William U. Moulton

“ The merry shout of the children is hushed in the wide halls; anxious faces are grouped on the piazza; for in a darkened room above, lies Mary's princely husband, delirious with fever! The smile has fled her lip, the rose her cheek; her eye is humid with tears that never fall; day and night without sleep or food, she keeps untiring vigil; while (unconscious of her presence,) in tones that pierce her heart, he calls unceasingly for 'my wife!' She puts back the tangled masses of dark hair from his heated forehead ”

“ The next week found Norah Melville their guest. Married at the age of nineteen to a man the age of her father, she found herself a year after a widow, with unimpaired beauty, and a fortune sufficiently ample to cover every want or desire. She had a thorough knowledge of human nature, and was a perfect woman of the world. Her figure was tall and queenly, she had large liquid black eyes, a complexion of marble paleness, a profusion of raven black hair, and a voice like the wind-harp in its sweetness. ”

“ 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. ”

“ She'll improvise a "Ruth Hall" story for you, inventing wrongs and sufferings to fit the occasion, and drop a few ready tears, like hot wax, to seal her testimony,—sometimes sobbing a little, and pressing your hand convulsively, to heighten the effect.
Oh, she can be fascinating as Cleopatra. She knows how to thrill you with an unexpected touch. Then her voice, how artistically tender its modulations, how musically mirthful, how musically sad by turns! Oh, Fanny is a great woman! She should go upon the stage, or institute a new "school of art and design" for the fair sex. ”

“ You are upon a sick bed! a little feeble thing lies upon your arm, that you might crush with one hand. You take those little velvet fingers in yours, close your eyes, and turn your head languidly to the pillow. Little brothers and sisters, Carry, and Harry, and Fanny, and Frank, and Willy, and Mary, and Kitty, (half a score) come tiptoeing into the room, 'to see the new baby.' It is quite an old story to 'nurse,' who sits there like an automaton, while they give vent to their enthusiastic admiration of its wee toes and 239 fingers, and make profound inquiries, which nobody thinks best to hear! ”

“ Boston was to be taken by storm. "The three-hilled city," said John, "shall bow down at our coming." "John," answered Fanny, "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. Fanny began to chafe. In vain she searched the columns of the daily papers, to find complimentary notices of her arrival. ”

“ Fanny 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-Cassius 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! Fanny couldn't have chosen John for his beauty. 56
John's championship never shone with more dazzling lustre, than on his visit to Boston, in her train, last summer. ”

“ Jefferson Jones was posed! Well, he bade her one of his characteristic adieus; and when the door closed, Edith felt as if a mountain weight had been lifted off her heart. There was but one course for her to pursue. She knew it; she had already marked it out. She would deny herself to all visitors; she would not go abroad till her husband's return. She was strong in her purpose; there should be no door left open for busy scandal to enter. Of Ainslie, she knew nothing, save that a letter reached her from him after her marriage, which she had returned unopened. ”

“ I never saw a 'Fanny' yet that wasn't as mischievous as Satan.'
"'The name is infectious, my dear; can't you get it changed for me? Speaking of that, Tom, you know that 'miserable young man' that talked so freely of 'prussic acid and daggers' once on a time? May I die an old maid if he isn't the owner of a pretty little wife and two or three children—he is as fat as a porpoise, merry as a cricket, gay as a lark—don't he sing out to me 'how d'ye do Fan?' in the most heart-whole fashion, as if he never said anything more than that to me all the days of his life! Oh, Tom! ”

“ Warm fall the sunlight on thy grassy pillow, sweet human blossom! Softly fall the night dews on the blue-eyed violet above thee! Side by side with thee are hearts that have long since ceased hoping or aching. There lies the betrothed maiden, in her unappropriated loveliness; the bride, with her head pillowed on golden tresses, whose rare beauty, even the Great Spoiler seemed loth to touch; childhood, but yesterday warm and rosy on its mother's breast; the loving wife and mother, in life's sweet prime ”

“ Fanny Fern is a sincerely religious woman, the member of an evangelical denomination, and a regular attendant at church. We never knew any one who believed in a belief more strongly than she in hers, or who was more deeply grieved when that belief was treated with disrespect. No one stands less in awe of conventionalities, no one is more strict on a point of honor and principle than she. She is a person who is able to do all that she is convinced she ought, and to refrain from doing all that she is sure she ought not. In strength of purpose, we know not her equal among women. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As to relaxation suggestive of beautiful thoughts, which a gallop on a fleet horse through the country might furnish, where the sweet air fans the aching temples caressingly, where fields of golden grain wave in the glad sunlight, where the blended beauty of sky and sea, and rock and river, and hill and valley, send a thrill of pleasure through every inlet of the soul—pshaw! that's all transcendental nonsense, 320 fit only for green boarding-school girls and silly scribbling women,—a minister ought to be above such things, and have a heart as tough as the doctrine of election. ”

