The Life and Beauties of Fanny Fern Part 3

XI.

f.a.n.n.y AT THE TREMONT HOUSE.

Good John Walter is f.a.n.n.y's man-at-arms. He is the last and most faithful of her servants. She needs some person in that capacity, and shrewdly manages never to be without such a champion. She was fortunate, after many trials, in falling upon so choice an acquisition as John Walter.

f.a.n.n.y cannot be accused of choosing her champion from any such motive as personal beauty. John isn't alarmingly handsome--not half so beautiful as he is good. Of tall and gaunt figure, with a lean-and-hungry-Ca.s.sius look, bran-like eyes, an oyster-like open to his mouth, fiery hair, an incendiary whisker, a windy manner of talking, and a gaseous atmosphere pervading his person generally--oh, no! f.a.n.n.y couldn't have chosen John for his beauty.

John's championship never shone with more dazzling l.u.s.tre, than on his visit to Boston, in her train, last summer. He came like the very Napoleon of sn.o.bs. Boston was to be taken by storm. "The three-hilled city," said John, "shall bow down at our coming." "John," answered f.a.n.n.y, "I regard you as a prophet. You are a man of sense. The three hills shall bow down."

They fortified themselves in the Sebastopol of the Tremont House,--that stronghold so formidable to turkey,--and sent forth their proclamations. But, somehow, there was no movement of the three-hilled city. Not a block trembled. Not a brick stirred. f.a.n.n.y began to chafe.

In vain she searched the columns of the daily papers, to find complimentary notices of her arrival. Not a word on the subject. She, who expected a triumph equal to Jenny Lind's, found herself of no more account in the three-hilled city, whose duty it was to bow down, than the wife of John Smith, the joiner, who went on at the same time to hunt up a second cousin.

Meanwhile good John Walter exerted himself. In his windiest manner, he thrust that lank figure of his into every nook and corner, where he hoped to generate a little interest in his famous _protegee_.

"She's come!" whispered John mysteriously, in the ear of an influential editor.

"Ha!" said the editor, "has she?" and went on with his writing.

"She is at the Tremont House," resumed John, with an air of vast importance, "where she receives her friends. The rush to see her is very great, and we have to resort to every means to keep the mult.i.tude at bay. You, of course, would be a privileged one, and I should be happy to introduce you."

"Thank you," said the editor, as he dipped his pen.

"Do you know,"--John began to bl.u.s.ter--"there are vipers in human form, in this city, who have dared to sting that woman's reputation?"

"I know nothing of the kind," replied the editor.

"You ought to know it; and I am authorized to say this: f.a.n.n.y expects her friends to vindicate her character, and crush these vipers. There is that rascal, Mr. Blank----"

"Mr. Blank is a friend of mine, sir."

"But"--John waxed bombastic--"You cannot be a friend of his and a friend of f.a.n.n.y Fern's. He said, in his paper, that she has a husband living----"

"Which is true, I believe," remarked the editor, quietly.

"But sir"--here John choked--"she is a _woman_, and no _gentleman_ will make remarks of the kind about a WOMAN,--a woman, sir, is sacred; and f.a.n.n.y Fern is one of the n.o.blest of her s.e.x. From your character as an editor and a man, I had every reason to believe that you would not hesitate to espouse her cause----"

"Mr. Walter," interrupted the editor, "your a.s.sumption is somewhat astounding, but it has not quite taken away my breath--I have still a modest word to say. I do not see that it is my duty to go and cudgel Mr. Blank, nor do I consider the inducement you hold out, quite sufficient to authorize me to engage in any quarrels except my own. I will not trouble you to introduce me to Miss Fern. I wish you a good morning, sir!"

John varied his manner with different people. To some he was insinuating and smooth; to others, bluff and lowering; but all his efforts were unsuccessful. n.o.body would go and whip Mr. Blank; n.o.body cared much about meeting f.a.n.n.y Fern. And here let us not be misunderstood. It was no fault of John's, that he did not succeed. He was zealous to the last degree. Still less was it f.a.n.n.y's fault. She was, as he expressed it, "the n.o.blest of her s.e.x." The truth is,--and to the shame of that city be it spoken,--there was no Don Quixote in Boston! If Boston could have boasted of so much chivalry, Mr. Blank would have been cudgelled, and f.a.n.n.y avenged.

Having utterly failed to create any kind of a sensation,--having waited in vain to "receive friends" at the Tremont,--it was judged expedient to make a grand sally upon the town. An open barouche was accordingly ordered, and f.a.n.n.y, richly attired, and attended by n.o.ble John Walter, rode ostentatiously through the streets. A kind of sensation was produced,--but not the right kind. People looked, and laughed, and winked. Some said, "Lucky John Walter!" Others, who knew f.a.n.n.y, said, "Poor John Walter!" Still f.a.n.n.y was let alone; n.o.body troubled her; the world turned round, and Boston turned with it, the same; and Mr. Blank remains uncudgelled to this day.

