Fern Fanny
Fern Leaves from Fanny's Port-folio.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
What a warm Sunday! and what a large church! I wonder if it will be half-filled! Empty pews are a sorry welcome to a pastor. Ah! no fear; here comes the congregation in troops and families; now the capacious galleries are filled; every pew is crowded, and seats are being placed in the aisles.
The preacher rises. What a young “David!” Still, the “stone and sling” will do their execution. How simple, how child-like that prayer; and yet how eloquent, how fervent. How eagerly, as he names the text, the eye of each is riveted upon the preacher, as if to secure his individual portion of the heavenly manna.
Let us look around, upon the audience. Do you see yonder gray-haired business man? Six days in the week, for many years, he has been Mammon’s most devoted worshipper. According to time-honored custom, he has slept comfortably in his own pew each Sunday, lulled by the soft voice of the shepherd who “prophesieth smooth things.” One pleasant Sabbath, chance, (I would rather say an overruling Providence,) led him here. He settles himself in his accustomed Sunday attitude, but sleep comes not at his bidding. He looks disturbed. The preacher is dwelling upon the permitted but fraudulent tricks of business men, and exposing plainly their turpitude in the sight of that God who holds “evenly the scales of justice.” As he proceeds, Conscience whispers to this aged listener, “Thou art the man!” He moves uneasily on his seat; an angry flush mounts to his temples: What right has that boy-preacher to question the integrity of men of such unblemished mercantile standing in the community as himself? He is not accustomed to such a spiritual probing knife. His spiritual physician has always “healed the hurt of his people slightly.” He don’t like such plain talking, and sits the service out only from compulsion. But when he passes the church porch, he does not leave the sermon there, as usual. No. He goes home perplexed and thoughtful. Conscience sides with the preacher; self-interest tries to stifle its voice with the sneering whisper of “priest-craft.” Monday comes, and again he plunges into the maelstrom of business, and tries to tell the permitted lie with his usual nonchalance to some ignorant customer, but his tongue falters and performs its duty but awkwardly; a slight blush is perceptible upon his countenance; and the remainder of the week chronicles similar and repeated failures.
Again it is Sunday. He is not a church-member: he can stay at home, therefore, without fear of a canonical committee of Paul Prys to investigate the matter: he can look over his debt and credit list if he likes, without excommunication: he certainly will not put himself again in the way of that plain-spoken, stripling priest. The bell peals out, in musical tones, seemingly this summons: “Come up with us, and we will do you good.” By an irresistible impulse, he finds himself again a listener. “Not that he believes what that boy says:” Oh no: but, somehow, he likes to listen to him, even though he attack that impregnable pride in which he has wrapped himself up as in a garment.
Now, why is this? Why is this church filled with such wayside listeners?
Why, but that all men – even the most worldly and unscrupulous – pay involuntary homage to earnestness, sincerity, independence and Christian boldness, in the “man of God?”
Why? Because they see that he stands in that sacred desk, not that his lips may be tamed and held in, with a silver bit and silken bridle: not because preaching is his “trade,” and his hearers must receive their quid pro quo once a week – no, they all see and feel that his heart is in the work – that he loves it – that he comes to them fresh from his closet, his face shining with the light of “the Mount,” as did Moses’.
The preacher is remarkable for fertility of imagination, for rare felicity of expression, for his keen perception of the complicated and mysterious workings of the human heart, and for the uncompromising boldness with which he utters his convictions. His earnestness of manner, vehemence of gesture and rapidity of utterance, are, at times, electrifying; impressing his hearers with the idea that language is too poor and meager a medium for the rushing tide of his thoughts.
Upon the lavish beauty of earth, sea, and sky, he has evidently gazed with the poet’s eye of rapture. He walks the green earth in no monk’s cowl or cassock. The tiniest blade of grass with its “drap o’ dew,” has thrilled him with strange delight. “God is love,” is written for him in brilliant letters, on the arch of the rainbow. Beneath that black coat, his heart leaps like a happy child’s to the song of the birds and the tripping of the silver-footed stream, and goes up, in the dim old woods, with the fragrance of their myriad flowers, in grateful incense of praise, to Heaven.
God be thanked, that upon all these rich and rare natural gifts, “Holiness to the Lord” has been written. Would that the number of such gospel soldiers was “legion,” and that they might stand in the forefront of the hottest battle, wielding thus skillfully and unflinchingly the “Sword of the Spirit.”
AN OLD MAID’S DECISION
“I can bear misfortune and poverty, and all the other ills of life, but to be an old maid– to droop and wither, and wilt and die, like a single pink – I can’t endure it; and what’s more, I won’t!”
