MISS FANNY ANDREWS. (Elzey Hay.) HIS record of "Southland Writers" would be incomplete without THIS mention of a young lady, the daughter of an able legal gentleman of Washington, Georgia, and herself born and educated in the State, who has, since the close of the war, been a frequent contributor to the periodical literature of the country, under the pseudonym of "Elzey Hay.” Until recently, "Elzey Hay" was "Elzey Hay" merely. Miss Andrews believes that "the great beauty of anonymous writing is to protect one against bores and the other annoyances of a small reputation, till one can claim the advantages of a great one." Her identity was published to the world without her knowledge, and she feels diffident in appearing among "Southland Writers" with that mask which separated her from the public thrown aside. As she expresses the matter in a recent article, we prefer to use her words: "Under all circumstances, it is wisest to feel one's ground first, before advancing boldly upon it, and for a timid or reserved person there is nothing like a pseudonym, which throws a veil over one's identity, and stands like a tower of defence to shield one's private life from the invasions of public curiosity. If by the public were meant merely that vague assembly of individuals which makes up the world at large, one would care very little about it, save in so far as one's interest was concerned in pleasing its taste; but each one of us has a little world of his own, bounded by the circle of his personal acquaintance, and it is the criticism of this public that literary novices dread. Within this circle there is always some one individual who, to young female writers in particular, is the embodiment of public opinion. One could not write a line without wondering what this person would think of it, if the blessed anonymous did not come to one's aid. Safe behind this shield the most timid writer may express himself with boldness and independence.” From my first acquaintance with the articles of "Elzey Hay," I felt the identity of such a sparkling, piquant writer could not long remain concealed. Sometimes I am almost tempted to call her the "Southern Fanny Fern," but "Elzey" is a woman, and "Fanny" a bloomer, perhaps! Both excel in a peculiar style-so bright, witty, caustic; but the wit of "Elzey Hay" is as keen as a Damascus blade and as polished. Fanny Fern's wit reminds one of a dull, spiteful, little penknife. The former "holds the mirror up to nature;" the latter caricatures it. The one laughs merrily and good-naturedly at the faults and follies of mankind; the other sneers at them. "Elzey Hay" is a great favorite with her own sex; Fanny Fern is not. In one, we recognize the champion of the sex, in the other a "Woman's Rights lecturer." But both are a terror to the "lords of creation." They deal stinging blows to domestic tyrants, would-be exquisites, and pretence generally; the small weaknesses and foibles of the "lords of creation" are not dealt with tenderly. Satire is a powerful weapon in cutting off the excrescences of society. Juvenal and Pope and Thackeray effected some good in their day. So will "Elzey Hay." "Elzey Hay" has been a frequent contributor to Godey's "Lady's Book," and "Scott's Magazine," (Atlanta.) "Dress under Difficulties," a paper concerning the "fashions in Dixie during the war," which appeared in Godey's "Lady's Book," for July, 1866, is "Elzey Hay's" most widely read article. Her first début as a writer was in the "New York World," shortly after the close of the war, in an article entitled "A Romance of Robbery," exposing some infamous proceedings of the Bureauites at a village in Georgia. She assumed the character of a Federal officer in this instance. She has also been correspondent for other New York papers under "masculine signatures." We venture to predict that, if she lives, Miss Andrews will be widely known, and "sparkling Elzey Hay" be as familiar as a household word in the homes of our land. A book that will "live" is what we have a right to expect from "Elzey Hay." Her home is in the charming town of Washington, where Miss Andrews is one of the attractions, entertaining with her delightful conversations, for she converses as well as she writes. The selections we make give only a slight idea of her talents. 33 A PLEA FOR RED HAIR. BY A RED-HAIRED WOMAN. There has always existed an unconquerable, and it seems to me unreasonable prejudice against red hair among the nations of Northern Europe and America. In vain do physiognomists, phrenologists, physiologists, or any other ologists, declare that the pure old Saxon family, distinguished by red heads and freckled faces, is highest in the scale of human existence, being farthest removed from the woolly heads and black faces of the African or lowest race; the world positively refuses to admire red heads and freckled faces, or to regard them as marks of either physical or intellectual superiority. In vain are nymphs, fairies, angels, and the good little children in Sunday-school books, always pictured with sunny tresses; the world is so perverse that it scorns in real life what it pronounces enchanting in books and pictures. Now this inconsistency is the main cause of quarrel that we red-heads have against the rest of the world. Little does it advantage us that our hair is thought bewitching on the angels in picture-books, while it is sneered at on our own heads in drawing-rooms. Willingly would we resign the ideal glories of sylphs and angels to our dark-haired sisters, if we could in return share some of the substantial glories they enjoy in real life. The world is too inconsistent: while our crowning feature seems to be acknowledged as the highest type of ideal beauty, it is at the same time regarded as a trait of positive ugliness in real life. No painter ever made a black-haired angel. Men's ideas of celestial beauty seem to be inseparable from the sunny ringlets that dance round azure eyes like golden clouds floating over the blue canopy of heaven. I challenge any of my readers to name a single poet or painter who has ventured to represent angel or glorified spirit with black hair. Even the pictures and images of our Saviour with reverence I speak it- are generally represented with some shade of yellow hair, and surely all that relates to Him must come up to our highest ideas of perfect loveliness. If red hair were really such a bad thing, why should the inhabitants of heaven be always painted with it? Who