Fanny Fern

“ Ah! somewhere in the length and breadth of the land, a mother’s heart is aching because she spared the rod to spoil the child.
There is a coffin, untenanted as yet, but kept on hand; for Death laughs at bolts and fetters, and many a poor wretch is borne struggling within these gloomy walls, only to be carried to his last home, while none but God may ever know at whose fireside stands his vacant chair.
And here is a woman’s cell. There are two or three faded dresses hanging against the walls, and a bonnet, for which she has little use. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At first, the discovery gave me a pang keener than death; but I have had a long and bitter struggle with myself, and have conquered. It is not your fault that you cannot love me. To the many voices of your heart, which cry, ‘Give, give,’ my response is weak and unsatisfying. Your wife should be gifted. She should sympathise with you in your intellectual pursuits. She should stimulate your pride, as well as your love. Such an one is Charley’s mother. Your heart has already wed her, and as God is my witness, I have ceased to blame you. We cannot help our affections. ”

“ Meta’s brow, and cheek, and lips, and tresses were multiplied indefinitely, in all his female heads. Her dimpled hand, her round arm, her plump shoulder, her slender foot, all served him for faultless models.
Life was so beautiful to him now! his employment so congenial, his heart so satisfied. It must be that he should succeed. The very thought of failure—“but then, he should not fail!” Poor Will! he had yet to learn that garrets are as often the graves as the nurseries of genius, and that native talent goes unrecognized until stamped with foreign approbation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Have I nothing to do but amuse myself with toys like a child? Shall I live only for myself? Does not the sun that rises upon my luxury, shine also upon the tear-stained face of sorrow? Are there not slender feet stumbling wearily in rugged, lonely paths? Why is mine flower-bestrewn? How am I better? Whose sorrowful heart have I lightened? What word of comfort has fallen from my lips on the ear of the grief-stricken? What am I here for? What is my mission?”
“And you have only this wretched place to nurse that sick child in?” said Helen ”

“ There’s a poor shivering babe, twitched from a warm bed by an ignorant young mother, to encounter the chill air of morning, with only a flimsy covering of lace and embroidery;—there’s a languid southern belle, creeping out, à la tortoise, and turning up her little aristocratic nose as if she sniffed a pestilence;—there’s an Irish bride (green as Erin) in a pearl-colored silk dress surmounted by a coarse blanket shawl;—there’s a locomotive hour-glass, (alias a dandy,) a blue-eyed, cravat-choked, pantaloon be-striped, vest-garnished, disgusting “institution!” ”

“ 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! ”

“ Meaning glances, smothered smiles and approving nods follow the witty clerical sally. The orator pauses to mark the effect, and his face says, That stroke tells! and so it did, for “the Athenians” are not all dead, who “love to see and hear some new thing.” But he has another arrow in his quiver. Now his features soften—his voice is low and thrilling, his imagery beautiful and touching. He speaks of human love; he touches skilfully a chord to which every heart vibrates; and stern manhood is struggling with his tears, ere his smiles are chased away. ”

“ Two women joining the Mutual Admiration Society; emptying their budget of love affairs; comparing bait to entrap victims; sighing over the same rose leaf; sonnetizing the same moonbeam; patronizing the same milliner, and exchanging female kisses! (Betty, hand me my fan!)
Well, let either have one bonnet or one lover more than the other—or, if they are blue stockings, let either be one round the higher on Fame’s ladder—bodkins and darning needles! what a tempest! Caps and characters in such a case are of no account at all. Oh, there never should be but one woman alive at a time. ”

“ Why does a man offer himself a dozen times to the same woman? Pity to take so much pains for such a trifle! “Insignificant love!” Who gets you on your feet again, when you fail in business, by advancing the nice little sum settled on herself by her anxious pa? Who cheers you up, when her nerves are all in a double-and-twisted knot, and you come home with your face long as the moral law? Who wears her old bonnet three winters, while you smoke, and drive, and go to the opera? Who sits up till the small hours, to help you find the way up your own staircase? ”

“ Your sweet carol and the graceful waving of yonder tree, as the soft wind turns up its silver-lined leaves in the sunlight, fill my heart with a quiet gladness.
Whom have we here? with ragged skirt, bare mud-begrimm’d feet and ankles, tattered shawl, and tangled masses of hair fluttering round a face ploughed deep with time and trouble. See—she stoops, and, stretching her skeleton fingers towards the gutter, grasps some refuse rags and paper, and thrusts them greedily into the dirty sack she bears upon her shoulders. Good heavens! that dirty mass of rags a woman? ”

“ The tidy little housewife, who, in neat little breakfast-cap and dressing-gown, overlooks the short-comings of careless cook and house-maid; explores cupboards, cellars, pantries, and closets; disembowels old bags, old boxes, old barrels, old kegs, old firkins; who, with her own dainty hand, prepares the favorite morsel for the dear, absent, toiling husband, or, by the cheerful nursery fire, sews on the missing string or button, or sings to soothing slumbers a pair of violet eyes, whose witching counterpart once stole her girlish heart away. ”

“ You won’t see a frown again between this and your tombstone!
[Pg 214]
OUR NELLY. “Who is she?” “Why, that is our Nelly, to be sure. Nobody ever passed Nelly without asking, ‘Who is she?’ One can’t forget the glance of that blue eye; nor the waving of those golden locks; nor the breezy grace of that lithe figure; nor those scarlet lips; nor the bright, glad sparkle of the whole face; and then, she is not a bit proud, although she steps so like a queen; she would shake hands just as quick with a horny palm as with a kid glove. The world can’t spoil ‘our Nelly;’ her heart is in the right place. ”

“ 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 ”

