Wears yet a precious jewel in its head.'
"Knowing how 'sweet are the uses of adversity' rightly received and improved, we cannot but regret that 'Fanny Fern's' adversity should have left to her so much of the 'venomous.'
"Out of four hundred pages in 'Ruth Hall' seventy-five are entirely blank. Had the remaining pages been left equally so, we believe it would have been better for 'Fanny Fern' and for the world."
XLI.
THE GOOD-NATURED BACHELOR.
This individual, Fanny Fern says:—"Is jolly, sleek, and rolly-pooly. Lifts all the little school-girls over the mud-puddles, and kisses them when he lands them on the other side. Admires little babies, without regard to the shape of their noses, or the strength of their lungs. Squeezes himself into an infinitessimal fragment, in the corner of an omnibus, to make room for that troublesome individual one—More! Vacates his seat any number of times at a crowded lecture, for distressed looking single ladies. Orders stupid cab-drivers off the only dry crossing, to save a pretty pair of feet from immersion, and don't forget to look the other way when their owner gathers up the skirts of her dress to trip across. Is just as civil to a shop-girl as if she were a Duchess; pays regularly for his newspaper, lends his umbrella and goes home with a wet beaver; has a clear conscience, a good digestion, and believes the women to be all angels with their wings folded up. Here's hoping matrimony may never undeceive him!"
XLII.
CATCHING THE DEAR.—BY FANNY FERN.
"A Roman lady who takes a liking to a foreigner does not cast her eyes down when he looks at her, but fixes them upon him long and with evident pleasure. If the man of her choice feels the like sentiment, and asks—'Are you fond of me?' she replies with the utmost frankness, 'Yes, my dear.'"
You double-distilled little simpleton! don't you know better than that? Don't you know that courtship is like a vast hunting party?—all the pleasure lies in the pursuit? That the sport is all over when the deer is caught? Certainly; you don't catch an American girl 'doing as the Romans do.' She understands the philosophy of the thing, and don't drop down like a shot pigeon at the first arrow from Cupid's quiver. If she is wounded ever so bad, she spreads her wings and flies off, alighting here, there, and everywhere; leading her pursuer through bog, ditch and furrow; sometimes flapping her bright wings close to his face, and then, out of sight—the mischief knows where—to return again the next minute. In this way she finds out how much trouble he is willing to take for her; and the way he knows how to prize her when she is caught would astonish your Roman comprehension, my dear.
"Now, I never saw a masculine Roman, but I will just tell you, in passing, that American gentlemen go by the rule of contraries. If there are any of them whom you desire most particularly not to be bored with, all you have to do is to make a pretence of the most intense desire for their acquaintance; and vice-versa.