"Fanny Forrester."
Such a note received by an editor of this generation would promptly fall into the waste-basket. But Willis was captivated, and answered:
"Well, we give in! On condition that you are under twenty-five and that you will wear a rose (recognizably) in your bodice the first time you appear in Broadway with the hat and balzarine, we will pay the bills. Write us thereafter a sketch of Bel and yourself as cleverly done as this letter, and you may 'snuggle' down on the sofa and consider us paid, and the public charmed with you."
This style of ingratiating one's self with an editor is as much a bygone as an alliterative pen-name.
Fanny Fern (Sarah Willis Parton) also established a style of her own—"a new kind of composition; short, pointed paragraphs, without beginning and without end—one clear, ringing note, and then silence."
Her talent for humorous composition showed itself in her essays at school. I'll give a bit from her "Suggestions on Arithmetic after Cramming for an Examination":
"Every incident, every object of sight seemed to produce an arithmetical result. I once saw a poor wretch evidently intoxicated; thought I, 'That man has overcome three scruples, to say the least, for three scruples make one dram.' Even the Sabbath was no day of rest for me—the psalms, prayers, and sermons were all translated by me into the language of arithmetic. A good man spoke very feelingly upon the manner in which our cares and perplexities were multiplied by riches. Muttered I: 'That, sir, depends upon whether the multiplier is a fraction or a whole number; for if it be a fraction, it makes the product less.' And when another, lamenting the various divisions of the Church, pathetically exclaimed: 'And how shall we unite these several denominations in one?'
"'Why, reduce them to a common denominator,' exclaimed I, half aloud, wondering at his ignorance.
"And when an admiring swain protested his warm 'interest,' he brought only one word that chimed with my train of thought.