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Frances (Appleton) Longfellow to Isaac Appleton Jewett, December 1839
Manuscript letter
Boston. Dec 29th 1839.
Dear Jewett, I have the melancholy office of announcing to you the decease of a no less celebrated than esteemed personage, Miss Mary Appleton, who departed this life on Thursday last at half past 12 P.M. & will be no more known on Earth by that well-loved, virgin name. Ah! that ‘no more’ is a dirge like sound (as the Prof. says) be it the herald of joys unknown before, the seal even of woes, for it tells of endings which our eternal nature revolts against. Yes Mary is actually married, has bidden adieu to the sweet spinster life & has begun a new phase of existence. God grant it may glide on as smoothly & happily, ay ten times more so, than this she has left. Her nuptials were celebrated very quietly in the morning at home with only our Aunts & cousins & my friend Emmeline present & our good little Dr Channing was the Magician that linked them to this mysterious union – whose solemn prayers impressed upon all of us, as seldom thought of before, the awful responsibility each receives upon the soul from that moment for time & for eternity. What perjured vows many must bear! Mary was simply dressed in white & looked charmingly, a whole Future in her eyes, sun-bright with hope, & as to Mackintosh he has so much improved in appearance [p. 2] since this good fortune fell upon him that I have got to think him quite a handsome man, certainly happiness out values as a cosmetic the ‘Fountain of Youth’ & all the promenades of the Palais Royale. But weddings are sad things at the best; one stands with such awe & doubt on the threshold of any great change even for another & sees two people audaciously launch into an untried sea, boldly grasping in their united hands a new Destiny & Future – but when at the same time they sever all the ties that have been till now part of their being - & desert their home & kindred & lop off the whole Past as alien from the Present – it is a bitter-sweet time which unlocks as much sadness as joy – and the heart-wrung prayers from the lookers on are embalmed in more tears than smiles. Mary’s engagement has been so short that even now that she is away & that my desolation is almost more than I can bear & that I feel a dead weight crushing all thoughts of the future I half believe it all a dream on which some gracious dawn will arise. This is a shamefully selfish feeling for I have as much trust, as any mortal can have in the destinies of another, that she has every chance of gaining by this change a fuller more satisfactory happiness than she ever enjoyed in the feverish state of spinsterhood. For her fellow pilgrim is a man in every sense, true-hearted, sound-minded, with a character based on the purest religious principle. This much I have gleaned from this constant, daily intercourse of the last two months & am happy [p. 3] to retract whatever I may have said against him to you if it were any-thing more serious (which I doubt) than the disadvantage his extreme shyness gives his manners. He certainly puts his worst foot foremost in society & under values his own acquirements & talents too much for a diplomate but that is partly perhaps from the misfortune of having such a distinguished Papa & from this innate secretiveness. He is like a nut that you must pick with care - & you are constantly amazed at the quantity of matter stowed away in the nooks & crannies of his mind. In one thing he resembles you & it is a quality I infinitely admire because I often sin therein myself. A Pickwickian insensibility to the foibles of others – or rather a Christian unwillingness – to drag them to day-light & stick them up for mockery. I confess I seldom hear a person much ridiculed that I am not tempted to pronounce some equivalent excellence, if I can find one in their character, - & shame the mocker, but sin in like manner the moment after. How we make others a cat’s paw for our own condemnation! Mack has an immense deal of humour, among his other good qualities, in fact it is his prominent one, whence this charity is more remarkable he sauces every speech with a dry joke – often unappreciated through his modest utterance of the same. These events are startling – hints that we are living a real life; they seem to open chasms all about & we know not on what verge we are standing. Emmeline was reminding me to-day that Christmas eve last year – Lizzy Mason was with us & how little we then imag [p. 4] ined that in one little year both she & Mary would be married & settled so many thousand miles apart – one in Pottsdam the other in Washington! And then that poor Slocum whom both knew & liked would be God knows were, married to infinity. I have never told you how dreadfully shocked I was at his death & how very incredulous of it – vainly expecting from day to day to hear it contradicted, for he was a person so full of