Fern Leaves from Fanny's Port-folio.

All these items you take in at a glance, as you turn upon her your aristocratic eye of feminine criticism to extract, if possible, the talismanic secret of her magnetism. What is it? Let me tell you. Nature, willful dame, has an aristocracy of her own, and in one of her independent freaks has so daintily fashioned your rival’s limbs, that the meanest garb could not mar a grace, nor the costliest fabric add one. Compassionating her slender purse, nature has also added an artistic eye, which accepts or rejects fabrics and colors with unerring taste; hence her apparel is always well chosen and harmonious, producing the effect of a rich toilet at the cost of “a mere song;” and as she sweeps majestically past, one understands why Dr. Johnson pronounced a woman to be “perfectly dressed when one could never remember what she wore.”

Now, I grant you, it is very provoking to be eclipsed by a star without a name– moving out of the sphere of “upper-ten”-dom – a woman who never wore a “camel’s hair shawl,” or owned a diamond in her life; after the expense you have incurred, too, and the fees you have paid to Madame Pompadour and Stewart for the first choice of their Parisian fooleries. It is harrowing to the sensibilities. I appreciate the awkwardness of your position; still, my compassion jogs my invention vainly for a remedy – unless, indeed, you consent to crush such democratic presumption, by labelling the astounding price of the dry-goods upon your aristocratic back.

“THE OLD WOMAN.”

Look into yonder window! What do you see? Nothing new, surely; nothing but what the angels have looked smilingly down upon since the morning stars first sang together; nothing but a loving mother hushing upon her faithful breast a wailing babe, whose little life hangs by a slender thread. Mortal lips have said, “The boy must die!”

A mother’s hope never dies. She clasps him closer to her breast, and gazes upward; – food and sleep and rest are forgotten, so that that little flickering taper die not out. Gently upon her soft, warm breast she wooes for it baby slumbers; long, weary nights, up and down the cottage floor she paces, soothing its restless moaning. Suns rise and set – stars pale – seasons come and go; – she heeds them not, so that those languid eyes but beam brightness. Down the meadow – by the brook – on the hill-side – she seeks with him the health-restoring breeze.

God be praised! – health comes at last! What joy to see the rosy flush mantle on the pallid cheek! – what joy to see the shrunken limbs grow round with health! – what joy to see the damp, thin locks grow crisp and glossy!

What matter though the knitting lie neglected, or the spinning-wheel be dumb, so that the soaring kite or bouncing ball but please his boyish fancy, and prompt the gleeful shout? What matter that the coarser fare be hers, so that the daintier morsel pass his rosy lip? What matter that her robe be threadbare, so that his graceful limbs be clad in Joseph’s rainbow coat? What matter that her couch be hard, so that his sunny head rest nightly on a downy pillow? What matter that her slender purse be empty, so that his childish heart may never know denial?

Years roll on. That loving mother’s eye grows dim; her glossy locks are silvered; her limbs are sharp and shrunken; her footsteps slow and tottering. And the boy? – the cherished Joseph? – he of the bold, bright eye, and sinewy limb, and bounding step? Surely, from his kind hand shall flowers be strewn on the dim, downward path to the dark valley; surely will her son’s strong arm be hers to lean on; his voice of music sweeter to her dull ear than seraphs’ singing.

No, no! – the hum of busy life has struck upon his ear, drowning the voice of love. He has become a man! refined, fastidious! – and to his forgetful, unfilial heart, (God forgive him,) the mother who bore him is only – “the old woman!”

SUNDAY MORNING AT THE DIBDINS

“Jane,” (suddenly exclaims Mrs. Dibdin,) “do you know it is nearly time for your Sabbath School to commence? I hope you have committed your hymns and commandments to memory. Put on your little jet bracelet, and your ruffled pantalettes. Now, say the third commandment, while I fix your curls. It does seem to me as if your hair never curls half as well on Sundays as on week days. Mind, you ask Letty Brown where her mother bought that cunning little straw hat of hers, – not in Sabbath School, of course – that would be very wicked – but after it is over, as you walk along to church.

