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Frances (Appleton) Longfellow to Emmeline (Austin) Wadsworth, 7 February 1840
Manuscript letter
1840.
My darling Emmeline,
A very nice epistle from you which welcomed me when I descended to breakfast this morning shocked me with the remembrance of the length of time since I wrote to you & the vanity of the expectations under which you commenced it. The mails have been so abominably irregular that it seemed hardly worth while to write till there was a thaw & I inflicted upon Tom such a lengthy account of our proceedings not long since (which I presume he has edified you with) that I waited till something new turned up. All the gaiety here has been frozen up, as well as the streets, but now there has commenced a decided thaw in both which floods the side-walks with a slosh & the side-boards with cards. We go tonight to Mrs Pleasanton’s (whose daughter is one of the prettiest girls here, a nice, clean-looking damsel) & also have an invite to Mrs Bell’s but having sundry distinct reminiscences of one of her parties two years since when the tallow candles over the doors fell into our laps &c shall omit that! Then on Monday we go to a ball at Mrs Ogle Tayloe’s one of the fashionables of President’s Square, the West End of W., which will probably be a delightful experiment on human compressibility & on Wednesday a huge, glazed card gives us admittance to the first of [p. 2] the Washington Assemblies (there are to be but 4) in Carasi’s saloon which is as roomy as Mr Papanti’s tho’ utterly deficient in elegance - & to be crammed with 1000 people. Night before last we were invited by one of our neighbors, a prettyish Mrs Carroll, to a christening party! being ignorant of which we arrived after the ceremony was over & the little Christian despatched to bed – tho’ I expected all the evening to see it produced on a salver, à la John the Baptist, to enjoy the fête made in its honour. We had carpets up, a large house & delicious music the 3 essentials & I enjoyed dancing & chatting with new partners quite considerably, tho’ longing for somebody to laugh with, in the corner, over the absurdities of some of them. Par example, the exquisite exquisiteness of a Mr Hodgson, an Englishman who perhaps you remember seeing in Boston as he was there while we were abroad – knew Stackpole intimately in the East &c His Library is entirely composed of Books on Etiquette & every gesture & phrase is studied à ravir. “The highest art is to conceal art” he admitted was his maxim – but his affectation is as broad as day-light. The intonation which he gave to “Do you sli-ode”? (slide) on asking me to waltz out-Pelhamed Pelham. He should be put in a Museum. Mack is always mimicking the way in which a young English officer who dined with us to’ther day took him off à faire mourir de rire. I had a nice waltz with Mr Fred [p. 3] ericsthal (the Austrian attaché) who drops in here of evenings, occasionally, & makes himself tolerably agreeable by discoursing of the divers countries he has seen, Greece, South America &c. He escorted us, the other day, to the studio of a German sculptor who, poor man, has been living in this art-less desert 5 years & has just finished a lovely statue of a damsel on the sea-shore fishing but gets rarely paid or encouraged. The air of the studio, the arrangement of casts & marble, his costume &c, transported me so completely to bella Italia (talking with him too in la lingua oolee) that I was startled to step out upon snow - & Representatives. He has made busts of all his family, 7 in number, from his Italian wife down to a baby of a month old & such a droll array. Most spirited sketches of Indians on the walls - & terra cotta figures of them I hope he will turn to account for they mak[e] admirable & original models. Yesterday we had the hon[or] of dining at the Palace & it was much less stiff & formal [than] I feared it might be – it was not too large & the dinner no[t so] long (or so splendid) as the Vails. But I was nearly perished with the frigidity of the large rooms. Mrs Major is very agreeable, & less stiff then formerly, but is astonishing she survives the fatigue of these dinner-parties. She is enceinte & more énorme than you can imagine by no means improved by her dressing in a flounced white lace gown with a wreath of orange buds in her hair & pearls & diamonds about her