XXV. THE PRIVATE HISTORY OF DIDYMUS DAISY, ESQ. 121
XXXI. TOM VERSUS FAN; OR, A LITTLE TALK ABOUT LITTLE THINGS. 145
XXXVI. A WHISPER TO ROMANTIC YOUNG LADIES. 164
LI. JOHN BULL'S OPINION OF "RUTH HALL." 222
LIV. THE BEST OF MEN HAVE THEIR FAILINGS. 229
LVII. MRS. ZEBEDEE SMITH'S PHILOSOPHY. 243
LX. UNCLE BEN'S ATTACK OF SPRING-FEVER. 253
LXII. WHAT FANNY THINKS ABOUT SEWING-MACHINES. 260
LXVII. A NIGHT-WATCH WITH A DEAD INFANT. 273
LXXIII. WHAT FANNY THINKS ABOUT FRIENDSHIP. 289
LXXVII. WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU ARE ANGRY. 303
LXXXIV. FANNY'S IDEAS OF MONEY MATTERS. 324
LXXXV A LETTER TO A SELF-EXILED FRIEND IN THE COUNTRY. 327
Saral Payson Willis, the subject of this sketch, was born in Portland, Maine, July 9th, 1811. Through the negligence, doubtless, of the clerk of the town, it is not recorded that the sun stood still on the eventful morning, but old housewives tell a legend of the cocks' crowing with extraordinary shrillness in honor of this wonderful advent. She is the daughter of Mr. Nathaniel Willis, one of the most industrious and respectable citizens of Boston, now a man well advanced in years. It is scarcely necessary to add that she is sister to Mr. N. P. Willis, the brilliant essayist and poet.
Mr. Willis, senior, "commenced life" as a mechanic, and at the time of his marriage worked at the case as a journeyman printer. He afterwards published the Eastern Argus, in Portland. Meeting with reverses in that city, he removed to Boston, where he established, and for many years edited, the "Recorder," the oldest religious paper in New-England.
Mr. Willis has met with a similar experience to that of most men in his calling. He never made a fortune at publishing. At the present time, although aged and infirm, he finds it necessary to devote his failing energies to the publication of the "Youth's Companion." Yet, notwithstanding his narrow means, Mr. Willis contrived--at how great a sacrifice only parents can guess, to give his sons and daughters that education which is a poor man's noblest legacy.
In accordance with the course he had wisely planned for his children, Sarah Willis--the veritable "Fanny"--was favored with an early introduction into the seminary of Miss Catherine E. Beecher, in Hartford, Conn. At this well-conducted establishment--the most popular in the country, at that time--Miss Fanny received her first strong impressions of life and the world. We have never heard her spoken of as a very apt or studious pupil. Staid works of philosophy and learning were not much to her taste. But from the prohibited pages of romances and poems, eagerly devoured in secret, her craving genius derived an active stimulus. Already she had become a keen dissector of the human heart, and she found plenty of pleasant practice for the scalpel of her wit among the young ladies of the school. Here, too, the novel and startling experiences of boarding-school flirtation gave their warm coloring to her future life. Fanny possessed a large capacity for this description of knowledge, and her writings show a better memory for those more pleasant branches of female education, than for the dry rules of syntax and prosody. In fact, the best of her sketches are transcripts of her school-girl life--for Fanny writes well only when giving the concentrated vinegar and spice of her own vivid experiences.