Now there’s an appeal that ought to touch some bachelor’s heart. There she is, a poor, lone spinster, in a nicely furnished room – sofa big enough for two; two arm chairs, two bureaus, two looking-glasses – everything hunting in couples except herself! I don’t wonder she’s frantic! She read in her childhood that “matches were made in Heaven,” and although she’s well aware there are some Lucifer matches, yet she has never had a chance to try either sort. She has heard that there “never was a soul created, but its twin was made somewhere,” and she’s a melancholy proof that ’tis a mocking lie. She gets tired sewing – she can’t knit forever on that eternal stocking – (besides, that has a fellow to it, and is only an aggravation to her feelings.) She has read till her eyes are half blind, – there’s nobody to agree with her if she likes the book, or argue the point with her if she don’t. If she goes out to walk, every woman she meets has her husband’s arm. To be sure, they are half of them ready to scratch each other’s eyes out; but that’s a little business matter between themselves. Suppose she feels devotional, and goes to evening lectures, some ruffianly coward is sure to scare her to death on the way. If she takes a journey, she gets hustled and boxed round among cab-drivers, and porters, and baggage-masters; her bandbox gets knocked in, her trunk gets knocked off, and she’s landed at the wrong stopping place. If she wants a load of wood, she has to pay twice as much as a man would, and then she gets cheated by the man that saws and splits it. She has to put her own money into the bank and get it out, hire her own pew, and wait upon herself into it. People tell her “husbands are often great plagues,” but she knows there are times when they are indispensable. She is very good looking, black hair and eyes, fine figure, sings and plays beautifully, but she “can’t be an old maid, and what’s more– she won’t.”
A PUNCH AT “PUNCH.”
“What is the height of a woman’s ambition? Diamonds.” —Punch.
Sagacious Punch! Do you know the reason? It is because the more “diamonds” a woman owns, the more precious she becomes in the eyes of your discriminating sex. What pair of male eyes ever saw a “crow’s foot,” grey hair, or wrinkle, in company with a genuine diamond? Don’t you go down on your marrow-bones, and vow that the owner is a Venus, a Hebe, a Juno, a sylph, a fairy, an angel? Would you stop to look (connubially) at the most bewitching woman on earth, whose only diamonds were “in her eye?” Well, it is no great marvel, Mr. Punch. The race of men is about extinct. Now and then you will meet with a specimen; but I’m sorry to inform you that the most of them are nothing but coat tails, walking behind a moustache, destitute of sufficient energy to earn their own cigars and “Macassar,” preferring to dangle at the heels of a diamond wife, and meekly receive their allowance, as her mamma’s prudence and her own inclinations may suggest.
FATHER TAYLOR, THE SAILOR’S PREACHER
You have never heard Father Taylor, the Boston Seaman’s preacher? Well – you should go down to his church some Sunday. It is not at the court-end of the town. The urchins in the neighborhood are guiltless of shoes or bonnets. You will see quite a sprinkling of “Police” at the corners. Green Erin, too, is well represented: with a dash of Africa – checked off with “dough faces.”
Let us go into the church: there are no stained-glass windows – no richly draperied pulpit – no luxurious seats to suggest a nap to your sleepy conscience. No odor of patchouli, or nonpareil, or bouqet de violet will be wafted across your patrician nose. Your satin and broadcloth will fail to procure you the highest seat in the synagogue, – they being properly reserved for the “old salts.”
Here they come! one after another, with horny palms and bronzed faces. It stirs my blood, like the sound of a trumpet, to see them. The seas they have crossed! the surging billows they have breasted! the lonely, dismal, weary nights they have kept watch! – the harpies in port who have assailed their generous sympathies! the sullen plash of the sheeted dead, in its vast ocean sepulchre! – what stirring thoughts and emotions do their weather-beaten faces call into play! God bless the sailor! – Here they come; sure of a welcome – conscious that they are no intruders on aristocratic landsmen’s soil – sure that each added face will send a thrill of pleasure to the heart of the good old man, who folds them all, as one family, to his patriarchal bosom.
There he is! How reverently he drops on his knee, and utters that silent prayer. Now he is on his feet. With a quick motion he adjusts his spectacles, and says to the tardy tar doubtful of a berth, “Room here, brother!” pointing to a seat in the pulpit. Jack don’t know about that! He can climb the rigging when Boreas whistles his fiercest blast; he can swing into the long boat with a stout heart, when creaking timbers are parting beneath him: but to mount the pulpit! – Jack doubts his qualifications, and blushes through his mask of bronze. “Room enough, brother!” again reässures him; and, with a litle extra fumbling at his tarpaulin, and hitching at his waistband, he is soon as much at home as though he were on his vessel’s deck.
