"'Give her what money she ASKS for!' Julius Cæsar! (Betty! come here and carry away my miserable remains!) Nobody but a polar bear or a Hottentot would WAIT to have a wife 'ask' for 'money!'"
LXXXV.
A LETTER TO A SELF-EXILED FRIEND IN THE COUNTRY.
"Dear Norah:—'Tell you the news!' Ah, I knew you'd come to it! I was sure you'd tire of your oyster life, up there in the mountains. Pleasant, isn't it—after dandelions and buttercups have ceased to be a novelty—after you know who lives in the little brown house opposite, and who in the hut at the end of the lane? After you have read through that 'Alpha and Omega' of a country library—the Almanac! After you've watched your landlady wash dishes, and feed pigs, and make butter, till you are qualified to take a diploma in those branches yourself! After you've seen the old rooster fight his hen-harem till they are subjugated to his lordly mind! After you've listened to the drowsy hum of insect life, till you are half a vegetable yourself! After you have seen the old ricketty front door fastened up, when the hens go to roost, and every soul in the house in the 'land of Nod,' and you sitting at your window, expiring for a new sensation, though it come in the shape of a lightning stroke, or a tornado! listening compulsorily to the doleful doxology of the cricket, and the base voluntary of the bullfrog, and lamenting that brick and mortar are unfashionable in dog-days! True, 'tis a pity—pity 'tis true—that the mind rusts, while the body flourishes, in the country.
"Not less to be avoided, is that mockery of comfort, a gay watering-place; where neither mind nor body can remain en dishabille for one blessed hour. Where slander, and gossip, and humbug, reign triumphant; where caps and characters are pulled to pieces by the feminines, and the chart of conquest is marked out (without a shoal or quicksand,) by the gentlemen. Where half a year's salary is spent in a week by the ambitious dandy, (in embryo,) who gets laughed at for his pains and pretensions, and returns with damaged pockets and wardrobe to his attic room, to be dunned remorselessly by tailor and laundress for many a pitiless day. Where the simpering demoiselle who has cried 'give, give,' to papa's pocket-book, till it is as dry as 'Gideon's fleece,' catches in the net of her one hundred dollar shawl and ruinous silk, some brainless fop, who finds, too late, that 'papa's stocks' are—nowhere!
"No! no! Commend me to home, with all its little familiar comforts. Small they may be, but indispensable. Your nice little rocking-chair, where you have had so many pleasant reveries—that 'porte feuille,' and the memory of the friend who gave it you, and the thousand little mementos that meet your eye, all suggestive of happiness.
"Commend me to a city home! where my mind can be kept fresh and bright with interchange of thought with gifted minds, and my heart warm with loving words and beaming smiles; where I can put my hand upon newspapers and new publications, before they are spoiled for my reading, by criticisms, and reviews, and parrot repetitions!
"And as for 'trees and fresh air!' a drive with a friend through the many beautiful outlets from our busy city; or a walk on our lovely Common, of a balmy evening, where the fragrance of new-mown hay comes wafted from the hills across the river, and the stars are mirrored in the clear depths of the mimic pond, and the soft wind plays refreshingly over your heated temples—then—a soft, lulling serenade 'in the small hours,' and 'rosy dreams till daylight!'
"'Tell you the news,' hey? Well, the great Daniel's thoughts, at present, are upon fish-line and hook—particularly the last English hook! The 'Maine liquor law' is the main question, and who'll 'pay the Scot-t,' is another! Bread and balloons have 'riz;' gloves is 'tight;' flowers 'looking up;' dickies is 'depressed;' 'stocks' is 'scarce;' belles, none 'in the market:' beaux—'improving;' guardians 'quiet;' and I am,
"Yours, till you get married!
"Fanny Fern."