animal life that I could not associate him with death; an energy & vitality about his whole existence which seemed incapable of being crushed down as in others. He was a noble creature & deserved a happier destiny. He was the most chivalrous person I ever met & should have been a Crusader. But there was, perhaps, a merciful Providence in taking him away after he had drunk so many of the teas of life & especially just before this event which would have affected him so deeply. It is a melancholy satisfaction to tell oer the virtues of such a man & if it is not painful to you dear Jewett to speak of your friend I shall be always a sympathizing listener, for I esteemed him thoroughly. & saw much of the deepest, holiest workings of his manly spirit. I hope it was not true that he was engaged, or like to be, for I truly pity her then who mourns his loss. How strangely prophetic was his letter to you & what villainous neglect of human life to put officers at that season in a southern climate. I trust he has that peace & content in Heaven which he vainly sought on Earth & suffers no longer that Neuralgia of soul which (as well as of body) afflicted him here-below – Excuse the gloom of this epistle. – [p. 5] I have not a very elastic or philosophic spirit & cant change my mood, like the Chameleon, on air & I feel this gap in our household acutely-; you have mourned, dear J- that you never had a sister, thank Heaven you are spared the severing of so near & dear a tie. I shall feel more of this hereafter for after their sojourn in the country they return here & I go South to pass one or two months in W. with them & while Mary makes it her home shall be often there. Emmeline is a dear comfort to me but it is dangerous to entrust one’s happiness to the keeping of too few people I now fear she will desert me & she is the only person here, out of the family, I care a sous for – the only person with whom I can really talk. I go every fortnight to a musical party which are quite successful. Mrs Habicht quite rivalled Rakemann in Thalberg’s “God save the King.” That nice, little creature has just been here giving one concert to an unworthy audience. I was not in spirits to go (being the night after the wedding) but Tom says his Mosé in Egith was magnifique. I send you, by the way, a sprig of myrtle Mary wore next her heart during the ceremony thinking you may like it as a relic! Espy is here bringing like Ulysses a bag of storms with him, for our shores have been strewn with corpses & wrecks – ships thrust thro’ Charleston bridge & into houses &c. We have snow but no very cold weather – but feel anxious for Sam & his party who should be in. How vexatious if they speak the Liverpool going back! I am reveling in Orientalism, a new translation of the Arabian Nights with exquisite wood-cuts & with all the original poems; our old friend, it seems is but the bare skeleton – this is overflowing with poetry - & Ecclesiastes wisdom & descriptions enough, as their phrase is, “to make the soul quit the body.” It is a fair equivalent for your N. Orleans & is more enjoyable with sleet against the windows! I have not yet got through that Review of Carlyle; tis too deep for hasty perusal. How did you like his disagreement about unconsciousness. I think C. overshoots the mark there. Think of Mr Lowell leaving great sums for free lectures in Boston – when we are now whelmed in ‘em. I have some good, enthusiastic chats with young Ward – who is a bright, nice youth. Alas! my paper not my will faileth & I have mercy on your purse & patience. Console me in my widow-hood with something amusing. Do you know Uncle Sam [p. 6 bottom] was enchanted with your last letter, thinks you are becoming quite rational. I am glad your Father is succeeding so well & hope you enjoy the blessing of a home malgré your Cain or swallow-like propensities. Your friend Frank Boot sings at the musical parties with much gusto & is a merry nice fellow. How you would shiver to see the boys skating like winged Mercuries down the pond. The Prof. has collected all his vagrant poems into a neat little volume christened mournfully “Voices of the Night.” He does not look like a night-bird & is more of a mocking-bird than a nightingale tho’ he has some sweetly plaintive notes. All the Psalms are fine but the rest [p. 6 top] peu de chose. I have been reading over my journal in Rome today; tis like rubbing Aladdin’s lamp – Heavens what different day’s works from these – Miss Mary Channing just enters & begs to be remembered to you & says she should be most happy to hear your flute & all sorts of gracious things. I suppose you are still in Columbus so I direct this thither. Yrs truly with best wishes for a happy New Year. Fanny E. A.
[endorsed across address with list made out in another hand as scratch paper, in other hand:]
= The Werv in a bag – squeezed &c –
= Mary & marriage black seal [??]
= the myrtle, where –
= fixed item – dreams –
What are you doing?
