James Parton, Horace Greeley, T. W. Higginson, J. S. C. Abbott, E. M. Hoppin, William Winter, Theodore Tilton, Fanny Fern, Grace Greenwood, Mrs. E. C. Stanton, Women of the age; being natives of the lives and deeds of the most prominent women of the present gentlemen

[82] and get your temper ruffled? Does not that “wonderful wean,” that darling grandchild, dainty little Effie, ever have a fit of naughtiness, or whooping-cough, or a tumble downstairs, on that day? Don't you ever long, on just that day, to lie on the sofa and read Thackeray? Ah, do not wars and influenzas, national crises and kitchen imbroglios, disappointed hopes and misfitting dresses, an instinctive receliiou against regulations and resolutions, even of your own making, ever interfere with your writing for the “Ledger” ? Doubtless you have been tempted, in times of hurry, or languor, in journeyings and dog-day heats, to break your agreement; but an honest fealty to a generous publisher has hitherto constrained you to stand by; and we like you for it. Other publishers may be bon, but he is Bonner. So you do not demean yourself by following the triumphal chariot of his fortunes (Dexter's trotting wagon) like Zenobia in chains, -since the chains are of gold.

As a writer of brief essays and slight sketches, Fanny Fern excels. She seems always to have plenty of small change in the way of thoughts and themes. She knows well how to begin without verbiage, and to end without abruptness. She starts her game without much beating about the bush. She seems to measure accurately the subject and the occasion, and wastes no words,--or, as poor Artemus Ward used to say, never “slops over.” As a novelist, she is somewhat open to the charge of exaggeration, and she is not sufficiently impersonal to be always artistic. Her own fortunes, loves, and hates live again in her creations,--her heroines are her doubles. As a moralist, she is liable to a sort of uncharitable charity and benevolent injustice. In her stout championship of the poor, of the depressed and toil-worn many, she seems to harden her heart against the small, but intelligent, rich but respectable, portion of our population, known as “Upper-tendom.” Can any good thing come out of Fifth