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Frances (Appleton) Longfellow Matilda Lieber, 19 September 1837
Manuscript letter
Boston. Sep. 19th – 1837. –
I come at last, ever dear Matilda, to throw myself on your mercy for giving so humble a date to a letter – which little thought to see the light in this hemisphere & has been so long in petto. that it fears its welcome may be somewhat cold in spite of the warm region to which it goes. Dearest Matilda mia – I know your kind heart has not doubted the love of mine all this long while tho’ the written manifestations thereof have not been forthcoming for if I have lived ten years on these last glorious two I have not outlived one little of remembrances & ties cherished of old. New impressions tho’ they unglue so rapidly antique prejudices & opinions link our hearts more firmly to that which, like old wine, grows dearer by Time – the love of our friends, the ever invigorating vintage which warms our soul. I was heartily grieved by Dr L’s reproaches. When we know our feelings are unchanged or unchilled we forget that others may fancy it without a text to bear witness thereunto. & in the whirl of thought, feeling, action, abroad there are very few still pools under the torrent wherein to enjoy writing more than “how do ye do?’ [p. 2] or duty-letters to relations which are necessary as a safety valves or our oerclogged minds would “burst the boiler.” If Mary had written less I should have written more but when do we not “leave undone what we ought to have done”? Forgive me & love me as well as ever. & I will tell you how much I long once more to give you a Newton-hug – how vexed I was Dr L. could not wait to give us a welcome shake o’ the hand more substantially than on paper & how glad I was to hear your ‘angelletti’ were all well & flourishing & that he was in good spirits about his locale & occupations. I actually have not seen him since you migrated from this quiet corner o’ the Earth which, by the way, is looking quite green & cosy to our travel-wearied eyes & tho’ small & demure enough is a nice, little nut shell wherein to fold oneself to retirement & leisure & enjoy a breating space after striding with 7 league boots mind & body, one over so much country, t’other over so much thought, resurrecting an army of corpses in every grave-yard of association but loosening nails from one’s own coffin by giving life a new zest not soon made rusty. Everybody prophecies ennui to us from its quiet, but the novelty of sleeping in one’s own bed, settling down without [p. 3] any distinct plan for the Future, & shaking hands with 500 people conscious of your existence is very delightful & exciting as yet. We are as busy as possible giving our house a habitable look, hanging up the pictures & strewing about the knickknacks that were picked up in divers nooks & corners. We make quite a show of the ‘beaux arts’ & begin to wonder where we shall stow all our treasures, all interesting to us, whether bits of marble dug with our own hands from the palace of the Caesars, - bronzes from Rome or Etruscan vases from Nola one of which we are vastly proud of being a “veritable antique,” a strange link here from the oldest part of the old world with this new one. What the servants call rubbish are to us like Aladdins rusty lamp, of magic-interest conjuring visions worth ½ a life of tame realities. I need not tell you, cara mia, that I enjoyed Europe as some of the people ask me here – as if half doubting an affirmative! It is nothing to say that my spirit actually ran riot there, like the prodigal son, till I even devoured the husks (for we had some tough ones, the Mayence fever, par example!) with not much complaining. & if prosaic fare is ones lot in this modern country – why I shant [sic] be troubled by it yet with so much to digest [p. 4] & re-taste, hastily swallowed at the time. It is quite awful what an overwhelming ‘mélange’ of every sort of matter is thrown into your maw a year or two abroad, in the end sadly weakening, I think, your powers of appreciation & comprehension. Beautiful was our drive thro’ England ever in its festival dress – garlanded with roses – looped up here & there by an ivy-shrouded ruin – a noble Castle, or stately Dukery & fringed with our classic associations. I reveled I the pictures hung in & without the walls of the grand princely domains but got nearly weary at last of so much beauty & have come back to my ain fire-side glad to throw off the “sandalled shoon” for a while. Need I tell you, my dear friend, how filled with thoughts of you was the very atmosphere