled to as much respect. re-spect. But I am a student of human nature, and I cannot believe that your religion, however sincere, can utterly utter-ly change your woman's nature. You must have suffered some pangs when you found you were not the last wife.' "By this time I was the center of a circle of women and one man, all listening lis-tening intently. (The man told me he had three wives and twenty-eight children living. Ho was elderly, and I believe had survived other wives.) " 'We do not claim that we are not human,' the 'ady replied, in a low voice. 'But to us marriage is a religion re-ligion made sacred by motherhood. We believe in peopling the world and that our men have the truth of God in their hearts, and that they should scatter their seeds over the earth. We believe in sacrifice and self-conquest, and in overcoming our petty personal desires for the good of the race.' "The woman's face was full of light and her voice was deep with sincerity. sin-cerity. " 'But if you love your husband,' I persisted, in my no doubt one-wife selfishness of view, 'you must long often for more of his time, companionship, companion-ship, devotion and demonstrations of affection than he could possibly give you with five other wives.' "Another lady with clear-cut features fea-tures and intellectual eyes took up the discussion here. "What we may long for or desire at times has nothing to do with the case,'-he said. " 'It is a woman's sphere to sacrifice sacri-fice her feelings and petty jealousies, and to welcome other wives, and help care for other women's children. I had three mothers, and all were kind and good to me, and they lived together to-gether like three sisters. I never heard a quarrel or an unkind wrord among them.' " T went to live with my husband's first wife,' said an elderly sweet-faced sweet-faced woman. 'She had sons older than I, and I always called her mother. moth-er. She was very kind to me. There were other wives in homes of their own, but we two lived together in peace, and she helped me care for my children.' '"Were you the last of the wives?' I asked. " T believe -he took another," she said, with just an indefinable shadow in eyes and voice. 'But he was most kind to me. I was sealed to him a long time before he ever approached me as a wife. Our men were not lascivious, las-civious, as people have called them. They regarded marriage as holy, and treated women with far more respect than many of your men in church and state do today. When it comes to sensual and licentious men, we feel ours can bear comparison with many prominent Gentiles in your best society." |