throat. Black velvet would be considerably more fitting & decent. The President was a very courteous & affable but a secretiveness & ‘retenue’ of manner tiresome where there is no etiquette, showing a cautious diplomatic soul. Mary was ushered to dinner by a [p. 4 bottom] epauletted Commodore Ridgely who entertained her by recounting his previous amours - & I – by a no less distinguished personage than Mr George Parish who looks very handsome & made himself very agreeable lamenting the necessity of his “living in the woods” as he calls Ogensburg his Uncle’s death having consigned to him that elegant mansion, & detailing to me all the improvements he had or intended to make there, the number of his horses, the excellence of his cook, with a little episode about Fanny Calderon, his great admiration of her, his despair at her marriage, his living in her house. He says he wishes for no so [p. 4 top] ciety, spends his time in reading! (Balzac probably!) Bodiske, they say, is actually to be married next week an indirect permission having arrived - & how his young bride being still at school & never having attended any thing but a child’s ball, will support her new honors is a matter of curiosity to all Washington. He has to ask the advice of some lady (wisely pitching on the Spanish ministress who knows nothing of the manners of the country) whether she [p. 1 cross] can drive with him in Russian costume &c her parents being simple pious people, & she herself too much a child to know what is proper He says with sweet naïveté & youthful trust “I dont love Mr Bodisko oh no – but he says that will come”! There is more danger of whatever endurance of him she has now going when the secrets of his toilette are unraveled & he takes himself apart like a child’s puzzle! –
I have left myself no room to tell you that tho’ I am occasionally envious of the supreme content of Mary & Mackintosh I have no idea of following Miss Williams’ example and eschew all diplomats. Mr Hudson (who you thought would prove such a dangerous attaché) we see very rarely & I especially, as he has a horreur of all petticoats unyoked to male attire, alias single women. He has a good saxon face but I am sorry to say the rest of his person has arrived at the acme of Bowdoin’s prophecy. Bordin I have seen but little of likewise, tho’ no doubt tonight he will be whisking to a merry measure as they think him the best waltzer here. Call [p. 2 cross] leaving making is a serious business here, we find people usually at home & it resembles the occupation of some of the poor devils in the inferno inasmuch as a fresh harvest falls upon our table daily. Mrs Lawrence & daughter with Jane M’Cleod, a fine-looking girl, were here yesterday & lamenting because all their dresses are fast in quarantine & these parties thickening. We had such a funny old Frenchman to dine in our quiet way who has explored the Rocky Mountains & the West beyond any body & made Mary play on a crazy shockingly out-of-tune piano we have going into ecstasies with true French bonhomie. He has promised to come & tell us some Indian stories which should be worked into novels he thinks. Prince John is not here – the Major is as quiet & gentlemanly as ever but takes no pains to entertain me nowadays. We have had every variety of weather now plunging about in the snow, now in the mud & today a thick warm fog through which people & horses emerge like spirits in Dante’s smoky circles. We amaze everybody by walking – the dames [p. 3 cross] only go out en voiture. We walked to & through Georgetown one day & I enjoy our country environs on that account – we keep clear of the mob of Reps & strangers & confine our society to the colored population. Our lengthy cousin Rogers bored us for some evenings but grace à Dieu he has departed the way of all flesh ie westward ho! But I must have mercy on your eyes & precious little satisfaction [??] in this disjointed chat. Many many times do I feel lonely & long for you, my darling, when I see Mary & Robert entirely engrossed with each other and I with no lips to kiss or kind heart to lean upon! I forgot to tell you to enclose your letters to Mack – they then come free. Good bye & God bless you. Mary sends much love & intends writing you soon & Mack wishes me to say mille jolies choses for him. Ever and truly yrs
Fanny E. A.
ADDRESSED: MISS AUSTIN / CARE OF SAML AUSTIN JR. / BOSTON. MASS.
