The Belmont chronicle, and farmers, mechanics and manufacturers advocate. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1848-1855, 1854-08-18
Fanny Fern to John Bull.

|
London Atheneum. We give a specimen:
"'Fanny' (whether Mrs. or Miss appear
eth not in her books) does not seem to have
country bone in her body or country hair
on her head. The up stairs, down stairs and
back stairs life of towns, with all pretenses
and ambitious struggles, seems as we'll to
her as it can to any respectable woman of
average fortune. She delights in slang. A
mother, with her is "a ma tefnaP-a man "a
masculine'-and woman are 'fem,nities' She
is boisterous on the subject of female shop
ping-nor less animated when hectoring the
lords of creation in regard to what they
should ptt on; Il understand,' says she, 'the
architecture of u coat to charm; know as
g quick as flash whether it is all right, the
minute | clap my eyes on it. AS to vests,
call myself connoisseur. 'StockS' are
only fit for Wall st.! Get yourself some
{ nice silk neckties, and ask your wife, or
somebody who knows something, to longi-
tdinize them to your jugular Throw your
8 colored, embroidered and ru filed shrt-bo-
{ SONS overheard; leave your cane and cigar
: at home; wear pair of neat, dark gloves;
i sport an Immaculate pocket handkerchief
e and dickey.' A 'lern leaf the above!--
Nay, rather let us call it grain of 'chaf, Ito
review slang by slang) presented by Bob
to Bill, and scrawed by the former on the
beck of an unpaid talor's bill"
Johnny, had you any lttle private reason
Of your own for emitting the closing sentence
in the obnoxious 'fern lean above quoted,
VIZ: sand speak Of sre'y tcoman as you would
wish your mother or sister 10 be spoken OFF"
Oh, Johnny, Johnny, will you neuer get out
of your mouth the taste of that cup of tea
that my foreiathcrs mixed for yours in Bos-
ton harbor! Will you never cease fJbing,
Johnny! "Not country bone in my body?"
Ask the 10000 buyers of Fern Leaves. Q
go by my publishers advertisements as to
numbers, keeping sharp eye, with view
to settlement by and byD Ask them if
Fern Leaves show that | do not love the
country! Johnny, dear, was raised in the
country not far from spot called Bunker
Hill, where, if remember right, you once
received shot. How it came to hit you in
the back is best known to yourself.
AS to the "architecture of a coat" do
know it, and | also know, whenever see a
man with one on that is badly cut, and whose
bump of self-esteem draws so powerfully on
the top of his head as to lift his heels from
the ground, that-he is an Englishman.
But, Johnny, | forgive you; partly because
penned sundry little squibs in Fern Leaves
about you Britishers in full expectation of
box on the ear and partly because | know
how many little things you have had late
ly to try your placid temper. 1t Is aggrava-
ting, Johnny, to have Golden and Hume
constantly hammerng Parliament about THE
New YORK TRIBUNE, and thrusting it into
your Tory faces model of what an Eng
Hsh newspaper should be as to price. size and
matter, This must be very provoking, Johnny,
to a person of your Initiation and pomposity
And then there is Kossuth's expose OF your
miserable, shuffling, pussy-cat war policy
dispatching your armies just in time to be TOO
late for action, and allowing your fleets to
hover about points from which Russia can
not oe vitality menaced, instead of shaking
them all out of their boots, as you ought, and
as zoe did you, Johnny, after that little tea
party before alluded to.
Well, we forgive you, Johnny, for being
such clustering coward. Your younger
brother America is getting along nicely, and
throws back in your teeth your old taunt,
"Who reads an American Book?" Literary
"feminity'' is wide awake and very success
full over here; literary "masculinity" isvexed,
and while pattiug us patronizingy with one
hand, scratches us silly with the other; yet,
by the leave Of Providence and the Editor of
The Neu- York Daily Times, we shall con-
tinue to nib our pens and cooly pocket our
receipts. FANNY FERN.