Fern Leaves from Fanny's Port-folio. Second SeriesFern, Fanny
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Fern Leaves from Fanny's Port-folio. Second Series
Fern, Fanny
American essays -- 19th century; Short stories, American
Let us cross the Park. There’s an Irishman seated on the withered
grass, with his spade beside him, leaning wearily against that leafless
tree. I wonder is he ill? I must walk that way and speak to him. What a
sudden change comes over his rough face! it looks quite beautiful. Why
do his eyes kindle? Ah, I see: a woman approaches from yonder path; now
she seats herself beside him, on the grass, and drawing the cover from
a small tin kettle, she bends over the steaming contents, and says,
with a smile, that is a perfect heart-warmer, “_Dear_ Dennis!” Oh, what
a wealth of love in those two simple words; what music in that voice!
Who says human nature is _all_ depravity? Who says this earth is but a
charnel-house of withered hopes? Who says the “Heart’s Ease” springs
never from the rock cleft? Who says it is only on _patrician_ soil the
finer feelings struggle into leaf and bud and blossom? No--no--that
humble, faithful creature has traveled weary miles with needful food,
that “Dennis” may waste no unnecessary time from labor. And there
they sit, side by side, happy and blessed in each other, deaf to the
ceaseless tide of business and pleasure flowing past, blind to the
supercilious gaze of the pompous millionaire, the curious stare of
pampered beauty, the derisive laugh of “Young America,” and the little
romance they have set my brain a-weaving! What a pretty episode amid
all this Babel din! What a delicious little bit of nature midst this
fossil hearted Gotham!
How true--how beautiful the words of Holy Writ! “Better is a dinner
of herbs, _where love is_, than a stalled ox, and hatred therewith.”
* * * * *
What an immensely tall man! he looks like a barber’s pole in those
serpentine pants. Why does he make those gyrations? Why does he beckon
that short man to his side? Well, I declare! everything comical comes
to my net! He has taken out a slip of paper, and using the short
man’s head for a writing-desk, is scribbling off some directions for
a porter in waiting! The lamb-like non-resistance of the short man is
only equalled by the cool impudence of the scribe! What a picture for
Hogarth!
CITY SCENES AND CITY LIFE.
NUMBER TWO.
The fashionables are yet yawning on their pillows. Nobody is abroad
but the workies. So much the better. Omnibus drivers begin to pick up
their early-breakfast customers. The dear little children, trustful
and rosy, are hurrying by to school. Apple women are arranging their
stalls, and slyly polishing their fruit with an old stocking. The
shopkeepers are placing their goods in the most tempting light, in the
store windows; and bouquet venders, with their delicious burthens, have
already taken their stand on the saloon and hotel steps.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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