“Jane, what’s the chief end of man? Don’t know? Well, it’s the most astonishing thing that that Assembly’s Catechism don’t stay in your head any better! It seems to go into one ear and out of the other. Now pay particular attention while I tell you what the chief end of man is. The chief end of man is – is – well – I – why don’t you hold still? – you are always putting a body out! You had better run up stairs and get your book. Here, stop a minute, and let me tie your sash straight. Pink is very becoming to you, Jane; you inherit your mother’s blonde beauty. Come away from that glass, Jane, this minute; don’t you know it is wicked to look in the glass on Sunday? See if you can say your ‘creed’ that your Episcopal teacher wants you to learn. Come; ‘I believe’ – (In less than one week your toes will be through those drab gaiters, Jane.) Goodness, if there isn’t the bell! Why didn’t you get your lesson Saturday evening? Oh! I recollect; you were at dancing school. Well – you needn’t say anything about that to your teacher; because – because there’s ‘a time to dance,’ and a time to go to meeting, and now it is meeting time; so, come here, and let me roll that refractory ringlet over my finger once more, and then, do you walk solemnly along to church, as a baptised child should.

“Here! stop a bit! – you may wear this coral bracelet of mine, if you won’t lose it. There; now you look most as pretty as your mother did, when she was your age. Don’t toss your head so, Jane; people will call you vain; and you know I have always told you that it makes very little difference how a little girl looks, if she is only a little Christian. There, good-bye; – repeat your catechism, going along; and don’t let the wind blow your hair out of curl.”

SUNDAY NOON AT THE DIBDINS

(Mr. Dibdin reading a pile of business letters, fresh from the post-office; Mrs. Dibdin, in a pearl-colored brocade and lace ruffles, devouring “Bleak House.”)

Mrs. Dibdin.– “Jane, is it possible I see you on the holy Sabbath day, with Mother Goose’s Melodies? Put it away, this minute, and get your Bible. There’s the pretty story of Joseph building the ark, and Noah in the lion’s den, and Isaac killing his brother Cain, and all that.”

Jane.– “Well, but, mamma, you know I can’t spell the big words. Won’t you read it to me?”

Mrs. Dibdin.– “I am busy reading now, my dear; go and ask your papa.”

Jane.– “Please, papa, will you read to me in my little Bible? mamma is busy.”

Mr. Dibdin.– “My dear, will you be kind enough to pull that bell for Jane’s nursery maid? – she is getting troublesome.”

Exit Miss Jane to the nursery, to listen to Katy’s and her friend Bridget’s account of their successful flirtations with John O’Calligan and Michael O’Donahue.

ITEMS OF TRAVEL

“All the world and his wife” are travelling; and a nice day it is to commence a journey. How neat and tasteful those ladies look in their drab travelling dresses; how self-satisfied their cavaliers, freshly shaved and shampooed, in their brown linen over-alls. What apoplectic looking carpet-bags; full of newspapers, and oranges, and bon-bons, and novels, and night-caps! Saratoga, Newport, Niagara, White Hills, Mammoth Cave – of these, the ladies chatter.

Well, here come the cars. Band-boxes, trunks, baskets, and bundles are counted, and checks taken; a grave discussion is solemnly held, as to which side of the cars the sun shines on; seats are chosen with due deliberation, and the locomotive does its own “puffing” to the bystanders, and darts off.

It is noon! How intense the heat; how annoying the dust; how crowded the cars; how incessant the cries of that poor tired baby! The ladies’ bonnets are getting awry, their foreheads flushed, and their smooth tresses unbecomingly frowsed, (see Fern Dictionary.) Now their little chattering tongues have a reprieve, for Slumber has laid her leaden finger on each drooping eyelid: even Alexander Smith’s new poem has slidden from between taper fingers. Dream not lovingly of the author, fair sleeper: poets and butterflies lose their brilliancy when caught.

How intensely ugly men look asleep! doubled up like so many jack-knives – sorry looking “blades” – with their mouths wide open, and their limbs twisted into all sorts of Protean shapes. Stay; there’s one in yonder corner who is an exception. That man knows it is becoming to him to go to sleep. He has laid his head against the window and taken off his hat, that the wind might lift those black curls from his broad white brow; – he knows that his eye-lashes are long and dark, and that his finely chiselled lips need no defect-concealing moustache; – he knows that he can afford to turn towards us his fine profile, with its classical outline; – he knows that his cravat is well tied, and that the hand upon which he supports his cheek is both well-formed and daintily white. Wonder if he knows anything else?

