Folly as It Flies; Hit at by Fanny Fern

NEW YORK: G. W. Carleton & Co. Publishers. LONDON: S. LOW, SON & CO. MDCCCLXVIII.
Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by G. W. CARLETON & CO., in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York
Lovejoy, Son & Co., Electrotypers & Stereotypers, 15 Vandewater Street, N. Y.
To MY FRIEND Robert Bonner, EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK LEDGER. For fourteen years, the team of Bonner and Fern, has trotted over the road at 2.40 pace, without a snap of the harness, or a hitch of the wheels.—Plenty of oats, and a skilful rein, the secret.
Yours Truly ,
FANNY FERN.
WISH every husband would copy into his memorandum book this sentence, from a recently published work: Women must be constituted very differently from men. A word said, a line written, and we are happy; omitted, our hearts ache as if for a great misfortune. Men cannot feel it, or guess at it; if they did, the most careless of them would be slow to wound us so.
The grave hides many a heart which has been stung to death, because one who might, after all, have loved it after a certain careless fashion, was deaf, dumb, and blind to the truth in the sentence we have just quoted, or if not, was at least restive and impatient with regard to it. Many men, marrying late in life, being accustomed only to take care of themselves , and that in the most erratic, rambling, exciting fashion, eating and drinking, sleeping and walking whenever and wherever their fancy, or good cheer and amusement, questionable or unquestionable, prompted; come at last, when they get tired of this, with their selfish habits fixed as fate, to—matrimony. For a while it is a novelty. Shortly, it is strange as irksome, this always being obliged to consider the comfort and happiness of another. To have something always hanging on the arm, which used to swing free, or at most, but twirl a cane. Then, they think their duty done if they provide food and clothing, and refrain (possibly) from harsh words. Ah— is it ? Listen to that sigh as you close the door. Watch the gradual fading of the eye, and paling of the cheek, not from age--she should be yet young—but that gnawing pain at the heart, born of the settled conviction that the great hungry craving of her soul, as far as you are concerned, must go forever unsatisfied. God help such wives, and keep them from attempting to slake their souls' thirst at poisoned fountains.