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Frances (Appleton) Longfellow to Harriot Coffin (Sumner) Appleton, 28 April 1844
Manuscript letter
Cambridge Sunday April 28th 1844.
Dear Harriet,
I suppose this will find you in the city of broken banks & brotherly love & I hope enjoying the society of your friends to your heart’s content. I can fancy you pacing, today the sunny yet sober flag stones of Chestnut St. to Saint Somebody’s church, or listening to cooler doctrine in Mr Furnace’s chapel, (impossible as that sounds) but although your eyes are fully occupied with admiring the pretty Spring dresses of the tasteful Quakeresses, & the rich verdure of the squares, &c, &c, your heart I know has leisure to be with us & will be glad to hear how a little orphaned boy is thriving at 39 Beacon St. Charles drove us to town Thursday last & Em & I ascended the deserted house peeped into the darkened rooms suggesting an entire summer’s departure & saw – not a mouse stirring, until entering your bedroom lo’ the faithful Eliza with her charge, at the window apparently rather glorying in being monarch of all he surveyed, for he greeted us with more smiles [p. 2] than it was ever my good-fortune to secure before & for once the awful dignity & solemnity of the Chief Justice was laid aside. Eliza reported him very well & very happy, occasionally looking around for somebody, as if he vaguely remembered other beings had filled the empty apartments, but bearing his loss with stoical fortitude & cheerfulness He had been to drive once or twice, & was altogether living ‘on prince’ in his vast palace. Em went as usual, into ecstasies over his beauty, & will no doubt be a loyal courtier so that you may feel assured he is not pining for lack of society. We dined at Aunt Sam’s with Caroline, & received a season ticket for the same privelige [sic] – Maria is busy with her impending departure, & I think Aunt S looks rather out of spirits as it approaches having besides given up all her experiments of cure not strictly medical. I met poor Mary Sumner in a shop with her mother, & was grieved to the heart by her looks Her face is full of mortality. Her physician pronounces now that she cannot survive many months longer, & it has been broken to Charles on whom it weighs heavily. It is fortunate, perhaps, that he has drawn upon himself this Herculean task of Law Reports as they [p. 3] must necessarily engross many of his thoughts She goes tomorrow, he writes us, to Springfield to escape our east winds, but he fears that she will not see the Autumn. It will be a cruel loss to him, & we all must mourn over the vanishing from this Earth of so gentle & beautiful a nature as her’s, so gracefully enshrined in flesh.
Under Mr Warren’s auspices our externals are beginning to look a little tidier. He has planted us some vines to screen the eastern piazza & is mending the paths &c A famous Turk’s turban of box dignifies the front door-steps, generously bestowed by our very near neighbor, & roses are to bloom behind them. Within door[s] are very welcome symptoms of a remove. Mr Worc[es]ters study is cleared & washed & ready for papering & painting, also the bed room, which fortunately needs only a carpet (which is making at Lowell the same as in my present room). & by the end of next week we expect to take free possession of all the premises Fearful reports come from Mrs W. of the ravages of moths, but we flatter ourselves by filling up the cracks in the floors, now yawning widely, & pasting paper over them to put a veto on this kind of consumption. I wish we could be as sure of saving the green carpet of the meadows opposite, but alas the Forsters, more enterprising than any moths, have already staked out lots and a street beside planting any quantity of bean poles by the road by which they intend, by some miracle, to convert into trees, and [p. 4 bottom] we begin to tremble for our lovely bend of the river, & to [crossed out: see] imagine it hidden from our eyes by hideous deformities of architecture I trust however, they will not build until sure of selling, & it is not very probable that many can wish a situation so remote from the village Mr Worcester thinks father would have done wisely & well to secure all the good land opposite, but we are grateful enough for what he has done, & only hope his line is not encroached upon by these speculators as it seems to be.
[p. 4 top] Yesterday we had Medora & Sam Ward to dinner with Hillard & Felton – It was one of Margarets greatest triumphs, & very agreeable in every way all being in a conversable mood. I introduced a glass of Roman Punch between the sweet breads & the chickens which met with great applause Medora is so expanded by her expectations that she seems 10 years older & maturer than the graceful sylph who coquetted so prettily in Boston last April. She was very charming we all agreed, & promises to make Sam an excellent wife. He is subdued by the very excess of his happiness, [p. 1 cross] & never appeared so well He recalled his bachelor days in Henry’s library, but evidently with no desire to see them back again in reality. Robert Apthorp sails on the 1st of May from N. York, to walk thro’ England this summer His health is far from good but his lungs seem safe His wife remains behind, poor woman I long to hear how you get on with the infantry, whether they are awed by travel or still more excited than at home. Does Hattie lie down in the cars & steam boats when “the fit is in her” – and is Willy in ecstasies to ride on a bona fide railroad? Give our love to Georgie & Wm when you see them, & tell her I intend to answer her letter some day but find writing fatigues me just now With much love to Papa & kisses to the children
ever yr affte
Fanny L
Our love to the Nortons if they are yet with you
[p. 4 middle] Sam Ward, has just brought us a bunch of asparagus whence Heaven knows but a most welcome stranger.
