Interview with One of the Ribs of Brigham Young.

Washington, April 23, 1869.

The dreamy twilight which envelops the city during every recess of Congress has settled upon Washington. During the small hours of the morning the tardy Senators have folded their tents and to-day they are stealing away. Spring, clean and fresh as a mermaid, trips daintily along our broad highways. The flowers are opening their pretty eyes; the zephyrs greet us sweet as the breath of love, and all nature conspires to lead the mind into the luxurious revels of an Oriental extravaganza. The modern Caliph, Brigham Young, of Utah, has sent his beloved Zobedie to Washington, and to-day at 11 a. m. her shadow falls across the door of the White House, but whether she gains the ear of President Grant your correspondent knoweth not. Several weeks ago the newspapers told us that a number of women, all so-called wives of Brigham Young, were en route for the States. A party composed of the elite of the Salt Lake harems are in Washington. No single man has two wives in the expedition. Brigham Young has contributed his favorite, whilst both of his two sons, who help compose the party, have confined themselves to one apiece. Two single women are added to this rare bouquet, but whether “sealed” or otherwise is known only to the “Prophet” or the saints. The party is stopping near the corner of I and Fourteenth streets, under the protecting care of Mr. Hooper, the Delegate from Utah Territory. It has been said by those who thought they were acquainted with Mr. Hooper that he does not profess the Mormon faith, but for the information of those who may be curious about this interesting subject it is safe to believe that Brigham Young has no more faithful follower than this accomplished Delegate.

Just at this magic hour when the light and the darkness were quarreling for supremacy we might have been found in the presence of one of our own countrywomen, a woman born in the great State of New York, educated, beautiful, elegantly attired, and yet there seemed to be no common platform upon which we could meet and converse, for our ideas ran in grooves as far apart as thought can separate. Had it been Victoria, we could have recalled the memory of the Blameless Prince, or alluded to the Alabama claims; had it been Eugenie, we could have seized Pio Nono; or Mrs. President Grant, we could have applied for the “Nasby” postoffice. But, oh, tortured soul, it was Lady Zobedie, the seventieth double of Brigham Young. What did it matter? Though she is a rib nearest his heart to-day, a woman with a ruddier cheek may crowd her aside to-morrow. Woman, is she living, breathing, poised on the edge of a frightful precipice? Yes! But a woman with the fire of life smoldering in the ashes; no rollicking flame. A woman who would leave a room colder for having passed through it.

Conversation darted hither and thither like Noah’s dove, who could find no rest for the sole of her foot. The watery waste of speech was all around us, but the Gentile was afraid and the Saint coldly indifferent. The Gentile ventured to ask if the queen was not pleased with the prosperity of our country, and was it not astonishing, after such a prolonged civil war?

She “hadn’t been accustomed to think much about such things.”

“How does Utah compare with this part of the world?” was the next inquiry.

“Not much difference; the world is just about the same all over.”

“I am told it is very expensive living after you leave Omaha.”

“I never think about such things.”

“Have you met Madame Daubigney, the great French traveler? I am told she has a reputation in Europe next to the late Madame Pneiffer. She is in Washington, and expects to leave soon for Salt Lake.”

“Yes, she has been to see me two or three times, but I try to discourage her. I don’t believe in women lecturers and women artists. I am told she dabbles in both.”

A fearful pause.

“Have you called upon Mrs. Grant?”

“No, I never call upon ladies, but I intend to pay my respects to the President. I wouldn’t like to tell them at home that I hadn’t seen him.”

The Gentile kindly alluded to the fact that Joseph Smith was an old acquaintance of her family, and although her father differed with him in belief, yet, as a neighbor, he was trusted with many of his first revelations. No response; the electric current of the mind would not work.

Our meeting was like the greeting of two planets whose paths happened to intersect. We neared each other for a moment, only to separate, each flying from the other, and one, if not both of us, feeling the awful effects of human fanaticism when it comes between two citizens of the same Republic.

The lengthening shadows of night crept into the room. A street lamp before the open window had been lighted, and its rays fell upon the marble features of this pale, amber-haired blonde, and the classic cast of her countenance might have answered for a model of beauty for either the sculptor or the painter. But other shapes almost as tangible were there also. They were the demons of the dark ages come back to mock us. This seventieth wife with her fair face had touched the sepulchre of the past, and grinning specters of the past were among us. The very air seemed to say for this silent woman: “If we were strong and you were weak, woman should again take her place at the foot of a ladder. Is the woman of to-day wiser or better than was Rachel or Sarah?”

Brigham Young has sent this woman abroad to be on exhibition like any other work of art. She is expected to make new converts. She is allowed to indulge her taste in silks, jewels and point lace. The other wives are young, giddy, and commonplace. Their manners are just what must be expected from youth and inexperience, and their conversation, so far as two of them are concerned, was only noticeable on account of its warmth of grammatical accuracy. All the Mormons who come to Washington make us feel that they are by the side of us yet not annealed with the great body of the people. They have a bitter hatred of the Gentiles, cloaked, though it may be, by a frigid politeness. Mr. Hooper says: “Things seem strange to you, out our way, but it is quite as strange to us in this part of the country; but we don’t feel like meddling with your institutions.” He also remarked that it was very strange that so many people seemed desirous to settle out in that part of the world. He said it was the poorest, most unattractive portion of the American continent. It was for this reason that the “chosen people” exiled themselves, planted their homes where nature has set a bitter, sterile face. The late cry of “We only ask to be let alone” is borne to us from the saline hills of Utah. We answer it with the scream of the locomotive. The Pacific Railroad is the guillotine which will cleave the head of Mormonism asunder, and polygamy, the last sad relic of barbarism, the one single blemish which clings to our beloved Republic, is doomed.

Olivia.