We halt suddenly. “Back! back!” says the conductor. The sleepers start to their feet; the old maid in the corner gives a little hysterical shriek; brakemen, conductor, and engineer jump off, push back their hats, and gaze nervously down the road. “What’s the matter?” echo scores of anxious voices. “What’s the matter?” Oh, nothing; only a mother made childless: only a little form – five minutes ago bounding with happy life – lying a mangled corpse upon the track. The engineer says, with an oath, that “the child was a fool not to get out of the way,” and sends one of the hands back to pick up the dismembered limbs and carry them to its mother, who forbade even the winds of heaven to blow too roughly on her boy; then he gives the “iron horse” a fresh impetus, and we dash on; imagination paints a scene in yonder house which many a frantic parent will recognize; and from which (even in thought) we turn shuddering away – while the weary mother in the corner covers her fretful babe with kisses, and thanks God, through her tears, that her loving arms are still its sheltering fold.

NEWSPAPER-DOM

It is beyond my comprehension how Methusaleh lived nine hundred and sixty-nine years without a newspaper; or, what the mischief Noah did, during that “forty days” shower, when he had exhausted the study of Natural History. It makes me yawn to think of it. Or what later generations did, the famished half-hour before meals; or, when traveling, when the old stage-coach crept up a steep hill, some dusty hot summer noon. Shade of Franklin! how they must have been ennuyéd!

How did they ever know when flour had “riz” – or what was the market price of pork, small tooth combs, cotton, wool, and molasses? How did they know whether Queen Victoria had “made her brother an uncle or an aunt?” What christianized gouty old men and snappish old ladies? What kept the old maids from making mince-meat of pretty young girls? What did love-sick damsels do for “sweet bits of poetry” and “touching continued stories?” Where did their papas find a solace when the coffee was muddy, the toast smoked, and the beef-steak raw, or done to leather? What did cab-drivers do, while waiting for a tardy patron? What did draymen do, when there was “a great calm” at the dry-goods store of Go Ahead & Co.? What screen did husbands dodge behind, when their wives asked them for money?

Some people define happiness to be one thing, and some another. I define it to be a room “carpeted and furnished” with “exchanges,” with a place cleared in the middle for two arm-chairs – one for a clever editor, and one for yourself. I say it is to take up those papers, one by one, and laugh over the funny things and skip the stupid ones, – to admire the ingenuity of would-be literary lights, who pilfer one half their original (?) ideas, and steal the remainder. I say it is to shudder a thanksgiving that you are not in the marriage list, and to try, for the hundredth time, to solve the riddle: how can each paper that passes through your hands be “the best and cheapest periodical in the known world?”

I say it is to look round an editorial sanctum, inwardly chuckling at the forlorn appearance it makes without feminine fingers to keep it tidy: to see the looking-glass veiled with cobwebs; the dust on the desk thick enough to write your name in; the wash-bowl and towel mulatto color; the soap liquified to a jelly, (editors like soft soap!); the table covered with a heterogeneous mass of manuscripts, and paper folders, and wafers, and stamps, and blotting-paper, and envelopes, and tailors’ bills, and letters complimentary, belligerent and pacific.

I say it is to hear the editor complain, with a frown, of the heat and his headache; to conceal a smile, while you suggest the probability of relief if a window should be opened; to see him start at your superior profundity; to hear him say, with a groan, how much “proof” he has to read, before he can leave for home; to take off your gloves and help him correct it; – to hear him say, there is a book for review, which he has not time to look over; to take a folder and cut the leaves, and affix guide-boards for notice at all the fine passages; to see him kick over an innocent chair, because he cannot get hold of the right word for an editorial; to feel (while you help him to it) very much like the mouse who gnawed the lion out of the net, and then to take up his paper some days after, and find a paragraph endorsed by him, “deploring the intellectual inferiority of women.”

That’s what I call happiness!

HAVE WE ANY MEN AMONG US?

Walking along the street the other day, my eye fell upon this placard, —

Well; they have been “wanted” for some time; but the article is not in the market, although there are plenty of spurious imitations. Time was, when a lady could decline writing for a newspaper without subjecting herself to paragraphic attacks from the editor, invading the sanctity of her private life. Time was, when she could decline writing without the editor’s revenging himself, by asserting falsely that “he had often refused her offered contributions?” Time was, when if an editor heard a vague rumor affecting a lady’s reputation, he did not endorse it by republication, and then meanly screen himself from responsibility by adding, “we presume, however, that this is only an on dit!” Time was, when a lady could be a successful authoress, without being obliged to give an account to the dear public of the manner in which she appropriated the proceeds of her honest labors. Time was, when whiskered braggadocios in railroad cars and steamboats did not assert, (in blissful ignorance that they were looking the lady authoress straight in the face!) that they were “on the most intimate terms of friendship with her!” Time was, when milk-and-water husbands and relatives did not force a defamed woman to unsex herself in the manner stated in the following paragraph:

“Man Shot by a Young Woman. – One day last week, a young lady of good character, daughter of Col. – , having been calumniated by a young man, called upon him, armed with a revolver. The slanderer could not, or did not deny his allegations; whereupon she fired, inflicting a dangerous if not a fatal wound in his throat.”

