Chapter XIX: All About Satan

Fanny says herself, she "knows _all_ about him." Now who in the world so fit to deliver a discourse on the subject, as so intimate an acquaintance? Beside, we have seen already that Fanny is in the habit of writing about her friends. Satan _might_ think it a little unjust to be held responsible for babies and women's rights movements, but Fanny knows best, so here follows her sermon, text and all:--

"Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do."

"_To be sure he does! I know all about him!_ There's no knowing what _would_ happen, if the houses now-a-days were not filled up, one half with babies and the other half with old stockings! Then a man can tell pretty near, what his wife is about!--sure to find her, year in and year out, in that old calico wrapper, in that old ricketty rocking-chair, with the last new twins in her arms, when he wants a button sewed on his coat to go to the opera. _No other way, you see!_

"Women are getting _altogether_ too smart now-a-days; there _must_ be a stop put to it! people are beginning to get alarmed! I don't suppose there has been such a universal crowing since the roosters in Noah's ark were let out, as there was among the editors when that '_Swisshelm_' _baby_ was born! It's none of _my_ business, but it _did_ seem to me _rather_ a _circular singumstance_, that she should be cut short in her editorial career that way! I suppose, however, that baby will grow out of her arms one of these days, spite of fate; and then, if there's no _providential interposition_, she may resume her pen again. Well, I hope it will be a _warning_! the fact is, _women_ have no business to be crowding into the editorial chair. Supposing they _know_ enough to fill it (which I _doubt_! hem!) they oughter 'hide their light under a b'--aby!

"I tell you, editors _won't stand_ it, to have their masculine toes trod on that way. They'll have to sign a 'quit claim' to their 'dickeys' by and by! I wonder what the world's coming to! What do you suppose our fore_fathers_ and _foremothers_ would say, to see a woman sitting up in the editorial chair, as pert as a piper, with a pen stuck behind her little ears? phew! I hope _I_ never shall see such a horrid sight!"