And so f.a.n.n.y and the redoubtable John made haste to evacuate their Sebastopol, withdrawing their forces quietly, and returned, inglorious, to New York.

XII.

A KEY TO "RUTH HALL."

f.a.n.n.y Fern's latest literary effort is the production of a novel ent.i.tled "Ruth Hall." Much curiosity has been excited in the minds of the public as to the originals of her various portraitures. It will be fully satisfied by the perusal of the following criticism from the pen of an able reviewer.

"Wouldn't I call things by their right names? Would I praise a book because a woman wrote it?"--_Ruth Hall_, p. 307.

"We have called f.a.n.n.y Fern a literary star. We should qualify the expression. There is no clear, strong l.u.s.tre, no steady splendor, no mild, benignant twinkle, to f.a.n.n.y. She flashed into our sky like a meteor, seemingly larger than Jupiter, and for the moment more ruddy than Venus, more flaming than any planet or fixed star. Or perhaps we should liken her to a rocket--going up with a great rush and whiz, then paling, dying, falling, and finishing up with a loud, angry pop, and a sudden shower of little fiery tadpoles, dropping on the head of her enemies.

"The 'loud, angry pop' came with the publication of her last work, 'Ruth Hall,'--a book that appears to have been exploded in a fit of desperation, to revive the writer's sinking fame, and to revenge herself on her relatives, and everybody she imagines ever injured her.

Fortunately, the rockets' fiery droppings are harmless as moonbeams, and there is little but hiss, and whiz, and crack, to its anger;--else some very respectable families had been blown to atoms, and entirely devoured and eaten up forever by the fiery tadpoles.

"How we used to admire f.a.n.n.y! We never, indeed, saw much to love in her writings, but the snap, and vigor, and originality of her style, was truly refreshing. We could never sufficiently praise these qualities in her early sketches. Her power was partly owing to native genius, partly to the circ.u.mstances of her life. She was a full-grown woman when she began to write. The age of feeble sentimentalism was pa.s.sed. She had seen the world; enjoyed society; known adversity. She had been twice a wife, and twice a mother; had lost one husband by death, and another by--no matter what. In years she was forty; in experience at least a hundred and forty. And all this life and knowledge she had kept bottled up, like old wine. How it sparkled and foamed when the wires were cut and the cork blown out! She poured off those first sketches, bubbling, frothing, effervescing, like prime champagne newly opened. Wine of this quality soon deadens; but f.a.n.n.y kept pouring out, determined to make up in quant.i.ty what was wanting in flavor; and now--in 'Ruth Hall'--she has squeezed the bottle and flung it at the heads of the public.

"Speaking of this queer book, the New York Courier says, 'If the writer ever showed the ma.n.u.script to her friends, they acted most cruelly towards her, in not advising her to throw it into the fire.'

We think so too. We have never seen so sad a revelation of a woman's heart. There are some flashes of genius in the book, but there are more flashes of that unmentionable fire, supposed to be familiar to wicked souls.

"The princ.i.p.al characters in Ruth Hall bristle all over with iron spikes of selfishness and cruelty. The able critic of the Boston Post declares that 'art would never admit such stony-hearted monsters in a story of real life.' Now, 'Ruth Hall' is understood to be an autobiography. That it was intended as such by the writer, there can be no doubt in the mind of any person who knows her and reads her book. Following this view of the subject, we have, first and foremost among the monsters, f.a.n.n.y's own father. He is the 'old Ellet' of the story--a man who 'thinks more of one cent than of any child he ever had;' who coldly leaves his daughter and grandchildren to suffer almost the extremes of want and privation; who would not, indeed, throw them a crumb, were it not that, as a church-member, he has a 'Christian reputation to sustain,' and fears public opinion. The caricature is gross and awful. Yet it is not even a caricature. f.a.n.n.y (Ruth Hall) has daubed the hideous picture of an impossible character, and scrawled beneath it the angry words, 'This is my father! let all the world see and abhor him!' O, Goneril! O, Regan! could woman's hate do more? Oh, dear and sweet revenge upon a parent! because, forsooth, the white-haired old man, who, even now, totters daily up his office stairs to earn a livelihood, possessed too much calm wisdom to impoverish himself in order that she might sit a queen--because he deemed it sufficient, in all love and justice, to support her comfortably, as his means afforded--because her own indiscretions, and extravagant and unreasonable demands, had called down upon her head deserved severity and reproof--this is the fire kindled in her heart!

We are sorry to speak in this strain. But if we speak at all, we must utter what justice and truth call out of us. Even were Mrs.

