February 2. Hoffman tells me K. Armstrong is investigating spiritualism again with Peter Porter, and that the lady who is now working the telegraphic lines to the invisible world for their benefit (one Mrs. Hayden) produces sundry marvelous phenomena. I query whether society was in a more or less enlightened and healthy state of morals and intelligence a couple of hundred years ago when this wonder-working female would have been whipped at the cart’s tail, or yet more severely dealt with.
The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas
Wow, he didn’t like spiritualists much.