encircling that most glorious tombstone of the Past – Heidelberg Schloss & that sweet valley of the Neckar I so longed to explore & that green grave-yard to you so hallowed a spot! How bitter must be an exile I felt from such scenes as these & so far away too from the warmest friends you have made our side the water but I wont [sic] disturb your sweet resignations to what is made inevitable by Fate by hinting at what you must ever feel so deeply. Germany we saw less fairly than almost every other country. In fact [p. 5, marked 5] we dropped every where enough sheaves to make a noble harvest for us to gather une autre fois. I trust if that “beau jour” comes round again I shall have as young a heart to wield the sickle. C’est bien drôle to return here & find every body going on in the old tread-mill while we have compassed Heaven & ½ Earth – but there are many we have met abroad & we talk our battles o’er while the others sit by & yawn! There is a freemasonry between those who know what’s what by having seen things as they are which makes us travelled gentry particularly interesting to each other while to the uninitiated we may may [sic] seem to be discoursing “airy nothings.” There are many changes here however – some on things which make old haunts unrecognizable, more in people, for better & worse. I vainly try to dignify my divers school-friends with their new titles of Medame & Mary & I seem quite settle as it were into the rank of the Misss Brimmers & Inmches & other single ladies of the past generation – ours is all married off! It is sad, truly, to see the Thorndike’s noble mansion closed & desolate, sadder still – their undecided Future a withering disenchanting of social life for young [p. 6] hearts. Mrs Ritchie expects them here every day – to our joy, I am charmed to hear dear Lizzie has so well recovered her beaofancy of spirit & good looks. We saw Mrs Ocllick on N. York looking very well, - her spouse sobered down into quite a respectable personage. All the freshest importations from Europe are promenading the streets in legborn hats & a black mantilla & our nice trottoir on Sunday is as gay & Spanish as the chief avenue of the Tuileries. The town looks amazingly small but we have seen so many people since our arrival that is a marvel where they all bestow themselves each sunk in their individual cells – or selves. Our passage over the big pond was delightful, some angel was our pilot for we miraculously escaped the storms & hurricanes that all before & after us fell in with. The Lynches have just arrived, orphans poor girls. Their ship was struck by lightning – & Mr Welles’ hand rendered torpid thereby for a short time. We find my Aunt looking more juvenile than ever but think she will miss by & by her engrossing occupation of writing us letters. I am so vexed Signor Franz is not here to chat with us about Italia – expatiate on our relics, & admire my bust which, tomorrow is to be resurrect [p. 7] ted from its winding sheet of shavings & coffin of wood to adorn our salon. I hope it will exemplify its sculptor’s (Bartolii) faith that Nature, being nature is better than Ideality – A strange divinity for a sculptor’s adoration about which we had many tough arguments during my immortalization-process in Firenze la bella. À propos of myself – I here beg most devoutly, my dear Mathilda, to be excused from the dignity & responsibility of performing or accepting the role of Godmother you or Dr L so kindly offer me. Merely nominal it is nothing but really I feel too juvenile. to receive such a title. & having recently read my prayer book am appalled at the serious injunctions therewith connected! I think one in the family will convince you we are already linked with your & your “parvoli inoocenti” in a bond of holy love; here our consciences must rest. Au reste – our friendship needs no such spiritual ligament. I long to know how you are looking, the same black eyes & pouting lips as formerly? Naughty Franz not to be here that I may ask a thousand questions. Does your heart grow acclimated to your new home or yearns it for dear father-land so that here “all is barren”? Write me & tell me all your nuances of feel- [p. 8] ing, Eulian-harp-like. I am vastly puzzled, do you know, to ascertain whether my soul does not migrate about – such an odd one sometimes takes possession of my juvenile with a very Pythagorean sense of some remote existence elsewhere than here! Are there not railroads & balloons for our spirit’s journies [sic] – just now mine is on a high trolling horse with the joy of seeing my ‘household gods’ in safety.