would think of representing even the lowest of the angels with a red nose? And yet in real life red heads meet with little more favor than red noses. Poets are as friendly to red hair as painters. Milton describes his Adam and Eve "The loveliest pair That ever since in love's embraces met; both as red-haired. "His fair large front, and eyes sublime, declared Round from his parted forelock manly hung Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad; She, as a veil, down to the slender waist Her unadorned golden tresses wore." Milton's admirers will doubtless be shocked at the idea of a red-headed Adam and Eve, and consider the accusation a slander on the poet; but substitute the epithet auburn, golden, or hyacinthine, and nobody's taste is offended. Poets always take care to observe this nice distinction, and their readers are satisfied, few ever stopping to consider that auburn is only a polite name for one kind of very red hair. The difference is simply this: what is golden or auburn hair on a pretty woman, is blazing red on an ugly one; and people are apt to like or dislike it, according as they see it connected with pretty faces or plain ones. After gazing at a portrait of the beautiful Queen of Scots, one is enraptured with auburn ringlets; after beholding a picture of her ill-favored rival, Elizabeth, one is equally out of humor with carroty hair. The force of prejudice in this matter is strikingly illustrated in the case of two sisters - the one very pretty, the other very plain, who once spent some time in the house where I was boarding. Though the hair of both was precisely the same color, that of the younger, or handsome one, was always called auburn, the other red. A lady one day had the kindness - - some people are very fond of making such pleasant little remarks to tell the ugly one that her hair was not near so pretty a color as that of her sister. The person addressed made no reply; but, when the polite lady had departed, told me that she was wearing frizettes made of her pretty sister's curls, which had been cut off during an attack of fever. On first thoughts, it may seem strange that red hair is nowhere held in such contempt as among those races of whom it is most characteristic; but this results from the general disposition of mankind to depreciate what they have, and overrate what they do not possess. In France, Spain, Italy, all the nations of Southern Europe, nothing is so much admired as the most fiery red hair- called by a more poetical name, of course; while a darkbrowed Mexican, whose stiff, wiry locks bear greater resemblance to the tail of a black horse than anything else in nature, will all but fall down and worship the beauty of any happy possessor of sunflower tresses. "Coma Bella, Coma Blanca," are the pleasing sounds which greet the ear of a redheaded woman on landing in Mexico, as she finds herself surrounded by an admiring group of natives; doubly pleasing by contrast to the less flattering remarks which she has been accustomed to hear from Americans or Englishmen. Châteaubriand seems to have found it impossible to reconcile his ideas of the beautiful and poetical with the presence of sable tresses, for he describes the hair of his Indian heroine, Atala, as a golden cloud floating before the eyes of her lover! If poets and painters are the friends of red hair, novelists are its mortal foes. It is the business of these latter to make the ideal approach the real, and their highest excellence consists in making the one so like the other that one can scarcely tell them apart. They take advantage of the prevailing prejudice against red hair to paint their worst characters with it. Tittlebat Titmouse and Uriah Heep are a perpetual slander upon red-headed people. The character usually ascribed to these last, and with much truth, is entirely out of keeping with that ascribed by the great romancers to their villains. Red-haired people are generally high-tempered, impulsive, warmhearted; and, though it may not become a red-headed woman to say so, I do not think I have ever known one to be either a fool or a coward. Such characteristics are entirely at variance with the low, sneaking craftiness of Uriah, or the sottish imbecility of Titmouse. It always seemed to me that the latter ought to have been drawn with a certain pale, sickly shade of sandy hair, which looks as if it might once have been red, but had got faded, like a piece of bad calico, from constant using. Uriah, on the other hand, should have stiff, straight, puritanical locks, with a dark, sallow complexion, and green eyes. There are some people who look as if they had lain in the grave until they had become mouldy, and then risen to wander about the world without ever getting dry or warm again. Uriah Heep belongs to this class, and should have nothing about him so warm and bright as a sunny head. One reason for the common dislike of red hair may be found in the fact that it is often accompanied by a red or freckled face, neither of which is exactly consistent with our ideas of the most refined and delicate beauty. But is it not unfair to lay the faults of the face and complexion upon the hair? Nobody objects to black hair because it sometimes accompanies a dark, muddy complexion; and, upon the whole, I think brunettes oftener have bad complexions than blondes. After all, there are as many pretty faces framed in gold as in jet. There are three golden threads from the head of Lucretia Borgia preserved in the British Museum on account of their rare beauty. It is said that Cleopatra had red hair; the beautiful Mary of Scotland certainly had it, and the present Empress of France is crowned with something which is cousin-german to it; and this seems to be the secret of the present triumph of blondes. Whenever a reigning beauty happens to be crowned with the obnoxious color, prejudice dies out for a time, and light hair becomes the fashion, as at present. Brunettes are in despair, and red-headed women have their revenge. Modes are invented, such as frizzing and crimping, which do not at all become raven tresses, but render golden locks bewitching. There are started all manner of devices for giving dark hair a golden tinge. Gilt and silver powders are used without stint, while some devoted worshippers of fashion submit to the ordeal of lying with their hair in dye for thirty-six hours, and then run the risk of making it blue, green, or purple, as did their worthy prototype, Tittlebat |