The Life and Beauties of Fanny Fern Part 15

Sitting is the only posture for deliberation. Certainly. Don't 'the House' always 'sit' when any national egg is hatching? The philosophy and naturalness of the maxim is unmistakeably obvious. It accounts, too, for something I've never been able to comprehend, viz., how in the name of all that's astounding I became Mrs. Jonas Jupiter. I was not sitting when Jonas laid his moustache at my feet. If the Legislature would give me a chance to reconsider the subject, gunpowder shouldn't take me off my chair till I did it ample justice.

Jonas probably knew what he was about, when he imposed on my simplicity that way. Nicodemus! to think I should have made such a life-time mistake, all for want of a chair! My veneration for furniture will be on the progressive for the future. I incline to the opinion that men are exceedingly artful. It's surprising how like Moses they can _talk_, and how like Judas they can _act_. If it wasn't that I'm bound to collect their mental skeletons to hang up in my dissecting-room, I should eschew the whole s.e.x. But 'tis a pretty little amus.e.m.e.nt to the female naturalist to label the different specimens. As far as my scientific research extends, they have one defect in common, viz., that where the heart should be, there is a decided vacuum. It is a trifling oversight of Dame Nature's which her elbow should be jogged to rectify in her future productions. This little amendment in the masculine organization would be excruciatingly refreshing to the female lover of variety. No amount of brains, in my opinion, is an equivalent for this omission, but when heart and brains are _both lacking_!--saints and angels, what an abortion!

XLVII.

THE UNFAITHFUL LOVER.

We quote, by permission, from the files of the True Flag, a second sketch, contributed to its columns, by Olivia, _alias_ f.a.n.n.y Fern.

"Kate Stanley was a brilliant, sparkling brunette. Wo to the rash youth who exposed his heart to _her_ fascinations! If he were not annihilated by the witching glance of her bright eye, he would be sure to be caught by the dancing dimple that played 'hide-and-seek' so roguishly in her rosy cheek, or the little rounded waist that supported her faultless bust, or the tiny feet that crept, mice-like, in and out from under the sweeping folds of her silken robe.

"I am sorry to say, Miss Kitty was an _arrant coquette_. She angled for hearts with the skill of a practised sportsman, and was never satisfied till she saw them quivering and bleeding at her feet; _then_, they might flounce and flutter, and twist and writhe at their leisure, it was no farther concern of _hers_. She was off for a new subject.

"One fine morning she sat listlessly in her boudoir, tapping one little foot upon the floor, and sighing for a new sensation, when a note was handed her. It ran thus:

"'DEAR KITTY:--Our little cottage home is looking lovely, this 'leafy June.' Are you not weary of city life? Come and spend a month with us, and refresh heart and body. You will find nothing _artificial_ here, _save yourself_!

'Yours, NELLY.'

"'Just the thing,' said Kitty, 'but the girl must be crazy, or intolerably vain, to bring me into such close contact with her handsome lover--I might as well try to stop breathing as to stop flirting, and the _country_ of _all_ places, for a flirtation! The girl must be _non-compos_; however, it's her own affair, not mine;'

and she glanced triumphantly at her beautiful face, and threaded her jewelled fingers through her long ringlets, and conquered him--_in imagination_!

"'When do you expect your friend?' said a laughing young girl to Nelly. 'From the descriptions I have had of her, your bringing her here, will be something akin to the introduction of Satan into Paradise. You wouldn't find _me_ guilty of such a folly, were I engaged to your handsome Fitz. Now you know, Nelly dear, that although you are fascinating and intellectual, you have no pretensions to beauty, and there are few men who prize a gem unless it is _handsomely set_, however great its value. Now be warned in time, and send him off on a pilgrimage till her visit is over. _I_ won't bet on his constancy!'