Farrington's charges against her father well-founded, we could not but cry out in condemnation of the parricidal spirit that seeks so devilish a revenge.

"Her first husband's father, the late Dr. Eldredge, meets with a similar treatment. The grave that has closed over him could not shield his breast from the tearing claws of the vampire of vengeance. He figures as Dr. Hall--just such another unfeeling, unnatural, impossible monster, as the old man Ellet. Mrs. Hall (f.a.n.n.y's mother-in-law, Mrs. Eldredge,) is a slice from the same raw material, with the addition of a little feminine salt and pepper. f.a.n.n.y had an opportunity to write something of her own spirit in 'Mrs. Hall'--thus relieving the deadness of the character with occasional sparks of real human nature.

"Mr. N. P. Willis appears in the book as Mr. Hyacinth Ellet--'a mincing, conceited, tip-toeing, be-curled, be-perfumed popinjay.' Like the other monsters, he has not a grain of heart in his composition.

Such a burlesque of a gentleman so well known for his fine qualities of heart and mind as Mr. N. P. Willis, is simply disgusting. It is too coa.r.s.e and flat to be tolerated even in a farce.

"Other monsters in the book may be briefly alluded to. The Millets are the----s,--represented as horrid people, of course, being so unfortunate as to be related to f.a.n.n.y. Mr. Lescom, editor of the 'Standard,' is the late Mr. Norris, of the Olive Branch. The True Flag is personified as 'Mr. Tibbets.'

"Now with regard to the angels in the book. First, of course, is f.a.n.n.y herself. She is 'Ruth Hall'--a perfect celestial. We are surprised that any person, whose judgment was not altogether swallowed up in vanity and egotism, should have made so bald and sickening an attempt at self-exaltation. Ruth is a model wife, a model mother, a model widow, a model saint. She is very beautiful, and a great genius. There was never a woman on earth until Ruth was let down out of heaven. What a capital joke, that so rare a creation should have been born the daughter of old Ellet, and the sister of Hyacinth!

"'Harry Hall' is the name given to f.a.n.n.y's first husband. It is a singular fact, by the way, that no allusion is made to her second marriage. Why is Mrs. Farrington so anxious to suppress the fact, and the subject of her divorce? She should not have neglected so good an opportunity to give Mr. F., what in the vulgar idiom is termed 'fits.'

"Mr. Horace Gates, Hyacinth's a.s.sistant, on the 'Irving Magazine,' is Mr. J. Parton, late of the Home Journal. Mr. Parton has recently written a book for f.a.n.n.y's new publishers, so she thought proper to puff him. Mr. P. is a talented writer, and may, for aught we know, be an excellent man; but he is unfortunate in sitting for the portrait of Mr. Horace Gates. We should prefer anything rather than praise from such a quarter.

"But of all the overdone specimens of goodness, the character of virtuous John Walter is the most ridiculous to those who know the original. John Walter is----laugh, ye G.o.ds! and hold your sides!--is--but we will spare the poor man's blushes. This pure and fragrant gentleman--who, by the way, never knew f.a.n.n.y until after the establishment of her reputation, and her contract with Derby & Miller, for the publication of 'Fern Leaves'--has since devoted himself to her service, contented to lick what crumbs may fall to him from her table, as a reward for his brave championship. He 'puts through' the newspaper puffing which heralds her books, acting as her counsellor, companion, and gentleman friend generally--and so she makes an angel of him out of grat.i.tude. Delicious John Walter!

"The story of Ruth Hall is nothing. There is no plot whatever; no thread of interest to hold one to its pages. There are some spicy, quite Ferny sketches, in the first half of the volume--but the rest is all chaff, filled in to swell the covers to a respectable capaciousness. Towards the close, for want of better matter, we are surfeited with letters from people n.o.body cares anything about, and a tedious phrenological examination, designed to set off the transcendent mental, moral and affectional qualities of that heavenly creature, Ruth--alias f.a.n.n.y!

"The book abounds with horrors of cruelty and neglect--which all who are aware in what style Mrs. Farrington used to live, know to be false--until we come to the introduction of good John Walter, when everybody commences laughing. Indeed, such expressions as 'said Ruth, laughing,' 'said Mr. Walter, laughing,' 'said Katy, laughing,' 'said Ruth, beginning to laugh,' occur _ad nauseam_. Sometimes we have 'said Ruth, smiling,' which amounts to the same thing. And so the book draws to a verbose and feeble close. We are glad to have shut it up, never to open it again. We love not these bad-hearted books. Let us then hasten to take leave of this one, and of f.a.n.n.y Fern, forever. It was no agreeable task we had to do, but we have done it conscientiously and faithfully; and here let it end."

XIII.

A WORD ABOUT N. P. WILLIS.