Each has a fortune / little finger work 500
Have expended 50.000 on myself
Mrs Jameson &c
Eaith [??] &c
[pencil:] miles of travel
[pencil:] Marriage fixes our places
[crossed out: Last development &c]
cider barrels
Addressed: I. A. Jewett Esq. / Columbus. / Ohio –
Postmark: BOSTON / DEC 32
Endorsed: and / Jan 8th 1840
Dear Jewett, I have the melancholy office of announcing to you the decease of a no less celebrated than esteemed personage, Miss Mary Appleton, who departed this life on Thursday last at half past 12 P.M. & will be no more known on Earth by that well-loved, virgin name. Ah! that ‘no more’ is a dirge like sound (as the Prof. says) be it the herald of joys unknown before, the seal even of woes, for it tells of endings which our eternal nature revolts against. Yes Mary is actually married, has bidden adieu to the sweet spinster life & has begun a new phase of existence. God grant it may glide on as smoothly & happily, ay ten times more so, than this she has left. Her nuptials were celebrated very quietly in the morning at home with only our Aunts & cousins & my friend Emmeline present & our good little Dr Channing was the Magician that linked them to this mysterious union – whose solemn prayers impressed upon all of us, as seldom thought of before, the awful responsibility each receives upon the soul from that moment for time & for eternity. What perjured vows many must bear! Mary was simply dressed in white & looked charmingly, a whole Future in her eyes, sun-bright with hope, & as to Mackintosh he has so much improved in appearance [p. 2] since this good fortune fell upon him that I have got to think him quite a handsome man, certainly happiness out values as a cosmetic the ‘Fountain of Youth’ & all the promenades of the Palais Royale. But weddings are sad things at the best; one stands with such awe & doubt on the threshold of any great change even for another & sees two people audaciously launch into an untried sea, boldly grasping in their united hands a new Destiny & Future – but when at the same time they sever all the ties that have been till now part of their being - & desert their home & kindred & lop off the whole Past as alien from the Present – it is a bitter-sweet time which unlocks as much sadness as joy – and the heart-wrung prayers from the lookers on are embalmed in more tears than smiles. Mary’s engagement has been so short that even now that she is away & that my desolation is almost more than I can bear & that I feel a dead weight crushing all thoughts of the future I half believe it all a dream on which some gracious dawn will arise. This is a shamefully selfish feeling for I have as much trust, as any mortal can have in the destinies of another, that she has every chance of gaining by this change a fuller more satisfactory happiness than she ever enjoyed in the feverish state of spinsterhood. For her fellow pilgrim is a man in every sense, true-hearted, sound-minded, with a character based on the purest religious principle. This much I have gleaned from this constant, daily intercourse of the last two months & am happy [p. 3] to retract whatever I may have said against him to you if it were any-thing more serious (which I doubt) than the disadvantage his extreme shyness gives his manners. He certainly puts his worst foot foremost in society & under values his own acquirements & talents too much for a diplomate but that is partly perhaps from the misfortune of having such a distinguished Papa & from this innate secretiveness. He is like a nut that you must pick with care - & you are constantly amazed at the quantity of matter stowed away in the nooks & crannies of his mind. In one thing he resembles you & it is a quality I infinitely admire because I often sin therein myself. A Pickwickian insensibility to the foibles of others – or rather a Christian unwillingness – to drag them to day-light & stick them up for mockery. I confess I seldom hear a person much ridiculed that I am not tempted to pronounce some equivalent excellence, if I can find one in their character, - & shame the mocker, but sin in like manner the moment after. How we make others a cat’s paw for our own condemnation! Mack has an immense deal of humour, among his other good qualities, in fact it is his prominent one, whence this charity is more remarkable he sauces every speech with a dry joke – often unappreciated through his modest utterance of the same. These events are startling – hints that we are living a real life; they seem to open chasms all about & we know not on what verge we are standing. Emmeline was reminding me to-day that Christmas eve last year – Lizzy Mason was with us & how little we then imag [p. 4] ined that in one little year both she & Mary would be married & settled so many thousand miles apart – one in Pottsdam the other in Washington! And then that poor Slocum whom both knew & liked would be God knows were, married to infinity. I have never told you how dreadfully shocked I was at his death & how very incredulous of it – vainly expecting from day to day to hear it contradicted, for he was a person so full of animal life that I could not associate him with death; an energy & vitality about his whole existence which seemed incapable of being crushed down as in others. He was a noble creature & deserved a happier destiny. He was the most chivalrous person I ever met & should have been a Crusader. But there was, perhaps, a merciful Providence in taking him away after he had drunk so many of the teas of life & especially just before this event which would have affected him so deeply. It is a melancholy satisfaction to tell oer the virtues of such a man & if it is not painful to you dear Jewett to speak of your friend I shall be always a sympathizing listener, for I esteemed him thoroughly. & saw much of the deepest, holiest workings of his manly spirit. I hope it was not true that he was engaged, or like to be, for I truly pity her then who mourns his loss. How strangely prophetic was his letter to you & what villainous neglect of human life to put officers at that