Yes; it is very true that there are “Men wanted.” Wonder how many 1854 will furnish?

HOW TO CURE THE BLUES

And so you have “the blues,” hey! Well, I pity you! No I don’t either; there’s no need of it. If one friend proves a Judas, never mind! plenty of warm, generous, nice hearts left for the winning. If you are poor, and have to sell your free agency for a sixpence a week to some penurious relative, or be everlastingly thankful for the gift of an old garment that won’t hang together till you get it home! go to work like ten thousand evil spirits, and make yourself independent! and see with what a different pair of spectacles you’ll get looked at! Nothing like it! You can have everything on earth you want, when you don’t need anything.

Don’t the Bible say, “To him that hath shall be given?” No mistake, you see. When the wheel turns round with you on the top, (saints and angels!) you can do anything you like – play any sort of a prank – pout or smile, be grave or gay, saucy or courteous, it will pass muster! You never need trouble yourself, – can’t do anything wrong if you try. At the most, it will only be an “eccentricity!” But you never need be such a fool as to expect that anybody will find out you are a diamond till you get a showy setting! You’ll get knocked and cuffed around, and roughly handled, with paste and tinsel, and rubbish, till that auspicious moment arrives. Then! won’t all the sheaves bow down to your sheaf? – not one rebellious straggler left in the field! But stay a little.

In your adversity, found you one faithful heart that stood firmly by your side and shared your tears, when skies were dark, and your pathway thorny and steep, and summer friends fell off like autumn leaves? By all that’s noble in a woman’s heart, give that one the first place in it now. Let the world see one heart proof against the sunshine of prosperity. You can’t repay such a friend – all the mines of Golconda couldn’t do it. But in a thousand delicate ways, prompted by a woman’s unerring tact, let your heart come forth gratefully, generously, lovingly. Pray heaven he be on the shady side of fortune – that your heart and hand may have a wider field for gratitude to show itself. Extract every thorn from his pathway, chase away every cloud of sorrow, brighten his lonely hours, smooth the pillow of sickness, and press lovingly his hand in death.

RAIN IN THE CITY

Patter, patter, patter! down comes the city shower, on dusty and heated pavements; gleefully the willow trees shake out their long green tresses, and make their toilettes in the little mirror pools beneath. The little child runs out, with outspread palm, to catch the cool and pearly drops. The weary laborer, drawing a long, grateful breath, bares the flushed brow of toil; boyhood, with bare and adventurous foot, wades through gutter rivers, forgetful of birch, and bread and butter. Ladies skutter tiptoe, with uplifted skirts, to the shelter of some friendly omnibus; gentlemen, in the independent consciousness of corduroys, take their time and umbrellas, while the poor jaded horses shake their sleek sides, but do not say neigh to their impromptu shower-bath.

The little sparrows twitter their thanks from the dripping eaves, circling the piazza, then laving their speckled breasts at the little lakelets in the spout. Old Towser lies with his nose to the door-mat, sniffing “the cool,” with the philosophy of Diogenes. Petrarch sits in the parlor with his Laura, too happy when some vivid lightning flash gives him an excuse for closer quarters. Grandpapa puts on his spectacles, walks to the window, and taking a look at the surrounding clouds, says, “How this rain will make the corn grow.” The old maid opposite sets out a single geranium, scraggy as herself, invoking some double blossoms. Forlorn experimenter! even a spinster’s affections must centre somewhere.

See that little pinafore mariner stealing out, with one eye on the nursery window, to navigate his pasteboard boat in the street pools. There’s a flash of sunshine! What a glorious rainbow! The little fellow tosses his arms aloft, and gazes at it. Ten to one, the little Yankee, instead of admiring its gorgeous splendor, is wishing he could invert it for a swing, and seizing it at both ends, sweep through the stars with it. Well, it is nothing new for a child to like “the milky way.”