The hymn is read with a heart-tone. There is no mistaking either the poet’s meaning or the reader’s devotion. And now, if you have a “scientific musical ear,” (which, thank heaven, I have not,) you may criticise the singing, while I am not ashamed of the tears that steal down my face, as I mark the effect of good Old Hundred (minus trills and flourishes) on Neptune’s honest, hearty, whole-souled sons.
– The text is announced. There follows no arrangement of dickys, or bracelets, or eye-glasses. You forget your ledger and the fashions, the last prima donna, and that your neighbor is not one of the “upper ten,” as you fix your eye on that good old man, and are swept away from worldly moorings by the flowing tide of his simple, earnest eloquence. You marvel that these uttered truths of his, never struck your thoughtless mind before. My pen fails to convey to you the play of expression on that earnest face – those emphatic gestures – the starting tear or the thrilling voice; – but they all tell on “Jack.”
And now an infant is presented for baptism. The pastor takes it on one arm. O, surely he is himself a father, else it would not be poised so gently. Now he holds it up, that all may view its dimpled beauty, and says: “Is there one here who doubts, should this child die to-day, its right among the blessed?” One murmured, spontaneous No! bursts from Jacks’ lips, as the baptismal drops lave its sinless temples. Lovingly the little lamb is folded, with a kiss and a blessing, to the heart of the earthly shepherd, ere the maternal arms receive it.
Jack looks on and weeps! And how can he help weeping? He was once as pure as that blessed innocent! His mother– the sod now covers her – often invoked heaven’s blessing on her son; and well he remembers the touch of her gentle hand and the sound of her loving voice, as she murmured the imploring prayer for him: and how has her sailor boy redeemed his youthful promise? He dashes away his scalding tears, with his horny palm; but, please God, that Sabbath – that scene – shall be a talisman upon which memory shall ineffaceably inscribe,
“Go, and sin no more.”
SIGNS OF THE TIMES
E q u i – equi, d o m e – dome, “Equidome.” Betty, hand me my dictionary.
Well, now, who would have believed that I, Fanny Fern, would have tripped over a “stable?” That all comes of being “raised” where people persist in calling things by their right names. I’m very certain that it is useless for me to try to circumnavigate the globe on stilts. There’s the “Hippodrome!” I had but just digested that humbug: my tongue kinked all up trying to pronounce it; and then I couldn’t find out the meaning of it; for Webster didn’t inform me that it was a place where vicious horses broke the necks of vicious young girls for the amusement of vicious spectators.
– “Jim Brown!” What a relief. I can understand that. I never saw Jim, but I’m positively certain that he’s a monosyllable on legs – crisp as a cucumber. Ah! here are some more suggestive signs.
“Robert Link – Bird Fancier.” I suggest that it be changed to Bob-o’Link; in which opinion I shall probably be backed up by all musical people.
Here we are in Broadway junior, alias the “Bowery.” I don’t see but the silks, and satins, and dry goods generally, are quite equal to those in Broadway; but, of course, Fashion turns her back upon them, for they are only half the price.
What have we here, in this shop window? What are all those silks, and delaines, and calicoes, ticketed up that way for? – “Superb,” “Tasty,” “Beautiful,” “Desirable,” “Cheap for 1s.,” “Modest,” “Unique,” “Genteel,” “Grand,” “Gay!” It is very evident that Mr. Yardstick takes all women for fools, or else he has had a narrow escape from being one himself.
There’s a poor, distracted gentleman in a milliner’s shop, trying to select a bonnet for his spouse. What a non compos! See him poise the airy nothings on his great clumsy hands! He is about as good a judge of bonnets as I am of patent ploughs. See him turn, in despairing bewilderment, from blue to pink, from pink to green, from green to crimson, from crimson to yellow. The little witch of a milliner sees his indecision, and resolves to make a coup d’état; so, perching one of the bonnets (blue as her eyes) on her rosy little face, she walks up sufficiently near to give him a magnetic shiver, and holding the strings coquettishly under her pretty little chin, says:
“Now, I’m sure, you can’t say that isn’t pretty!”
Of course he can’t!
So, the bonnet is bought and band-boxed, and Jonathan (who is sold with the bonnet) takes it home to his wife, whose black face looks in it like an overcharged thunder-cloud set in a silver lining.
