Chapter 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."

THE END.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Life and Beauties of Fanny Fern, by Anonymous