Fair weather again! piles of heavy clouds are drifting by, leaving the clear blue sky as serene as when “the morning stars first sang together.” Nature’s gems sparkle lavishly on glossy leaf and swaying branch, on bursting bud and flower; while the bow of peace melts gently and imperceptibly away, like the dying saint into the light of Heaven.

Oh, earth is gloriously fair! Alas! that the trail of the serpent should be over it all!

MRS. WEASEL’S HUSBAND

“A woman, a dog, and a walnut tree,The more they are beaten the better they be.”

“Any man who believes that, had better step into my shoes,” said little Mr. Weasel. “I suppose I’m what you call ‘the head of the family,’ but I shouldn’t know it if somebody didn’t tell me of it. Heigho! who’d have thought it five and twenty years ago? Didn’t I stifle a tremendous strong penchant for Diana Dix, (never smoked, I remember, for four hours after it,) because I had my private suspicions she’d hold the reins in spite of my teeth, and so I offered myself to little Susey Snow, (mistake in her name, by the way.) You might have spanned her round the waist, or lifted her with one hand. She never looked anybody in the face when they spoke to her, and her voice was as soft as – my brains! I declare, it’s unaccountable how deceitful female nature is! Never was so taken in in my life; she’s a regular Vesuvius crater! Her will? (don’t mention it!) Try to pry up the Alps with a cambric needle! If she’d only fly into a passion, I think I could venture to pluck up a little spirit; but that cool, determined, never-say-die look would turn Cayenne pepper to oil. It wilts me right down, like a cabbage leaf. I’d as lief face a loaded cannon! I wish I could go out evenings; but she won’t let me. Tom Jones asked me yesterday why I wasn’t at Faneuil Hall the night before. I told him I had the bronchitis. He saw through it! Sent me a pair of reins the next day, – ‘said to be a certain cure!’ Ah! it’s very well for him to laugh, but it’s no joke to me. I suppose it’s time to feed that baby; Mrs. Weasel will be home pretty soon, from the ‘Woman’s Rights Convention.’ No, I won’t, either; I’ll give it some paregoric, and run up garret and smoke one cigar. I feel as though I couldn’t look a humming-bird in the eye! Nice cigar! —very nice! What a fool I am to be ordered round by a little blue-eyed woman, three feet high! I’m a very good looking fellow, and I won’t stand it! Isn’t that little Weasel as much her baby as it is mine? Certainly.”

“Mr. Weasel!”

“Hem, – my – dear – (oh! that eye of hers!) – you see, my dear, (there, I won’t do it again, Mrs. Weasel.) How’s ‘the Convention,’ dear? Carried the day, I hope? – made one of your smart speeches, hey? ’Tisn’t every man owns such a chain-lightning wife; – look out for your rights, dear; (deuce knows I dare not!”)

COUNTRY SUNDAY vs. CITY SUNDAY

’Tis Sunday in the city.

The sun glares murkily down, through the smoky and stench-laden atmosphere, upon the dirty pavements; newsboys, with clamorous cries, are vending their wares; milkmen rattle over the pavements, and startle drowsy sleepers by their shrill whoopings; housemaids are polishing door knobs, washing sidewalks, and receiving suspicious looking baskets and parcels from contiguous groceries and bakeshops.

The sun rolls on his course; purifying the air and benignly smiling upon all the dwellers in the city, as though he would gently win them from unholy purposes to heavenly meditations and pursuits.

– And now the streets are filled with a motley show of silks, satins, velvets, feathers and jewels – while carriages and vehicles of every description roll past, freighted with counter-freed youths and their Dulcineas, bent upon a holiday. Hundreds of “drinking saloons” belch forth their pestiferous breath, upon which is borne, to the ear of the passer-by, (perhaps a lady or tender child,) the profane curse and obscene gibe; and from their portals reel intoxicated brutes, who once were men. Military companies march to and fro; now, at slow and solemn pace, to the mournful strains of a dead-march; now, (having rid themselves of the corpse of their dead comrade,) they gaily “step out,” blithe and merry, to the cheering strains of an enlivening quickstep, based on an Ethiopian melody; the frivolous tones blending discordantly with the chimes of the Sabbath bells. And stable-keepers, oyster and ice-cream venders, liquor sellers, et id omne genus, are reaping a golden harvest, upon which the “Lord of the Sabbath” shall, sooner or later, send “a blight and a mildew.”