Fern Fanny
Fern Leaves from Fanny's Port-folio.
A MORNING RAMBLE
What a lovely morning! It is a luxury to breathe. How blue the sky; how soft the air; how fragrant the fresh spring grass and budding trees; and with what a gush of melody that little bird eases his joy-burdened heart.
“This world is very lovely. Oh my God,
I thank Thee, that I live.”
Clouds there are; but, oh, how much of sunshine! Sorrow there is; but, in every cup is mingled a drop of balm. Over our threshold the destroying angel passeth; yet, ere the rush of his dark wing sweepeth past, cometh the Healer.
– Here is a poor, blind man basking in the sunshine, silently appealing, with outstretched palm, to the passer-by. Through his thin, gray locks the wind plays lovingly. A smile beams on his withered face; for, though his eyes are rayless, he can feel that chill Winter has gone; and he knows that the flowers are blossoming, – for the sweet West wind cometh, God-commissioned, to waft him their fragrance. Some pedestrians gaze curiously at him: others, like the Levite, “pass by on the other side.” A woman approaches. She is plainly clad, and bears a basket on her arm. She has a good, kind, motherly face, as if she were hastening back to some humble home, made brighter and happier by her presence. Life is sweet to her. She catches sight of the poor old man; her eye falls upon the label affixed to his breast: “I am blind!” Oh, what if the brightness and beauty of this glad sunshine were all night, to her vailed lids? What if the dear home faces were forever shrouded from her yearning sight? What if she might never walk the sunny earth, without a guiding hand? She places her basket upon the sidewalk, and wipes away a tear: now she explores her time-worn pocket; finds the hardly-earned coin, and placing it in the palm of the old man, presses his hand lovingly, and is gone!
Poor Bartimeus! He may never see the honest face that bent so tenderly over him; but, to his heart’s core, he felt that kindly pressure, and the sunshine is all the brighter, and the breeze sweeter and fresher for that friendly grasp, and life is again bright to the poor blind man.
“Oh God! I thank Thee, that I live!”
How swiftly the ferry boat plows through the wave! How gleefully that little child claps its tiny hands, as the snowy foam parts on either side, then dashes away like a thing of life. Here are weary business men, going back to their quiet homes; and pleasure-loving belles, returning from the city. Pacing up and down the deck, is a worn and weary woman, bearing in her arms a child, so emaciated, so attenuated, that but for the restless glance of its dark, sunken eyes, one would think it a little corpse. The mother has left her unhealthy garret in the noisome lane of the teeming city, and paid her last penny to the ferryman, that the health-laden sea breeze may fan the sick child’s temples. Tenderly she moves it from one shoulder to another. Now, she lays its little cheek to hers; now, she kisses the little slender fingers; but still the baby moans. The boat touches the pier. All are leaving, but the mother and child; the ferryman tells her to “go too.” She says timidly, “I want to return again – I live the other side – I came on board for the baby,” (pointing to the dying child.) Poor woman, she did not know that she could not go back without another fee, and she has not a penny. Loathsome as is her distant home, she must go back to it; but how?
One passenger beside herself still lingers listening. Dainty fingers drop a coin into the gruff ferryman’s hand, – then a handful into the weary, troubled mother’s. The sickly babe looks up and smiles at the chinking coin – the mother smiles, because the baby has smiled again – and then weeps because she knows not how to thank the lovely donor.
“Homeward bound.”
Over the blue waters, the golden sunset gleams; tinting the snowy, billowy foam with a thousand iris hues; while at the boat’s prow, stands the happy mother, wooing the cool sunset breeze, which kisses soothingly the sick infant’s temples.
“This earth is very lovely. Oh my God,
I thank thee that I live!”
HOUR-GLASS THOUGHTS
The bride stands waiting at the altar; the corpse lies waiting for burial.
Love vainly implores of Death a reprieve; Despair vainly invokes his coming.
The starving wretch, who purloins a crust, trembles in the hall of Justice; liveried sin, unpunished, riots in high places.
Brothers, clad “in purple and fine linen, fare sumptuously every day;” Sisters, in linsey-woolsey, toil in garrets and shrink, trembling, from insults that no fraternal arm avenges.
The Village Squire sows, reaps and garners golden harvests; the Parish Clergyman sighs, as his casting vote cuts down his already meager salary.
The unpaid sempstress be-gems with tears the fairy festal robe; proud beauty floats in it through the ball-room, like a thing of air.
Church spires point, with tapering fingers, to the rich man’s heaven; Penitence, in rags, tearful and altarless, meekly stays its timid foot at the threshold.
Sneaking Vice, wrapped in the labeled cloak of Piety, finds “open sesame;” shrinking Conscientiousness, jostled rudely aside, weeps in secret its fancied unworthiness.