"'On the contrary,' said Nelly, as she rose slowly from the little couch where she was reclining, and her small figure grew erect and her large eyes l.u.s.trous, 'I would marry no man who could not pa.s.s through such an ordeal and remain true to me. I am, as you see, hopelessly plain and ungraceful; yet, from my earliest childhood, I have been a pa.s.sionate worshipper of beauty. I never expected to win love--I never expected to marry--and when Fitz, with all his glorious beauty, sued for my hand, I could not convince myself that it was not all a bewildering dream. It was such a temptation to a heart so isolated as mine; and eloquently it plead for itself. When I drank in the music of his voice, I said, 'surely I must be lovely in _his_ eyes; else why has he sought me?' Then, in my solitary moments, I said, sadly, 'there are none to dispute the prize with me here. He is deceiving himself; he is only in love with nature and the beautiful about us. He has mistaken his own heart.' Then again, I would ask myself, 'can nothing but _beauty_ win a n.o.ble heart? are all my intellectual gifts valueless?' And still, Fitz unable to understand my contradictory moods, pa.s.sionately urged his suit. It needed not that waste of eloquence; my heart was already captive. And now, by the intensity of that happiness of which I know myself to be capable, I will prove him.

Kate's beauty--Kate's witchery, shall be the test! If his heart remains loyal to me, I am his. If not--' and her cheek grew pale, and large tears gathered slowly in her eyes--'I have saved myself a deeper misery.'

"Fitz Allan 'had travelled,' and that is generally understood to mean to go abroad and remain a period of time long enough to grow a fierce beard and fiercer moustache, and cultivate a thorough contempt for everything in your own country. This was not true of Fitz Allan. It had only bound him the more closely to home and friends. His splendid person and cultivated manners had been a letter of recommendation to him in cultivated society. He was no fop, and yet he was fully aware of these personal advantages. (What handsome man is not?) He had trophies of all kinds, to attest his skillful generalship; such as dainty satin slippers, tiny kid gloves, faded roses, ringlets of all colors, ebony, flaxen and auburn, and _bijouterie_ without limit.

"Happy Fitz! What spell bound thee to the plain, but loveable Nelly? A nature essentially feminine; a refined, cultivated taste; a warm, pa.s.sionate heart. Didst thou remember when thou listenedest to that most musical of musical voices, and sat hour after hour, magnetised by its rare witchery as it glanced gracefully and skillfully from one topic to another, that its possessor had not the grace and beauty of a Hebe or a Venus?

"It was a bright, moonlight evening. Fitz and Nelly were seated in the little rustic parlor opening upon the piazza. The moon shone full upon Kate, as she stood in the low door-way. Her simple white dress was confined at the waist by a plain, silken cord. Her fair, white shoulders rose gracefully from the snowy robe. Her white arms, as they were crossed upon her breast, or raised above her head to catch playfully the long tendrils of the woodbine, as the wind swept them past her forehead, gleamed fair in the moonlight, and each and all had their bewildering charm. She seated herself upon the low door-step. Song after song was borne upon the air. Her eyes now flashing with the enthusiasm of an Improvisatrice--then soft, and l.u.s.trous, and liquid, and--dangerous! Nelly's heart beat quick--a deep crimson spot glowed upon her cheek, and, for once, _she_ was beautiful.

"Kate, apparently, took but little notice of the lovers, but not an expression that flitted across the fine face of Fitz Allan pa.s.sed unnoticed by her. And she said proudly to herself--'_I have conquered him!_'

"And so the bright summer months pa.s.sed by, and they rambled through the cool woods and rode through the winding paths and sang to the quiet stars in the dim, dewy night.

"'Fie! Mr. Fitz Allan! What would Nelly say, to see you kneeling here at my feet? You forget you are an affianced lover,' said the gay beauty, as she mockingly curled her rosy lip; 'when you address such flattering language to _me_!'

"'I only know that you are _beautiful as a dream_,' said the bewildered Fitz, as he pa.s.sionately kissed the jewelled hand that lay unresistingly in his own.

"That night Fitz might be seen pacing his room with rapid strides, crushing in his hands a delicate note, in which was written these words:

"'The _moon looks on many brooks_; The _brook sees_ but _one moon_.'