POSTMARK: WA[SHIN]GTONCITY D.C. / FEB 7
My darling Emmeline,
A very nice epistle from you which welcomed me when I descended to breakfast this morning shocked me with the remembrance of the length of time since I wrote to you & the vanity of the expectations under which you commenced it. The mails have been so abominably irregular that it seemed hardly worth while to write till there was a thaw & I inflicted upon Tom such a lengthy account of our proceedings not long since (which I presume he has edified you with) that I waited till something new turned up. All the gaiety here has been frozen up, as well as the streets, but now there has commenced a decided thaw in both which floods the side-walks with a slosh & the side-boards with cards. We go tonight to Mrs Pleasanton’s (whose daughter is one of the prettiest girls here, a nice, clean-looking damsel) & also have an invite to Mrs Bell’s but having sundry distinct reminiscences of one of her parties two years since when the tallow candles over the doors fell into our laps &c shall omit that! Then on Monday we go to a ball at Mrs Ogle Tayloe’s one of the fashionables of President’s Square, the West End of W., which will probably be a delightful experiment on human compressibility & on Wednesday a huge, glazed card gives us admittance to the first of [p. 2] the Washington Assemblies (there are to be but 4) in Carasi’s saloon which is as roomy as Mr Papanti’s tho’ utterly deficient in elegance - & to be crammed with 1000 people. Night before last we were invited by one of our neighbors, a prettyish Mrs Carroll, to a christening party! being ignorant of which we arrived after the ceremony was over & the little Christian despatched to bed – tho’ I expected all the evening to see it produced on a salver, à la John the Baptist, to enjoy the fête made in its honour. We had carpets up, a large house & delicious music the 3 essentials & I enjoyed dancing & chatting with new partners quite considerably, tho’ longing for somebody to laugh with, in the corner, over the absurdities of some of them. Par example, the exquisite exquisiteness of a Mr Hodgson, an Englishman who perhaps you remember seeing in Boston as he was there while we were abroad – knew Stackpole intimately in the East &c His Library is entirely composed of Books on Etiquette & every gesture & phrase is studied à ravir. “The highest art is to conceal art” he admitted was his maxim – but his affectation is as broad as day-light. The intonation which he gave to “Do you sli-ode”? (slide) on asking me to waltz out-Pelhamed Pelham. He should be put in a Museum. Mack is always mimicking the way in which a young English officer who dined with us to’ther day took him off à faire mourir de rire. I had a nice waltz with Mr Fred [p. 3] ericsthal (the Austrian attaché) who drops in here of evenings, occasionally, & makes himself tolerably agreeable by discoursing of the divers countries he has seen, Greece, South America &c. He escorted us, the other day, to the studio of a German sculptor who, poor man, has been living in this art-less desert 5 years & has just finished a lovely statue of a damsel on the sea-shore fishing but gets rarely paid or encouraged. The air of the studio, the arrangement of casts & marble, his costume &c, transported me so completely to bella Italia (talking with him too in la lingua oolee) that I was startled to step out upon snow - & Representatives. He has made busts of all his family, 7 in number, from his Italian wife down to a baby of a month old & such a droll array. Most spirited sketches of Indians on the walls - & terra cotta figures of them I hope he will turn to account for they mak[e] admirable & original models. Yesterday we had the hon[or] of dining at the Palace & it was much less stiff & formal [than] I feared it might be – it was not too large & the dinner no[t so] long (or so splendid) as the Vails. But I was nearly perished with the frigidity of the large rooms. Mrs Major is very agreeable, & less stiff then formerly, but is astonishing she survives the fatigue of these dinner-parties. She is enceinte & more énorme than you can imagine by no means improved by her dressing in a flounced white lace gown with a wreath of orange buds in her hair & pearls & diamonds about her throat. Black velvet would be considerably more fitting & decent. The President was a very courteous & affable but a secretiveness & ‘retenue’ of manner tiresome where there is no etiquette, showing a cautious diplomatic soul. Mary was ushered to dinner by a [p. 4 bottom] epauletted Commodore Ridgely who entertained her by recounting his previous amours - & I – by a no less distinguished personage than Mr George Parish who looks very handsome & made himself very