The Editor grows plethoric on the applause of the public and mammoth subscription lists; the unrecognized journalist, who, behind the scenes, mixes so deftly the newspaperial salad, lives on the smallest possible stipend, and looks like an undertaker’s walking advertisement.
The Wife, pure, patient, loving, trustful, sits singing, by the evening fire, repairing, with the busy fingers of economy, the time-worn garment; the Husband, favored by darkness, seeks, with stealthy steps and costly gifts, the syren of the hour, squandering hundreds to win a smile which is ever in the market for the highest bidder.
The polluted libertine, with foul lips, hackneyed heart, but polished manners, finds smiling welcome at the beauteous lips of Virtue; while, from the brow on which that libertine has ineffaceably written “Magdalen,” “beauteous Virtue” turns scornfully away.
Wives rant of their “Woman’s Rights,” in public; Husbands eat bad dinners and tend crying babies, at home.
Mothers toil in kitchens; Daughters lounge in parlors.
Fathers drive the plough; Sons drive tandem.
BOARDING HOUSE EXPERIENCE
Mr. Ralph Renoux lived by his wits: i. e., he kept a boarding-house; taking in any number of ladies and gentlemen, who, in the philanthropic language of his advertisement, “pined for the comforts and elegancies of a home.”
Mr. Renoux’s house was at the court-end of the city; his drawing-room was unexceptionably furnished, and himself, when “made up,” after ten o’clock in the morning, quite comme il faut. Mrs. Renoux never appeared; being, in the pathetic words of Mr. Renoux, “in a drooping, invalid state:” nevertheless, she might be seen, by the initiated, haunting the back stairs and entries, and with flying cap-strings, superintending kitchen-cabinet affairs.
Mrs. Renoux was the unhappy mother of three unmarried daughters, with red hair, and tempers to match; who languished over Byron, in elegant negligées, of a morning, till after the last masculine had departed; then, in curl-papers and calico long-shorts, performed, for the absentees, the duty of chambermaids; peeping into valises, trunks, bureaus, cigar boxes and coat pockets, and replenishing their perfumed bottles, from the gentlemen’s toilet stands, with the most perfect nonchalance. At dinner, they emerged from their chrysalis state, into the most butterfly gorgeousness, and exchanged the cracked treble, with which they had been ordering round the over-tasked maid-of-all-work, as they affectionately addressed “Papa.”
At the commencement of my story, Renoux was as happy as a kitten with its first mouse – having entrapped, with the bait of his alluring advertisement, a widow lady with one child. “The comforts and elegancies of a home;” – it was just what the lady was seeking: – how very fortunate!
“Certainly, Madam,” said Renoux, doubling himself into the form of the letter C. “I will serve your meals in your own room, if you prefer; but, really, Madam, I trust you will sometimes grace the drawing-room with your presence, as we have a very select little family of boarders. Do you choose to breakfast at eight, nine, or ten, Madam? Do you incline to Mocha? or prefer the leaves of the Celestial city? Are you fond of eggs, Madam? Would you prefer to dine at four, or five? Do you wish six courses, or more? There is the bell-rope, Madam. I trust you will use it unsparingly, should any thing be omitted or neglected. I am just on my way down town, and if you will favor me by saying what you would fancy for your dinner to-day, (the market is full of every thing – fish, flesh, fowl and game of all sorts,) you have only to express a wish, Madam, and the thing is here; I should be miserable, indeed, were the request of a lady to be disregarded in my house, and that lady deprived of her natural protector. Which is it, Madam, fish? flesh? or fowl? Any letters to send to the post-office, Madam? Any commands any where? I shall be too happy to be of service”; – and bending to the tips of his patent leather toes, Mr. Renoux, facing the lady, bowed obsequiously and Terpsichore-ally out of the apartment.
The dinner hour came. An Irish servant-girl came with it; and drawing out a table at an Irish angle upon the floor, tossed over it a tumbled table-cloth; placed upon it a castor, minus one leg, some cracked salt-cellars and tumblers; then laid some knives, left-handed, about the table; then, withdrew, to reappear with the result of Mr. Renoux’s laborious research “in the market filled with every thing,” viz: a consumptive looking mackerel, whose skin clung tenaciously to its back bone, and a Peter Schemel looking chicken, which, in its life-time, must have had a vivid recollection of Noah and the forty days’ shower. This was followed by a dessert of stale baker’s tarts, compounded of lard and dried apples; and twenty-four purple grapes.