“ You take your watch from under the pillow, to see if husband won't be home soon, and then look at nurse, who takes a pinch of snuff over your bowl of gruel, and sits down nodding drowsily, with the baby in alarming proximity to the fire. Now you hear a dear step on the stairs. It's your Charley! How bright he looks! and what nice fresh air he brings with him from out doors! He parts the bed-curtains, looks in, and pats you on the cheek. You just want to lay your head on his shoulder, and have such a splendid cry! ”

“ Fanny Fern writes rapidly, in a large, bold hand; but she sends no article away without very careful revision; and her manuscript is puzzling to printers from its numberless erasures and insertions. 178 She writes from her heart and her eye; she has little aptitude or taste for abstract thought. She never talks of her writings, and cares little for criticism, however severe. She is no more capable of writing an intentional double entendre, than the gross-minded men who have accused her of doing so are capable of appreciating the worth of pure womanhood. ”

“ WHAT FANNY THINKS OF HOT WEATHER.
113 Shadrach, Meshek, and Molock! how hot it is! I pity omnibus horses and ministers; I pity the little victims of narrow benches and short recesses; I pity ignorant young mothers with teething babies; I pity the Irish who huddle in a cellar and take boarders in each corner; I pity consumptive semptresses who "sing the song of the shirt" for six cents per day; I pity dandies with tight boots; I pity cooks and blacksmiths, and red-haired people; I pity anybody who doesn't live in a refrigerator, and hasn't a Fan to temper the air. ”

“ Convenient shutters, and heavy folds of curtains 32 robbed the saucy daylight of its too garish beams, and by night, in the still and quiet hours, a rich shade surrounded the glowing globe of the astral, tempering its lustre to a soft, mellow effulgence.
Fanny—as we have hinted—is just like her sketches, only "more so." Bubbles and flashes might be gathered from her conversation, that would eclipse anything she ever wrote. To have her sit by your side one hour, and——sparkle, (talk don't express the idea,) is worth all the Fern Leaves and Ruth Halls in the world. ”

“ Are there no victories save on the battle-field? Are there no triumphs save where one can grasp earth's laurel crown? See you none who rise early and sit up late, and turn with a calm, proud scorn from a gilded fetter to honest toil? Pass you never in your daily walks, slight forms with calm brows, and mild eyes, whose whole life has been one prolonged self-struggle? Lip, cheek and brow tell you no tale of the spirit's unrest. ”

“ Orange wreaths and bouquet de humbug—alabaster kid gloves—hair curled within an inch of their lives—Brummel neck-tie, patent boots, satin slippers and palpitating hearts! Oh, Sambo! can't make me believe a cloud ever comes over such a blue sky—no indeed! They're just as contented a twelve month after, as a fly in a spider's web.
"You never saw a husband yet, that wasn't as docile as a lamb when everything went to his mind. Don't they always love and cherish their wives as long as there is a timber left of them? ”

“ Reader, have you never in a Summer's day ramble stopped to admire in some secluded spot a sweet flower that had sprung up as if by magic—rich in color, beautiful in form, throwing unconsciously its sweet fragrance to the winds, unappreciated, unnoticed, uncared for, save by His eye who painted its delicate leaves? Such a flower was Meta Fay. Delicate, fragile as Spring's first violet, with a brow and eyes that are seldom seen, save where death's shadow soonest falls; and with a mind that face belied not, earnest, thoughtful and serious. ”

“ Ask her husband, Tom! Didn't he have to emigrate up two flights of stairs because it screeched so incessantly nights, that it unfitted him for business next day? He's very fond of babies; HE is!
"Well, Mr. Tupper, we won't mention creeping time—when skeins of yarn, and pins, and darning needles are swallowed, with a horrifying ravenousness suggestive of a 'stomach pump;' or its first essays at walking, when it navigates the carpet like a sailor fresh from 'board ship;' raising bumps never marked down on any phrenological chart! ”

“ 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 nobody 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 Fanny! ”

“ A love almost like that of parent and child grew up between them. Often, when engaged in their studies, when Meta's love-speaking eyes were fixed upon her young teacher, and the flush upon her delicate cheek was coming and vanishing like the shadows of a Summer cloud, would Grace tremble for the frail casket that contained so priceless a gem. ”

“ You wonder if your little croupy boy tied his tippet on when he went to school, and whether Betty will see that your husband's flannel is aired, and if Peggy has cleaned the silver and washed off the front door-steps, and what your blessed husband is about, that he don't come home to dinner. There sits old nurse, keeping up that dreadful treadmill trotting, 'to quiet the baby,' till you could fly through the key-hole in desperation. ”

“ How we used to admire Fanny! 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 circumstances of her life. She was a full-grown woman when she began to write. The age of feeble sentimentalism was passed. She had 62 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. ”

“ After you have seen the old ricketty front door fastened up, when the hens go to roost, and every soul in the house in the 'land of Nod,' and you sitting at your window, expiring for a new sensation, though it come in the shape of a lightning stroke, or a tornado! listening compulsorily to the doleful doxology of the cricket, and the base voluntary of the bullfrog, and lamenting that brick and mortar are unfashionable in dog-days! True, 'tis a pity—pity 'tis true—that the mind rusts, while the body flourishes, in the country. ”