“ That night I bent over little Charley’s bed, blessing the little sleeper for his angel teachings, with a heart as calm and peaceful as the mirrored lake, reflecting only the smile of Heaven.
Time passed on. Life became earnest; for a little heart pulsated beneath my own, and a strange, sweet, nameless thrill sent to my chastened lips a trembling prayer. Tiny caps and robes, with many a hope and fear interwoven in their delicate threads, lay awaiting the infant’s advent. I, myself should know the height, and breadth, and depth of a mother’s undying love. ”

“ If in after years the great moral questions of the day had more interest for Adolph Grey than the pleasures of the turf, the billiard room, or the wine party, who shall say that Lady Helen’s influence was not a blessed one?
Oh, if woman’s beauty, and power, and witchery were oftener used for a high and holy purpose, how many who now bend a careless knee at her shrine, would hush the light laugh and irreverent jest, and almost feel, as she passed, that an angel’s wing had rustled by! ”

“ 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! ”

“ Not even the heart she has singled out from all the world to lean upon, can love so fondly, so truly, as those she leaves behind. Dark days may come, when love’s sunshine shall be o’erclouded by cares and sickness, from which young manhood, impatient, shrinks. Let her linger: so shall your faith in her young wifely love be strengthened by such strong filial yearning for these, her cradle watchers. ”

“ Christopher Columbus! how the frost curtains the windows: how dirge-like the wind moans: how like a great, white pall the snow covers the ground. Five times I’ve rung that bell for coal, for this rickety old grate, but I might as well thump for admittance at the gate of Paradise.
And speaking of Paradise—Sam Smith, you must be married: you haven’t a button to your shirt, nor a shirt to your buttons either.
Wonder if women are such obstinate little monkeys to manage? Wonder if they must be bribed with a new bonnet every day, to keep the peace? ”

“ I love to think of the seraph smile of which death itself was powerless to rob the dead saint, over whose upturned face, to which the sunlight lent such mocking glow, the words, “Dust to dust,” fell upon the pained ear of love. I love, as I sit here, to list through the half open vestry door, to the hymning voices of happy Sabbath scholars, sweet as the timid chirp of morn’s first peeping bird. I love to hear their [Pg 41] tiny feet, as they patter down the aisle, and mark the earnest gaze of questioning childhood. I love to see the toil-hardened hand of labor brush off the penitential tear. ”

“ They tell of weary feet, a heavy heart, and a light purse. They tell, with a silent reproach, that our hearts are as cold as our clime. Oh! not all, good Pietro! For your sake, I’ll make myself mistress of that sleeping child; though, truth to say, the sculptor who moulded it has most wofully libelled Nature. Would I could see the sunny skies upon which your dark eyes first opened, and all the glorious forms that beauty wears in your vine-clad home beyond the seas. ”

“ How the sight of them involuntarily arrests the bounding footstep, and the half-developed plan of the scheming brain, and wakes up the slumbering immortal in our nature. How the eye turns a questioning glance from those moss-grown graves, inward—then upward to the soft, blue heavens above us. How for a brief moment the callous heart grows kindly, and we forget the mote in our brothers eye, and cease to repulse the outspread palm of charity, and recognise the claims of a common brotherhood ”

“ Oh, you cunning little curly-headed, fairy-footed, dimple-limbed pet! Who is blessed enough to own you? Did you know, you little human blossom, that I was aunt to all the children in creation? Your eyes are as blue as the violets, and your little pouting lip might tempt a bee from a rose. Did mamma make you that dainty little kirtle? and papa find you that horsewhip?
“Papa is dead, and mamma is dead, too. Mamma can’t see Charley any more.” ”

“ She made no objection to his most absurd requirements; but her step lost its spring, her eye its sparkle; and one might listen long for her merry-ringing laugh. Slowly, sadly to Nelly came that terrible conviction from which a wife has no appeal.
“Ah! there is no law to protect woman from negative abuse!—no mention made in the statute book (which men frame for themselves) , of the constant dropping of daily discomforts which wear the loving heart away—no allusion to looks or words that are like poisoned arrows to the sinking spirit. ”

“ The Senor is rich—the Senor is liberal—the Senor’s taste is as unimpeachable as his credit—the Senor has pronounced Will “a genius.” Other Senors hear it; other Senors have gold in plenty, and dark-eyed, graceful daughters, whose charms Will perpetuates, and yet fails to see, for a sweeter face which comes between.
Dry your tears, little Meta—smooth the neglected ringlets—don his favorite robe, and listen with a flushed cheek, a beating heart and a love-lit eye, for the long absent but well remembered footstep. ”

“ Pity, when our pulpits are so often filled with those, whose only recommendation for their office is a good heart and a black coat. It was a pity that graceful gesticulation, that rare felicity of expression, that keen perception of the beautiful, that ready tact and adaptation to circumstances and individuals, should not have been effective weapons in the gospel armory. Pity, that voice of music should not have been employed, to chain the worldling’s fastidious ear to listen to Calvary’s story. ”

“ I feel just as you do, when you are pent up in school, some bright summer day, when the winds are at play, and the flowers lie languidly drooping under the blue, arching sky;—when the little butterfly poises his bright wings on the rose, too full of joy even to sip its sweets;—when the birds sing, because they can’t help it, and the merry little swallow skims the ground, dips his bright wing in the lake, circles over head, and then flies, twittering, back to his cunning little brown nest, under the eaves. ”

“ Oh! if in that stilled heart you have ruthlessly planted a thorn; if from that pleading eye you have carelessly turned away; if your loving glance, and kindly word, and clasping hand, have come—all too late—then God forgive you! No frown gathers on the marble brow as you gaze—no scorn curls the chiselled lip—no flush of wounded feeling mounts to the blue-veined temples. ”