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Yet, he veiled himself in such impenetrable secrecy, that almost nothing about him can be stated as fact. A wealth of myth and legend surrounds this intriguing man, whose personal life was so complex and habits so secretive, that we may only guess at the story of his career. Randolph published over twenty books in his lifetime and speaks of his life in many of them. But almost everything he wrote was coded in such a way that it could be understood on several levels. If Pascal's life had a theme, it was Love. His personal motto was "Try" and he signed at least one of his photographs "Stand for the Right! " He was an advocate of women's rights long before it was a popular stance and he was a real pioneer in sexual therapy. He held a strong belief in supernatural forces and was outspoken in his desire to investigate such things scientifically. Yet throughout his life, PBR was persecuted for his progressive thinking as well as for his mixed racial heritage. Pascal Beverly Randolph was born on October 8, 1825 at #70 Canal Street in New York City to Flora Beverly and Edmund Randolph. 1 It seems unlikely that his famous father was in attendance or, for that matter, ever met him. Edmund Randolph had been the Governor of Virginia and attended the constitutional convention during the birth of the United States. He had served as Attorney-General in Washington's first cabinet and in 1794, Secretary of State. 2 Flora Beverly may have been a black princess from Madagascar or a native American from Vermont. Whatever the truth of the matter, her marriage with Randolph was short lived and she was left to raise little Pascal by herself. PBR describes her in glowing loving terms as a seeress, a dreamer and a beauty. 3 She raised her son in a "large, somber and gloomy old stone house on Manhattan Island" 4 and one imagines that she may have lulled him to sleep at night with many strange and fantastic stories. This may have been the source for the legend of Dhoula Bel, the King and the Stranger, 5 a story which Randolph held to be of supreme importance throughout his life. Her melancholia and longing for his father may have been the motivation for his never ending crusade against abusive marriages, common in the nineteenth century. "She loved him as the apple of her eye" 6 until, in Pascal's fifth year, she died from an epidemic—yellow fever, smallpox, cholera; there were many in those times of pestilence. The event had a tremendous impact on the boy and a few years later, in the orphanage where he was placed, young Pascal had visions of his mother returning from the dead. She told him, "Let thy motto be—Try! Despond not, but ever remember that how bitter soever our lot may be, that despite it all WE MAY BE HAPPY YET!" 7 On one occasion he and several other children witnessed a materialization of his mother's form as well as poltergeist activity. "From his father our hero inherited little save a lofty spirit" 8 and Pascal was