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
Good news for you, poor pale-faced sempstresses! Throw your thimbles
at the heads of your penurious employers; put on your neatest and
_plainest_ dress; see that your feet and fingers are immaculate, and
then rush _en masse_ for the situation, ousting every white jacket in
Yankeedom. Stipulate with your employers, for leave to carry in the
pocket of your French apron, a pistol loaded with cranberry sauce, to
plaster up the mouth of the first coxcomb who considers it necessary to
preface his request for an omelette, with “_My dear_.” It is my opinion
that one such hint will be sufficient; if not, you can vary the order
of exercises, by anointing him with a “HASTY plate of soup” at dinner.
Always make a moustache wait twice as long as you do a man who wears
a clean, presentable lip. Should he undertake to expedite your slippers
by “a fee,” tell him that hotel bills are _generally_ settled at the
clerk’s office, except by _very_ verdant travelers.
Should you see a woman at the table, digging down to the bottom of
the salt cellar, as if the top stratum were too plebeian; or ordering
ninety-nine messes (turning aside from each with affected airs of
disgust,) or rolling up the whites of her eyes, declaring that she
never sat down to a dinner-table before minus “finger glasses,” you
may be sure that her aristocratic blood is nourished, _at home_, on
herrings and brown bread. When a masculine comes in with a white vest,
flashy neck-tie, extraordinary looking plaid trousers, several yards
of gold chain festooned over his vest, and a mammoth seal ring on his
little finger, you may be sure that his tailor and his laundress are
both on the anxious seat; and whenever you see travelers of _either_
sex peregrinating the country in their “best bib and tucker,” you can
set them down for unmitigated “snobs,” for high-bred people can’t
afford to be so extravagant!
I dare say you’ll get sick of so much pretension and humbug. Never
mind; it is better than to be stitching yourselves into a consumption
over six-penny shirts; you’ll have your fun out of it. This would be a
horridly stupid world, if every body were sensible. I thank my stars
every day, for the share of fools a kind Providence sends in my way.
LETTER TO THE EMPRESS EUGENIA.
A PARIS LETTER says:--Lady Montijo has left Paris for Spain. She
was extremely desirous of remaining and living in the reflection
of her daughter’s grandeur, but Louis Napoleon, who shares in the
general prejudice against step-mothers, gave her plainly to
understand, that because he had married Eugenia, she must not
suppose he had married her whole family. She was allowed to linger
six weeks, to have the _entree_ of the Tuileries, and to see her
movements chronicled in the _Pays_. She has at last left us, and
the telegraph mentions her arrival at Orleans, on her way to the
Peninsula.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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