ADDRESSED: MRS NATHAN APPLETON. / CARE OF MESSRS THOMAS & MARTIN / PHILADELPHIA
POSTMARK: CAMBRIDGE / APR 29 / MS
Dear Harriet,
I suppose this will find you in the city of broken banks & brotherly love & I hope enjoying the society of your friends to your heart’s content. I can fancy you pacing, today the sunny yet sober flag stones of Chestnut St. to Saint Somebody’s church, or listening to cooler doctrine in Mr Furnace’s chapel, (impossible as that sounds) but although your eyes are fully occupied with admiring the pretty Spring dresses of the tasteful Quakeresses, & the rich verdure of the squares, &c, &c, your heart I know has leisure to be with us & will be glad to hear how a little orphaned boy is thriving at 39 Beacon St. Charles drove us to town Thursday last & Em & I ascended the deserted house peeped into the darkened rooms suggesting an entire summer’s departure & saw – not a mouse stirring, until entering your bedroom lo’ the faithful Eliza with her charge, at the window apparently rather glorying in being monarch of all he surveyed, for he greeted us with more smiles [p. 2] than it was ever my good-fortune to secure before & for once the awful dignity & solemnity of the Chief Justice was laid aside. Eliza reported him very well & very happy, occasionally looking around for somebody, as if he vaguely remembered other beings had filled the empty apartments, but bearing his loss with stoical fortitude & cheerfulness He had been to drive once or twice, & was altogether living ‘on prince’ in his vast palace. Em went as usual, into ecstasies over his beauty, & will no doubt be a loyal courtier so that you may feel assured he is not pining for lack of society. We dined at Aunt Sam’s with Caroline, & received a season ticket for the same privelige [sic] – Maria is busy with her impending departure, & I think Aunt S looks rather out of spirits as it approaches having besides given up all her experiments of cure not strictly medical. I met poor Mary Sumner in a shop with her mother, & was grieved to the heart by her looks Her face is full of mortality. Her physician pronounces now that she cannot survive many months longer, & it has been broken to Charles on whom it weighs heavily. It is fortunate, perhaps, that he has drawn upon himself this Herculean task of Law Reports as they [p. 3] must necessarily engross many of his thoughts She goes tomorrow, he writes us, to Springfield to escape our east winds, but he fears that she will not see the Autumn. It will be a cruel loss to him, & we all must mourn over the vanishing from this Earth of so gentle & beautiful a nature as her’s, so gracefully enshrined in flesh.
Under Mr Warren’s auspices our externals are beginning to look a little tidier. He has planted us some vines to screen the eastern piazza & is mending the paths &c A famous Turk’s turban of box dignifies the front door-steps, generously bestowed by our very near neighbor, & roses are to bloom behind them. Within door[s] are very welcome symptoms of a remove. Mr Worc[es]ters study is cleared & washed & ready for papering & painting, also the bed room, which fortunately needs only a carpet (which is making at Lowell the same as in my present room). & by the end of next week we expect to take free possession of all the premises Fearful reports come from Mrs W. of the ravages of moths, but we flatter ourselves by filling up the cracks in the floors, now yawning widely, & pasting paper over them to put a veto on this kind of consumption. I wish we could be as sure of saving the green carpet of the meadows opposite, but alas the Forsters, more enterprising than any moths, have already staked out lots and a street beside planting any quantity of bean poles by the road by which they intend, by some miracle, to convert into trees, and [p. 4 bottom] we begin to tremble for our lovely bend of the river, & to [crossed out: see] imagine it hidden from our eyes by hideous deformities of architecture I trust however, they will not build until sure of selling, & it is not very probable that many can wish a situation so remote from the village Mr Worcester thinks father would have done wisely & well to secure all the good land opposite, but we are grateful enough for what he has done, & only hope his line is not encroached upon by these speculators as it seems to be.
[p. 4 top] Yesterday we had Medora & Sam Ward to dinner with Hillard & Felton – It was one of Margarets greatest triumphs, & very agreeable in every way all being in a conversable mood. I introduced a glass of Roman Punch between the sweet breads & the chickens which met with great applause Medora is so expanded by her expectations that she seems 10 years older & maturer than the graceful sylph who coquetted so prettily in Boston last April. She was very charming we all agreed, & promises to make Sam an excellent wife. He is subdued by the very excess of his happiness, [p. 1 cross] & never appeared so well He recalled his bachelor days in Henry’s library, but evidently with no desire to see them back again in reality. Robert Apthorp sails on the 1st of May from N. York, to walk thro’ England this summer His health is far from good but his lungs seem safe His wife remains behind, poor woman I long to hear how you get on with the infantry, whether they are awed by travel or still more excited than at home. Does Hattie lie down in the cars & steam boats when “the fit is in her” – and is Willy in ecstasies to ride on a bona fide railroad? Give our love to Georgie & Wm when you see them, & tell her I intend to answer her letter some day but find writing fatigues me just now With much love to Papa & kisses to the children
ever yr affte
Fanny L
Our love to the Nortons if they are yet with you
[p. 4 middle] Sam Ward, has just brought us a bunch of asparagus whence Heaven knows but a most welcome stranger.
ADDRESSED: MRS NATHAN APPLETON. / CARE OF MESSRS THOMAS & MARTIN / PHILADELPHIA
POSTMARK: CAMBRIDGE / APR 29 / MS
Archives Number: 1011/002.001-014#012
U. S. National Park Service
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Courtesy of National Park Service, Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site; Archives Number 1011/002.001-014#012
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Correspondence (1011/002), (LONG-SeriesName)
, Letters from Frances Longfellow (1011/002.001), (LONG-SubseriesName)
, 1844 (1011/002.001-014), (LONG-FileUnitName)
, Letters from Frances Longfellow (1011/002.001), (LONG-SubseriesName)
, 1844 (1011/002.001-014), (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
04/28/1844
Manuscript letter in Frances Appleton Longfellow Papers, Series II. Correspondence, A. Outgoing, 1844. (1011/002.001-014#012)
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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
Wednesday, November 9, 2022 6:37:44 PM
Wednesday, November 9, 2022 6:37:44 PM
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