Litchfield Enquirer

Character of a Dashing Girl.—Fanny Wilding was what the world calls an animated girl: she would pun, throw a jest whenever she could, affect opinions different from all the world, talk upon abstruse subjects, quote Homer to an officer in the army, and talk of perpetual motion to an effeminate man of fashion.

Self opinionated, with complete self-possession, a sarcastic sneer and bewitching smile, a good person and many accomplishments, this young woman was known as a genius. She was a connoisseur in painting, an amateur in music, a perfect dancer, and exquisite performer on the piano, and a miracle in singing. She wrote tales and poems, published on woven paper and broad margins, made designs for furniture, dressed in the most outré costume to set fashion, was a fine dashing animated girl—and a more horrible thing is there upon earth. Modesty and diffidence are the attributes of woman? their silence is eloquence, and their timidity conquest.

Miss Wilding did not think so, and rattled away most furiously; called one man a horrid brute,' another a vile 'monster, hurried over all topics where she could raise a laugh, which she would do at anybody's expense except her own. But with all this blaze of notoriety, did anybody esteem her particularly? Was there any one man upon earth, who on his pillow could say—'Heavens, what angel is Fanny Wilding?' Had she ever refused an offer of marriage? No! for a palpable reason—nobody had ever made her one. She was like a fine fire-work, entertaining to look at, but dangerous to come too near to: her bouncing and cracking in the open air gave a lustre to surrounding objects, but there was not a human being who could be tempted to take the exhibition into his own house, and run the risk of burning his fingers with it.