Iowa capitol reporter. [volume] (Iowa City, Iowa) 1841-1855, 1853-07-20
Crayon sketch Of Fanny Fern.
BY GEORGE w. BUNGAY.

-r-r-t BY GEORGE w. BUNGAf. sE
During my residence at the South
End, lBoston, | often noticed rosy
rompfhg wide awake little girl. Her
plump cheeks, pretty feet, well turn
ed ankles and well rounded form,
could not fail to attract the attention
of those who admire a perfect model
of the human frame. While look
ing at her fair face, which is lit up
by a pair of light blue eyes, and sha-
ded by a sheaf of yellow hair, ira
ced a resemblance to the portrait OF
N. p. Willis, (which had seen in one
of the monthly magazines.
This little woman in miniature | al
forwards saw in company with a lady
whom supposed was her mother
came TO the conclusion that these
parties sustained such near and dear
relationship, from the fact that they
looked as much alike as bud and bios
SON on the same branch. Knowing
that Fanny Fern. was the nom dc
plume assumed by.a sister OF N. I.
Willis, easily concluded that L had
seen the original and sprightly au-
thoress of the little prose poems, SO
dashingly written, so eagerly devour-
ed by the literary cormorants, so
widely copied by the magazineists
and so laudingly commended by our
paragraphists. Fanny Fern is now
so popular, that her Fern Leaves
will turn bank notes in her hands,
and not be like the fruit in the hand
of the Arabian Magician, nothing
but dust, unless it were gold dust IN
the first of the Eastern wiseacre.
Fanny Fern is in the meridian OF
womanhood, of the sanguine nervous
temperament and has light brown
hair with a curl in it. | have some
times seen a shower of ringlets fall
ing over her neck. Her forehead is
broad and high, brimful OF poetry,
and the wine of life swells the blue
veins until they lock like vines
branching on her brow. She has
large light eyes, healthy, honest,
not handsome face, beautiful; in a
word, a form of perfect mould. She
walks with an elastic step, which in
dictates unyielding energy ofpurpose.
Ske is not an Amaz<4, quarrellng
with Providence because she is not
a man instead of a woman, and yet
without being masculine, she has
more courage, more energy, more de-
cision, more frmness, more enter
prise, more heroism than half the
men. ... ..
Her Topographic sketches startlf
and aAonish some of our weak sis
tiers, who wonder that woman dare
say what she thinks. She is bold
without impotence, plain without
vulgarity graphic without atfeetatlon
eloquent without bombast and fus
tian. She is not afraid to say II
strong Saxon, that a loatcr is an am
phibious animal, living on rum ant
tobacco juice--that the drunkard ant
, seducer are rascals that deserved t.
be punished for their cruelty to others
+ She knows that woman was not de
. signed to be slave, nor a drudge
, nor doll, nor darling, but com
panion, an equivale mt to man, ant
hseause she has the daring to say s,
inv that cannot be misundtf
stood, some who are more nice thar
wise, more fastidious than faithful t.
their sex, think it unwomanly to writ
as she does, but the brave and thu
wise and the approaching, bid he
God speed. They know she is doin!
. good by rsbuking the old women il
breeches, and laughing to scorn tn
, efeminate young men of our times
|, who think the chief end of life is t
raise a moustache, look through al
opera glass, tiirt with foolish women
and get drunk on champaign-all @
which is shame save the pain. Fam
Fern has, become famous on shor
notice. Her essays. are quote
> everywhere every day, and whe
;. Derby and Miller have once issue
! that book, full of Fern Leaves the
II will be scattered over the world thic
I al loo, h,f >,, A.,