season in a southern climate. I trust he has that peace & content in Heaven which he vainly sought on Earth & suffers no longer that Neuralgia of soul which (as well as of body) afflicted him here-below – Excuse the gloom of this epistle. – [p. 5] I have not a very elastic or philosophic spirit & cant change my mood, like the Chameleon, on air & I feel this gap in our household acutely-; you have mourned, dear J- that you never had a sister, thank Heaven you are spared the severing of so near & dear a tie. I shall feel more of this hereafter for after their sojourn in the country they return here & I go South to pass one or two months in W. with them & while Mary makes it her home shall be often there. Emmeline is a dear comfort to me but it is dangerous to entrust one’s happiness to the keeping of too few people I now fear she will desert me & she is the only person here, out of the family, I care a sous for – the only person with whom I can really talk. I go every fortnight to a musical party which are quite successful. Mrs Habicht quite rivalled Rakemann in Thalberg’s “God save the King.” That nice, little creature has just been here giving one concert to an unworthy audience. I was not in spirits to go (being the night after the wedding) but Tom says his Mosé in Egith was magnifique. I send you, by the way, a sprig of myrtle Mary wore next her heart during the ceremony thinking you may like it as a relic! Espy is here bringing like Ulysses a bag of storms with him, for our shores have been strewn with corpses & wrecks – ships thrust thro’ Charleston bridge & into houses &c. We have snow but no very cold weather – but feel anxious for Sam & his party who should be in. How vexatious if they speak the Liverpool going back! I am reveling in Orientalism, a new translation of the Arabian Nights with exquisite wood-cuts & with all the original poems; our old friend, it seems is but the bare skeleton – this is overflowing with poetry - & Ecclesiastes wisdom & descriptions enough, as their phrase is, “to make the soul quit the body.” It is a fair equivalent for your N. Orleans & is more enjoyable with sleet against the windows! I have not yet got through that Review of Carlyle; tis too deep for hasty perusal. How did you like his disagreement about unconsciousness. I think C. overshoots the mark there. Think of Mr Lowell leaving great sums for free lectures in Boston – when we are now whelmed in ‘em. I have some good, enthusiastic chats with young Ward – who is a bright, nice youth. Alas! my paper not my will faileth & I have mercy on your purse & patience. Console me in my widow-hood with something amusing. Do you know Uncle Sam [p. 6 bottom] was enchanted with your last letter, thinks you are becoming quite rational. I am glad your Father is succeeding so well & hope you enjoy the blessing of a home malgré your Cain or swallow-like propensities. Your friend Frank Boot sings at the musical parties with much gusto & is a merry nice fellow. How you would shiver to see the boys skating like winged Mercuries down the pond. The Prof. has collected all his vagrant poems into a neat little volume christened mournfully “Voices of the Night.” He does not look like a night-bird & is more of a mocking-bird than a nightingale tho’ he has some sweetly plaintive notes. All the Psalms are fine but the rest [p. 6 top] peu de chose. I have been reading over my journal in Rome today; tis like rubbing Aladdin’s lamp – Heavens what different day’s works from these – Miss Mary Channing just enters & begs to be remembered to you & says she should be most happy to hear your flute & all sorts of gracious things. I suppose you are still in Columbus so I direct this thither. Yrs truly with best wishes for a happy New Year. Fanny E. A.
[endorsed across address with list made out in another hand as scratch paper, in other hand:]
= The Werv in a bag – squeezed &c –
= Mary & marriage black seal [??]
= the myrtle, where –
= fixed item – dreams –
What are you doing?
Each has a fortune / little finger work 500
Have expended 50.000 on myself
Mrs Jameson &c
Eaith [??] &c
[pencil:] miles of travel
[pencil:] Marriage fixes our places
[crossed out: Last development &c]
cider barrels
Addressed: I. A. Jewett Esq. / Columbus. / Ohio –
Postmark: BOSTON / DEC 32
Endorsed: and / Jan 8th 1840
Archives Number: 1011/002.001-009#019
U. S. National Park Service
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Courtesy of National Park Service, Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site; Archives Number 1011/002.001-009#019
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Correspondence (1011/002), (LONG-SeriesName)
, Letters from Frances Longfellow (1011/002.001), (LONG-SubseriesName)
, 1840 (1011/002.001-009), (LONG-FileUnitName)
, Letters from Frances Longfellow (1011/002.001), (LONG-SubseriesName)
, 1840 (1011/002.001-009), (LONG-FileUnitName)
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Longfellow House - Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site, Code: LONG
Longfellow House - Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site, Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Latitude: 42.3769989013672, Longitude: -71.1264038085938
Latitude: 42.3769989013672, Longitude: -71.1264038085938
NPS Museum Number Catalog : LONG 20257
Title: Finding Aid to the Frances Elizabeth Appleton Longfellow (1817-1861) Papers, 1825-1961 (bulk dated: 1832-1861)
URL: https://www.nps.gov/long/learn/historyculture/archives.htm#FEAL
URL: https://www.nps.gov/long/learn/historyculture/archives.htm#FEAL
2016/01/30
12/29/1839
Manuscript letter in Frances Appleton Longfellow Papers, Series II. Correspondence, A. Outgoing, 1839. (1011/002.001-009#019)
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Organization: Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site
Address: 105 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Email: LONG_archives@nps.gov
Address: 105 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Email: LONG_archives@nps.gov
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