'Farewell!

'NELLY.'"

XLVIII.

PETTICOAT PARLIAMENT.

"'We must do our aspiring sisters the justice to say that several of them made very good speeches, and manifested a real talent for debate _quite equal_ to that displayed by half the he-fellows we send to Congress. * * * We opine nothing serious will come of these Women's Rights'

Conventions. If it amuses the darlings, to insist upon doing their own voting and fighting, let 'em talk on. If they go too far we can adopt measures and _compel them to do their own kissing_! They must have recreation of some kind, and this is a good subst.i.tute for fancy b.a.l.l.s, expensive millinery, &c. _Strong-minded women have a soul above b.u.t.tons._ Let the blessed angels weep and resolve if it relieves their minds.'"--_New York Sunday Times._

Now I'll wager a pair of new kid gloves that the writer of the above article is a _whole-souled, loveable, handsome son of Adam_. If all the men were like him the women would lay down _their_ arms and take _his_!--there'd be no more drumming up recruits for petticoat parliaments--they'd 'resolve' to stay at home and 'do as they oughter.' I think there should be a _raffle_ for him! (You don't find such a man every day!) He takes a liberal view of things--you don't catch _him_ but toning his coat up to his chin, folding his arms, strutting round and looking daggers at us, like the rest of the men.

No, he isn't on the 'anxious seat'--HE isn't! He just takes off his hat to us, like a gentleman, and says, with an irresistible smile:--'Dear ladies--there's a soft place in your hearts _somewhere_, after all. _Who's afraid!_ Your gunpowder plots will all end in smoke!

Three cheers for the ladies!' Now THAT'S doing the thing handsomely.

"n.o.body but a _very_ 'wiry sister' could hold out against such an incarnation of good-humored gallantry. It's only the _bad husbands_ who see their own ugly _mental_ phizes in the looking-gla.s.s these 'female philanthro-pesses' hold up to them, that raise such a breeze about it. 'It's only the _truth_ that wounds,' as the French proverb says.

"If _I_ had been of that convention, I should just draw off my glove, shake hands with that 'Sunday Times' writer, and sign an _everlasting and repentant_ recantation of all incendiary resolutions,--now, henceforth and forever! Pa.s.s him round; send us a lock of his hair!--give us his daguerreotype!"

XLIX.

f.a.n.n.y FERN ON WIDOWERS.

"'Is this the _heart_ that beat so tenderly for Sarah; yea, and for Anna afterwards, and then for Maria, and in the course of time for Margaret Jane!'"--_True Flag._

As Cupid is your witness, the very same! Why not? No computing the times a _masculine_ heart can be damaged, repaired, cracked, broken, mended, and be just as good as new! How often it can be tossed, like a shuttlec.o.c.k, from one fair hand to another, and lose none of its freshness or intrinsic value. How _fervently_ it can adore _every_ daughter of Eve the sun shines upon! How instantaneous may be the transition from the dirge note of sorrow to 'Love's Quickstep!' How unnecessary it is, to be off with the _old_ love, before it is on with the _new_.

"Oh! it is an exhaustless fountain, that heart! No bounds to its capacities! A widower, whose wives had been 'legion,' was once heard to say:--'The more I loved my Elenore, the more I loved my Mary; the more I loved my Mary, the more I loved my Anna;' &c. Imagination fails me to picture, at this rate of progression, the _'unwritten' felicity_ of the LAST feminine, on the marital list! Venus! the very thought paralyzes my pen!"

L.

AN HOUR WITH f.a.n.n.y'S FATHER.

Since the previous pages were prepared, we have been favored with an interesting history of a recent interview with f.a.n.n.y Fern's father, by a gentleman of Boston, upon whose statements implicit reliance may be placed.

As any facts relating to the venerable parent of so distinguished a woman as f.a.n.n.y, must be of interest to the public, we have concluded to devote a chapter to a condensed account of the interview in question.