Saturday evening is a busy time in the Bowery. So many little things wanted at the close of the week. A pair of new shoes for Robert, a tippet for Sally, a pair of gloves for Johnny, and a stick of candy to bribe the baby to keep the peace while mamma goes to “meetin” on Sunday. What a heap of people! What a job it must be to take the census in New York. Servant girls and their beaux, country folks and city folks, big boys and little boys, ladies and women, puppies and men! There’s a poor laboring man with his market basket on one arm, and his wife on the other. He knows that he can get his Sunday dinner cheaper by purchasing it late on Saturday night, when the butchers are not quite sure that their stock will “keep” till Monday. And then it is quite a treat for his wife, when little Johnny is asleep, to get out to catch a bit of fresh air, and a sight of the pretty things in the shop windows, even if she cannot have them; but the little feminine diplomatist knows that husbands always feel clever of a Saturday night, and that then’s the time “just to stop and look” at a new ribbon or collar.
See that party of country folks, going to the “National” to see “Uncle Tom.” Those pests, the bouquet sellers, are offering them their stereotyped, cabbage-looking bunches of flowers with,
“Please buy one for your lady, sir.”
Jonathan don’t understand dodging such appeals; beside, he would scorn to begrudge a “quarter” for his lady! So he buys the nuisance, and scraping out his hind foot, presents it, with a bow, to Araminta, who “walks on thrones” the remainder of the evening.
There’s a hand organ, and a poor, tired little girl, sleepily playing the tambourine. All the little ragged urchins in the neighborhood are grouped on that door step, listening. The connoisseur might criticise the performance, but no Cathedral Te Deum could be grander to that unsophisticated little audience. There is one little girl, who spite of her rags, is beautiful enough for a seraph. Poor and beautiful! God help her.
WHOM DOES IT CONCERN?
“Stitch – stitch – stitch! Will this never end?” said a young girl, leaning her head wearily against the casement, and dropping her small hands hopelessly in her lap. “Stitch – stitch – stitch! from dawn till dark, and yet I scarce keep soul and body together;” and she drew her thin shawl more closely over her shivering shoulders.
Her eye fell upon the great house opposite. There was comfort there, and luxury, too; for the rich, satin curtains were looped gracefully away from the large windows; a black servant opens the hall door: see, there are statues and vases and pictures there: now, two young girls trip lightly out upon the pavement, their lustrous silks, and nodding plumes, and jeweled bracelets glistening, and quivering, and sparkling in the bright sunlight. Now poising their silver-netted purses upon the daintily gloved fingers, they leap lightly into the carriage in waiting, and are whirled rapidly away.
That little seamstress is as fair as they: her eyes are as soft and blue; her limbs as lithe and graceful; her rich, brown hair folds as softly away over as fair a brow; her heart leaps, like theirs, to all that is bright and joyous; it craves love and sympathy, and companionship as much, and yet she must stitch – stitch – stitch – and droop under summer’s heat, and shiver under winter’s cold, and walk the earth with the skeleton starvation ever at her side, that costly pictures, and velvet carpets, and massive chandeliers, and gay tapestry, and gold and silver vessels may fill the house of her employer – that his flaunting equipage may roll admired along the highway, and India’s fairest fabrics deck his purse-proud wife and daughters.
It was a busy scene, the ware-room of Simon Skinflint & Co. Garments of every hue, size and pattern, were there exposed for sale. Piles of coarse clothing lay upon the counter, ready to be given out to the destitute, brow-beaten applicant who would make them for the smallest possible remuneration; piles of garments lay there, which such victims had already toiled into the long night to finish, ticketed to bring enormous profits into the pocket of their employer: groups of dapper clerks stood behind the counter, discussing, in a whisper, the pedestals of the last new danseuse– ogling the half-starved young girls who were crowding in for employment, and raising a blush on the cheek of humble innocence by the coarse joke and free, libidinous gaze; while their master, Mr. Simon Skinflint, sat, rosy and rotund, before a bright Lehigh fire, rubbing his fat hands, building imaginary houses, and felicitating himself generally, on his far-reaching financial foresight.
“If you could but allow me a trifle more for my labor,” murmured a low voice at his side; “I have toiled hard all the week, and yet – ”
“Young woman,” said Mr. Skinflint, pushing his chair several feet back, elevating his spectacles to his forehead, and drawing his satin vest down over his aldermanic proportions – “young woman, do you observe that crowd of persons besieging my door for employment? Perhaps you are not aware that we turn away scores of them every day; perhaps you don’t know that the farmers’ daughters, who are at a loss what to do long winter evenings, and want to earn a little dowry, will do our work for less than we pay you? But you feminine operatives don’t seem to have the least idea of trade. Competition is the soul of business, you see,” said Mr. Skinflint, rubbing his hands in a congratulatory manner. “Tut – tut – young woman! don’t quarrel with your bread and butter; however, it is a thing that don’t concern me at all; if you won’t work, there are plenty who will,” – and Mr. Skinflint drew out his gold repeater, and glanced at the door.