Fanny I. paces the mall with her ‘nebulae’ of scholars as of yore & has been rousing Mary’s harp from its 2 years siesta to discourse as eloquently as ever. We have caged a lovely bit of sunshine to illumine our wintry walls, Tom’s Claude, whose golden glories are the portal to many – lovelier – niched in my mind’s gallery. It is much to have the springs all about one whence to turn water into wine, leaden days into golden ones. It is so long since I have chatted with thee I know not where to stop. This letter is long enough to correspond with the length of my silence. Uncork me & you will have a deluge, therefore beware signore Franz how you figure me to a “multitudinous revenge”. Allyne O. with his ‘pencilled’ mustache & “stick” – actually smiles in Beacon St. & by dint of dining at the Christian hour of 5- they are sad [p. 5 cross] heathens here and the way of appetite & talking of the Rocher seems inclined to vote Boston a lesser bore than formerly. I have just discovered Mary with our usual sympathetic Siamese-twin action is writing Dr L – so nipping in the bud all I might have spun over this weighty sheet – accept dearest Matilda my warmest love & a hasty farewell. Kiss en mass all your living blessings from me & prove your Christian forgiveness of my neglect by writing that you love me as truly as ever. One of our fellow-passengers was a damsel from the “x corners” at Newton who amused me with her reminiscences of our cavalcade to church we being the great people of the neighborhood to her eyes. Sweetest Fanny Brooks we have not had a good talk with since our return & she leaves soon for N. York but I hope Mr B. will come here finally to live; he seems ½ inclined [p .6 cross] Her family are now enjoying the well-won fruit of their labours. Poor Mr William Otis is looking wretchedly sad I cannot realize yet that bright star is quenched in the “dark Fountain.” That house & Mr Sears’ are both gloomy enough. Mrs Crowninshield maintains solitary state heaped about with ‘rubbish.’ They feel deeply the fair Ellen’s foreign bridal. I have some idea of attacking German this winter – perhaps it were better to wait till my busy memories begin to mildew a little & I can chain my thought to one atmosphere. It is worth going away to enjoy the thrill of patriotism we felt entering N. York harbour! To live in I would not exchange America for any country I have seen. The warm welcome of friends is a gladlier sunshine than Austrian skies tho’ there I thought even a hermitage would be delight midst such glowing influences. I must tear myself away from thy sweet companie fair ladye – My Papa & brother send all manner of kind greetings to [p. 7 cross] thee – Give mine to Dr L. if he has returned to you & believe me as ever
thy fondly attached
Francesca.
I come at last, ever dear Matilda, to throw myself on your mercy for giving so humble a date to a letter – which little thought to see the light in this hemisphere & has been so long in petto. that it fears its welcome may be somewhat cold in spite of the warm region to which it goes. Dearest Matilda mia – I know your kind heart has not doubted the love of mine all this long while tho’ the written manifestations thereof have not been forthcoming for if I have lived ten years on these last glorious two I have not outlived one little of remembrances & ties cherished of old. New impressions tho’ they unglue so rapidly antique prejudices & opinions link our hearts more firmly to that which, like old wine, grows dearer by Time – the love of our friends, the ever invigorating vintage which warms our soul. I was heartily grieved by Dr L’s reproaches. When we know our feelings are unchanged or unchilled we forget that others may fancy it without a text to bear witness thereunto. & in the whirl of thought, feeling, action, abroad there are very few still pools under the torrent wherein to enjoy writing more than “how do ye do?’ [p. 2] or duty-letters to relations which are necessary as a safety valves or our oerclogged minds would “burst the boiler.” If Mary had written less I should have written more but when do we not “leave undone what we ought to have done”? Forgive me & love me as well as ever. & I will tell you how much I long once more to give you a Newton-hug – how vexed I was Dr L. could not wait to give us a welcome shake o’ the hand more substantially than on paper & how glad I was to hear your ‘angelletti’ were all well & flourishing & that he was in good spirits about his locale & occupations. I actually have not seen him since you migrated from this quiet corner o’ the Earth which, by the way, is looking quite green & cosy to our travel-wearied eyes & tho’ small & demure enough is a nice, little nut shell wherein to fold oneself to retirement & leisure & enjoy a breating space after striding with 7 league boots mind & body, one over so much country, t’other over so much thought, resurrecting an army of corpses in every grave-yard of association but loosening nails from one’s own coffin by giving life a new zest not soon made rusty. Everybody prophecies ennui to us from its quiet, but the novelty of sleeping in one’s own bed, settling down without [p. 3] any distinct plan for the Future, & shaking hands with 500 people conscious of your existence is very delightful & exciting as yet. We are as busy as possible giving our house a habitable look, hanging up the pictures & strewing about the knickknacks that were picked up in divers nooks & corners. We make quite a show of the ‘beaux arts’ & begin to wonder where we shall stow all our treasures, all interesting to us, whether bits of marble dug with our own hands from the palace of the Caesars, - bronzes from Rome or Etruscan vases from Nola one of which we are vastly