The next morning, Mr. Renoux tip-toed in, smirking and bowing, as if the bill of fare had been the most sumptuous in the world, and expressed the greatest astonishment and indignation, that “the stupid servant had neglected bringing up the other courses which he had provided;” then he inquired “how the lady had rested;” and when she preferred a request for another pillow, (there being only six feathers in the one she had,) he assured her that it should be in her apartment in less than one hour. A fortnight after, he expressed the most intense disgust, that “the rascally upholsterer” had not yet sent what he had never ordered. Each morning, Mr. Renoux presented himself, at a certain hour, behind a very stiff dickey, and offered the lady the morning papers. Seating himself on the sofa, he would remark that – it was a very fine day, and that affairs in France appeared to be in statu quo; or, that the Czar had ordered his generals to occupy the principalities; that Gorchakoff was preparing to cross the Danube; that the Sultan had dispatched Omar Pasha to the frontiers; that the latter gentleman had presented his card to Gorchakoff, on the point of a yataghan, which courtesy would probably lead to – something else!
During one of these agreeable calls, the lady took occasion slightly to object to Betty’s nibbling the tarts, as she brought them up for dinner; whereupon, Mr. Renoux declared, upon the honor of a Frenchman, that “she should be pitched out of the door immediately, if not sooner; and an efficient servant engaged to take her place.”
The next day, the “efficient servant” came in, broom in hand, whistling “Oh, Susanna,” and passing into the little dressing-room, to “put it to rights,” amused herself by trying on the widow’s best bonnet, and polishing her teeth and combing her hair with that lady’s immaculate and individual head-brush and tooth-brush. You will not be surprised to learn, that their injured and long-suffering owner, took a frantic and “French leave” the following morning, in company with her big and little band-boxes; taking refuge under the sheltering roof of Madame Finfillan.
Madame Finfillan was a California widow; petite, plump and pretty – who bore her cruel bereavement with feminine philosophy, and slid round the world’s rough angles with a most eel-like dexterity. In short, she was a Renoux in petticoats. Madame welcomed the widow with great pleasure, because, as she said, she “wished to fill her house only with first-class boarders;” and the widow might be assured that she had the apartments fresh from the diplomatic hands of the Spanish Consul, who would on no account have given them up, had not his failing health demanded a trip to the Continent. Madame also assured the widow, that, (although she said it herself,) every part of her house would bear the closest inspection; that those vulgar horrors, cooking butter, and diluted tea, were never seen on her Epicurean table; that they breakfasted at ten, lunched at two, dined at six, and enjoyed themselves in the interim; that her daughter, Miss Clara, was perfectly well qualified to superintend, when business called her mother away. And that nobody knew, (wringing her little white hands,) how much business she had to do, what with trotting round to those odious markets, trading for wood and coal, and such like uninteresting things; or what would become of her, had she not some of the best friends in the world to look after her, in the absence of Mons. Finfillan.
– Madame then caught up the widow’s little boy, and, half smothering him with kisses, declared that there was nothing on earth she loved so well as children; that there were half a dozen of them in the house, who loved her better than their own fathers and mothers, and that their devotion to her was at times quite touching – (and here she drew out an embroidered pocket handkerchief, and indulged in an interesting little sniffle behind its cambric folds.) Recovering herself, she went on to say, that the manner in which some boarding-house keepers treated children, was perfectly inhuman: that she had a second table for them, to be sure, but it was loaded with delicacies, and that she always put them up a little school lunch herself; on which occasion there was always an amicable little quarrel among them, as to which should receive from her the greatest number of kisses; also, that it was her frequent practice to get up little parties and tableaux, for their amusement. “But here is my daughter, Miss Clara,” said she, introducing a fair-haired young damsel, buttoned up in a black velvet jacket, over a flounced skirt.
“Just sixteen yesterday,” said Madame: “naughty little blossom, budding out so fast, and pushing her poor mamma off the stage;” (and here Madame paused for a compliment, and looking in the opposite mirror, smoothed her jetty ringlets complacently.) “Yes, every morning little blossom’s mamma looks in the glass, expecting to find a horror of a gray hair. But what makes my little pet so pensive to-day? – thinking of her little lover, hey? Has the naughty little thing a thought she does not share with mamma? But, dear me!” – and Madame drew out a little dwarf watch; “I had quite forgotten it is the hour Mons. Guigen gives me my guitar lesson. Adieu, dinner at six, remember;” – and Madame tripped, coquettishly, out of the room.
Yes; “dinner at six.” Gold salt-cellars, black waiters, and finger-bowls; satin chairs in the parlor, and pastilles burning on the side-table; but the sheets on the beds all torn to ribbons; the boarders allowed but one towel a week; every bell-rope divorced from its bell; the locks all out of order on the chamber doors; the “dear children’s” bill of fare at the “second table” – sour bread, watery soup, and cold buckwheat cakes; – and “dinner at six,” only an invention of the enemy, to save the expense of one meal a day – the good, cozy, old-fashioned tea.