agreeable lamenting the necessity of his “living in the woods” as he calls Ogensburg his Uncle’s death having consigned to him that elegant mansion, & detailing to me all the improvements he had or intended to make there, the number of his horses, the excellence of his cook, with a little episode about Fanny Calderon, his great admiration of her, his despair at her marriage, his living in her house. He says he wishes for no so [p. 4 top] ciety, spends his time in reading! (Balzac probably!) Bodiske, they say, is actually to be married next week an indirect permission having arrived - & how his young bride being still at school & never having attended any thing but a child’s ball, will support her new honors is a matter of curiosity to all Washington. He has to ask the advice of some lady (wisely pitching on the Spanish ministress who knows nothing of the manners of the country) whether she [p. 1 cross] can drive with him in Russian costume &c her parents being simple pious people, & she herself too much a child to know what is proper He says with sweet naïveté & youthful trust “I dont love Mr Bodisko oh no – but he says that will come”! There is more danger of whatever endurance of him she has now going when the secrets of his toilette are unraveled & he takes himself apart like a child’s puzzle! –
I have left myself no room to tell you that tho’ I am occasionally envious of the supreme content of Mary & Mackintosh I have no idea of following Miss Williams’ example and eschew all diplomats. Mr Hudson (who you thought would prove such a dangerous attaché) we see very rarely & I especially, as he has a horreur of all petticoats unyoked to male attire, alias single women. He has a good saxon face but I am sorry to say the rest of his person has arrived at the acme of Bowdoin’s prophecy. Bordin I have seen but little of likewise, tho’ no doubt tonight he will be whisking to a merry measure as they think him the best waltzer here. Call [p. 2 cross] leaving making is a serious business here, we find people usually at home & it resembles the occupation of some of the poor devils in the inferno inasmuch as a fresh harvest falls upon our table daily. Mrs Lawrence & daughter with Jane M’Cleod, a fine-looking girl, were here yesterday & lamenting because all their dresses are fast in quarantine & these parties thickening. We had such a funny old Frenchman to dine in our quiet way who has explored the Rocky Mountains & the West beyond any body & made Mary play on a crazy shockingly out-of-tune piano we have going into ecstasies with true French bonhomie. He has promised to come & tell us some Indian stories which should be worked into novels he thinks. Prince John is not here – the Major is as quiet & gentlemanly as ever but takes no pains to entertain me nowadays. We have had every variety of weather now plunging about in the snow, now in the mud & today a thick warm fog through which people & horses emerge like spirits in Dante’s smoky circles. We amaze everybody by walking – the dames [p. 3 cross] only go out en voiture. We walked to & through Georgetown one day & I enjoy our country environs on that account – we keep clear of the mob of Reps & strangers & confine our society to the colored population. Our lengthy cousin Rogers bored us for some evenings but grace à Dieu he has departed the way of all flesh ie westward ho! But I must have mercy on your eyes & precious little satisfaction [??] in this disjointed chat. Many many times do I feel lonely & long for you, my darling, when I see Mary & Robert entirely engrossed with each other and I with no lips to kiss or kind heart to lean upon! I forgot to tell you to enclose your letters to Mack – they then come free. Good bye & God bless you. Mary sends much love & intends writing you soon & Mack wishes me to say mille jolies choses for him. Ever and truly yrs
Fanny E. A.
ADDRESSED: MISS AUSTIN / CARE OF SAML AUSTIN JR. / BOSTON. MASS.
POSTMARK: WA[SHIN]GTONCITY D.C. / FEB 7
Archives Number: 1011/002.001-010#007
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Correspondence (1011/002), (LONG-SeriesName)
, Letters from Frances Longfellow (1011/002.001), (LONG-SubseriesName)
, 1840 (1011/002.001-010), (LONG-FileUnitName)
, Letters from Frances Longfellow (1011/002.001), (LONG-SubseriesName)
, 1840 (1011/002.001-010), (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
2021-06-16
02/07/1840
Manuscript letter in Frances Appleton Longfellow Papers, Series II. Correspondence, A. Outgoing, 1840. (1011/002.001-010#007)
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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 6:58:08 PM
Wednesday, November 9, 2022 6:58:08 PM
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