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Fresh Leaves

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About This Book

A collection of lively sketches, essays, and short stories that mix domestic comedy, social satire, and sentimental reflection. Pieces portray married life, parenting, and household struggles with witty first-person observations, household scenes, and conversational monologues, and also offer travel notes and city vignettes examining manners and public life. Recurring themes include gender roles, moral advice, the tension between public reputation and private reality, and the struggles of women balancing work and family. Tone alternates between humorous irony and earnest feeling, and the volume brings together previously published columns and new material in varied short forms.

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Title: Fresh Leaves

Author: Fanny Fern

Release date: March 18, 2014 [eBook #45172]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Fay Dunn, sp1nd and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRESH LEAVES ***

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

FRESH LEAVES.

BY

FANNY FERN.


NEW YORK:
MASON BROTHERS.
1857.


Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857,
by MASON BROTHERS,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court, for the Southern District of New York.

STEREOTYPED BY
THOMAS B. SMITH,
82 & 84 Beekman-st., N. Y.

PRINTED BY
C. A. ALVORD,
15 Vandewater-st., N. Y.


TO

GRACE ELDREDGE,

WITH

Her Mother’s Love.


PREFACE.

Every writer has his parish. To mine, I need offer no apology for presenting,

First, a new story which has never before appeared in print;

Secondly, the “hundred-dollar-a-column story,” respecting the remuneration of which, skeptical paragraphists have afforded me so much amusement. (N. B.—My banker and I can afford to laugh!) This story having been published when “The New York Ledger” was in the dawn of its present unprecedented circulation, and never having appeared elsewhere, will, of course, be new to many of my readers;

Thirdly, I offer them my late fugitive pieces, which have often been requested, and which, with the other contents of this volume, I hope will cement still stronger our friendly relations.

FANNY FERN.


CONTENTS.

PAGE
A Business Man’s Home; or, a Story for Husbands, 9
Visiting and Visitors, 43
Our First Nurse, 47
The Shadow of a Great Rock in a Weary Land, 52
To Literary Aspirants, 53
Summer Travel, 56
A Gentle Hint, 59
A Story for Old Husbands with Young Wives, 59
Breakfast at the Paxes, 65
Girls’ Boarding-Schools, 68
Closet Meditations, 71
Feminine View of Napoleon as a Husband, 73
“First Pure,” 79
Holiday Thoughts, 82
A Headache, 85
Has a Mother a Right to her Children? 87
“And ye shall call the Sabbath a Delight,” 89
“Come on, Macduff,” 93
Look Aloft, 95
Knickerbocker and Tri-Mountain, 98
The Boston Woman, 100
The New York Male, 101
The Boston Male, 102
My Old Inkstand and I, 103
The Soul and the Stomach, 106
Awe-ful Thoughts, 107
A Word to Parents and Teachers, 108
Lady Doctors, 111
The Cherub in the Omnibus, 112
Fanny Ford, 114
Moral Molasses, 210
A Word to Shopkeepers, 212
A Much-Needed Kind of Minister’s Wife, 215
Parent and Child, 217
Last Bachelor Hours of Tom Pax, 220
Tom Pax’s Conjugal Soliloquy, 222
Tea and Darning-Needles for Two, 226
A House without a Baby, 232
Glances at Philadelphia, No. 1, 233
Glances at Philadelphia, No. 2, 237
Glances at Philadelphia, No. 3, 242
Glances at Philadelphia, No. 4, 246
In the Dumps, 249
Peeps from under a Parasol, 252
The Confession Box, 263
A Word to Parents and Teachers, 266
Breakfast, 268
Greenwood and Mount Auburn, 269
Getting Up the Wrong Way, 272
A Hot Day, 277
Funeral Notes, 278
The “Favorite” Child, 282
A Question and its Answer, 283
Winter, 284
A Gauntlet for the Men, 286
Soliloquy of a Literary Housekeeper, 289
A Breakfast-Table Reverie, 290
A Glance at a Chameleon Subject, 295
Facts for Unjust Critics, 297
Try Again, 301
Fair Play, 302
To Gentlemen, 305
To the Ladies, 307
Matrimonial Advertisements, 309
A Sable Subject, 310
New York, 313
Airy Costumes, 315
A Peep at the Opera, 317
Hard Times, 318
Counter Irritation, 321
Sunday in Gotham, 324
Anniversary Time, 327
Wayside Words, 330
Charlotte Bronte, 332