Well, the boarders were all “trusteed” by Madame’s butcher, baker and milkman; Miss Clara eloped with the widow’s diamond ring and Mons. Peneke; and Madame, who had heard that Mons. Finfillan was “among the things that were,” was just about running off with Mons. Guigen, when her liege lord suddenly returned from California, with damaged constitution and morals, a dilapidated wardrobe and empty coffers.
Moral. Beware of boarding-houses: in the words of Shakspeare,
Let those keep house who ne’er kept house before
And those who have kept house, keep house the more.
A GRUMBLE FROM THE (H)ALTAR
This is the second day I’ve come home to dinner, without that yard of pink ribbon for Mrs. Pendennis. Now, we shall have a broil, not down in the bill of fare. Julius Cæsar; if she only knew how much I have to do; but it would make no difference if she did. I used to think a fool was easily managed. Mrs. Pendennis has convinced me that that was a mistake. If I try to reason with her, she talks round and round in a circle, like a kitten chasing its tail. If I set my arms a-kimbo, and look threatening, she settles into a fit of the sulks, to which a November drizzle of a fortnight’s duration is a millenium. If I try to get round her by petting, she is as impudent as the – . Yes, just about. Jerusalem! what a thing it is to be married! And yet, if an inscrutable Providence should bereave me of Mrs. Pendennis, I am not at all sure – good gracious, here she comes! Do you know I’d rather face one of Colt’s revolvers this minute, than that four feet of womanhood? Isn’t it astonishing, the way they do it?
A WICK-ED PARAGRAPH
Connubial. – Mr. Albert Wicks, of Coventry, under date of December 28th, advertised his wife as having left his bed and board; and now, under date of March 26th, he appends to his former notice, the following:
“Mrs. Wicks, if you ever intend to come back and live with me any more, you must come now or not at all.
“I love you as I do my life, and if you will come now, I will forgive you for all you have done and threatened to do, which I can prove by three good witnesses: and if not, I shall attend to your case without delay, and soon, too.”
There, now, Mrs. Wicks, what is to be done? “Three good witnesses!” think of that! What the mischief have you been about? Whatever it is, Mr. Wicks is ready to “love you like his life.” Consistent Mr. Wicks!
Now take a little advice, my dear innocent, and don’t allow yourself to be badgered or frightened into anything. None but a coward ever threatens a woman. Put that in your memorandum book. It’s all bluster and braggadocio. Thread your darning-needle, and tell him you are ready for him – ready for anything except his “loving you like his life;” that you could not possibly survive that infliction, without having your “wick” snuffed entirely out.
Sew away, just as if there were not a domestic earthquake brewing under your connubial feet. If it sends you up in the air, it sends him, too – there’s a pair of you! Put that in his Wick-ed ear! Of course he will sputter away, as if he had swallowed a “Roman candle,” and you can take a nap till he gets through, and then offer him your smelling-bottle to quiet his nerves.
That’s the way to quench him!
MISTAKEN PHILANTHROPY
“Don’t moralize to a man who is on his back. Help him up, set him firmly on his feet, and then give him advice and means.”
There’s an old-fashioned, verdant piece of wisdom, altogether unsuited for the enlightened age we live in! Fished up, probably, from some musty old newspaper, edited by some eccentric man troubled with that inconvenient appendage, called a heart! Don’t pay any attention to it. If a poor wretch (male or female) comes to you for charity, whether allied to you by your own mother, or mother Eve, put on the most stoical, “get thee behind me” expression you can muster. Listen to him with the air of a man who “thanks God he is not as other men are.” If the story carry conviction with it, and truth and sorrow go hand in hand, button your coat up tighter over your pocket-book, and give him a piece of – good advice! If you know anything about him, try to rake up some imprudence or mistake he may have made in the course of his life, and bring that up as a reason why you can’t give him anything more substantial, and tell him that his present condition is probably a salutary discipline for those same peccadilloes! Ask him more questions than there are in the Assembly’s Catechism, about his private history, and when you’ve pumped him high and dry, try to teach him (on an empty stomach,) the “duty of submission.” If the tear of wounded sensibility begin to flood the eye, and a hopeless look of discouragement settle down upon the face, “wish him well,” and turn your back upon him as quick as possible.
Should you at any time be seized with an unexpected spasm of generosity, and make up your mind to bestow some worn out, old garment that will hardly hold together till the recipient gets it home, you’ve bought him, body and soul; of course you are entitled to the gratitude of a life-time! If he ever presumes to think differently from you after that, he’s an “ungrateful wretch,” and “ought to suffer.” As to the “golden rule,” that was made in old times; everything is changed now; ’taint suited to our meridian.
People shouldn’t get poor; if they do, you don’t want to be bothered with it. It’s disagreeable; it hinders your digestion. You’d rather see Dives than Lazarus; and it’s my opinion your taste will be gratified in that particular, (in the other world, if it is not in this!)