A look of hopeless misery settled over the young girl’s face, as she turned slowly away in the direction of home. Home did I say? The word was a bitter mockery to poor Mary. She had a home once, where she and the little birds sang the live-long day: where flowers blossomed, and tall trees waved, and merry voices floated out on the fragrant air, and the golden sun went gorgeously down behind the far-off hills; where a mother’s loving breast was her pillow, and a father’s good-night blessing wooed her rosy slumbers. It was past now. They were all gone – father, mother, brother, sister. Some with the blue sea for a shifting monument; some sleeping dreamlessly in the little church-yard, where her infant footsteps strayed. Rank grass had o’ergrown the cottage gravel walks; weeds choked the flowers which dust-crumbled hands had planted; the brown moss had thatched over the cottage eaves, and still the little birds sang on as blithely as if Mary’s household gods had not been shivered.
Poor Mary! The world was dark and weary to her: the very stars, with their serene beauty, seemed to mock her misery. She reached her little room. Its narrow walls seemed to close about her like a tomb. She leaned her head wearily against the little window, and looked again at the great house opposite. How brightly, how cheerfully the lights glanced from the windows! How like fairies glided the young girls over the softly carpeted floors! How swiftly the carriages whirled to the door, with their gay visitors? Life was such a rosy dream to them– such a brooding nightmare to her! Despair laid its icy hand on her heart. Must she always drink, unmixed, the cup of sorrow? Must she weep and sigh her youth away, while griping Avarice trampled on her heart-strings? She could not weep – nay, worse – she could not pray. Dark shadows came between her soul and heaven.
The little room is empty now. Mary toils there no longer. You will find her in the great house opposite: her dainty limbs clad in flowing silk; her slender fingers and dimpled arms glittering with gems: and among all that merry group, Mary’s laugh rings out the merriest. Surely – surely, this is better than to toil, weeping, through the long weary days in the little darkened room.
Is it, Mary?
There is a ring at the door of the great house. A woman glides modestly in; by her dress, she is a widow. She has opened a small school in the neighborhood, and in the search for scholars has wandered in here. She looks about her. Her quick, womanly instinct sounds the alarm. She is not among the good and pure of her sex. But she does not scorn them. No; she looks upon their blighted beauty, with a Christ-like pity; she says to herself, haply some word of mine may touch their hearts. So, she says, gently, “Pardon me, ladies, but I had hoped to find scholars here; you will forgive the intrusion, I know; for though you are not mothers, you have all had mothers.”
Why is Mary’s lip so ashen white? Why does she tremble from head to foot, as if smitten by the hand of God? Why do the hot tears stream through her jeweled fingers? Ah! Mary. That little dark room, with its toil, its gloom, its innocence, were Heaven’s own brightness now, to your tortured spirit.
Pitilessly the slant rain rattled against the window panes awnings creaked and flapped, and the street lamps flickered in the strong blast: full-freighted omnibuses rolled over the muddy pavements: stray pedestrians turned up their coat-collars, grasped their umbrellas more tightly, and made for the nearest port. A woman, half-blinded by the long hair which the fury of the wind had driven across her face, drenched to the skin with the pouring rain – shoeless, bonnetless, homeless, leans unsteadily against a lamp-post, and in the maudlin accents of intoxication curses the passers-by. A policeman’s strong grasp is laid upon her arm, and she is hurried, struggling, through the dripping streets, and pushed into the nearest “station house.” Morning dawns upon the wretched, forsaken outcast. She sees it not. Upon those weary eyes only the resurrection morn shall dawn.
No more shall the stony-hearted shut, in her imploring face, the door of hope; no more shall gilded sin, with Judas smile, say, “Eat, drink, and be merry;” no more shall the professed followers of Him who said, “Neither do I condemn thee,” say to the guilt-stricken one, “Stand aside – for I am holier than thou.” No, none may tempt, none may scorn, none may taunt her more. A pauper’s grave shall hide poor Mary and her shame.
God speed the day when the Juggernaut wheels of Avarice shall no longer roll over woman’s dearest hopes; when thousands of doors, now closed, shall be opened for starving Virtue to earn her honest bread; when he who would coin her tears and groans to rear his palaces, shall become a hissing and a by-word, wherever the sacred name of Mother shall be honored.