proud of being a “veritable antique,” a strange link here from the oldest part of the old world with this new one. What the servants call rubbish are to us like Aladdins rusty lamp, of magic-interest conjuring visions worth ½ a life of tame realities. I need not tell you, cara mia, that I enjoyed Europe as some of the people ask me here – as if half doubting an affirmative! It is nothing to say that my spirit actually ran riot there, like the prodigal son, till I even devoured the husks (for we had some tough ones, the Mayence fever, par example!) with not much complaining. & if prosaic fare is ones lot in this modern country – why I shant [sic] be troubled by it yet with so much to digest [p. 4] & re-taste, hastily swallowed at the time. It is quite awful what an overwhelming ‘mélange’ of every sort of matter is thrown into your maw a year or two abroad, in the end sadly weakening, I think, your powers of appreciation & comprehension. Beautiful was our drive thro’ England ever in its festival dress – garlanded with roses – looped up here & there by an ivy-shrouded ruin – a noble Castle, or stately Dukery & fringed with our classic associations. I reveled I the pictures hung in & without the walls of the grand princely domains but got nearly weary at last of so much beauty & have come back to my ain fire-side glad to throw off the “sandalled shoon” for a while. Need I tell you, my dear friend, how filled with thoughts of you was the very atmosphere encircling that most glorious tombstone of the Past – Heidelberg Schloss & that sweet valley of the Neckar I so longed to explore & that green grave-yard to you so hallowed a spot! How bitter must be an exile I felt from such scenes as these & so far away too from the warmest friends you have made our side the water but I wont [sic] disturb your sweet resignations to what is made inevitable by Fate by hinting at what you must ever feel so deeply. Germany we saw less fairly than almost every other country. In fact [p. 5, marked 5] we dropped every where enough sheaves to make a noble harvest for us to gather une autre fois. I trust if that “beau jour” comes round again I shall have as young a heart to wield the sickle. C’est bien drôle to return here & find every body going on in the old tread-mill while we have compassed Heaven & ½ Earth – but there are many we have met abroad & we talk our battles o’er while the others sit by & yawn! There is a freemasonry between those who know what’s what by having seen things as they are which makes us travelled gentry particularly interesting to each other while to the uninitiated we may may [sic] seem to be discoursing “airy nothings.” There are many changes here however – some on things which make old haunts unrecognizable, more in people, for better & worse. I vainly try to dignify my divers school-friends with their new titles of Medame & Mary & I seem quite settle as it were into the rank of the Misss Brimmers & Inmches & other single ladies of the past generation – ours is all married off! It is sad, truly, to see the Thorndike’s noble mansion closed & desolate, sadder still – their undecided Future a withering disenchanting of social life for young [p. 6] hearts. Mrs Ritchie expects them here every day – to our joy, I am charmed to hear dear Lizzie has so well recovered her beaofancy of spirit & good looks. We saw Mrs Ocllick on N. York looking very well, - her spouse sobered down into quite a respectable personage. All the freshest importations from Europe are promenading the streets in legborn hats & a black mantilla & our nice trottoir on Sunday is as gay & Spanish as the chief avenue of the Tuileries. The town looks amazingly small but we have seen so many people since our arrival that is a marvel where they all bestow themselves each sunk in their individual cells – or selves. Our passage over the big pond was delightful, some angel was our pilot for we miraculously escaped the storms & hurricanes that all before & after us fell in with. The Lynches have just arrived, orphans poor girls. Their ship was struck by lightning – & Mr Welles’ hand rendered torpid thereby for a short time. We find my Aunt looking more juvenile than ever but think she will miss by & by her engrossing occupation of writing us letters. I am so vexed Signor Franz is not here to chat with us about Italia – expatiate on our relics, & admire my bust which, tomorrow is to be resurrect [p. 7] ted from its winding sheet of shavings & coffin of wood to adorn our salon. I hope it will exemplify its sculptor’s (Bartolii) faith that Nature, being nature is better than Ideality – A strange divinity for a sculptor’s adoration about which we had many tough arguments during my immortalization-process in Firenze la bella. À propos of myself – I here beg most devoutly, my dear Mathilda, to be excused from the dignity & responsibility of performing or accepting the role of Godmother you or Dr L so kindly offer me. Merely nominal it is nothing but really I feel too juvenile. to receive such a title. & having recently read my prayer book am appalled at the serious injunctions therewith connected! I think one in the family will convince you we are already linked with your & your “parvoli inoocenti” in a bond of holy love; here our consciences must rest. Au reste – our friendship needs no such spiritual ligament. I long to know how you are looking, the same black eyes & pouting lips as formerly? Naughty Franz not to be here that I may ask a thousand questions. Does your heart grow acclimated to your new home or yearns it for dear father-land so that here “all is barren”? Write me & tell me all your nuances of feel- [p. 8] ing, Eulian-harp-like. I am vastly puzzled, do you know, to ascertain whether my soul does not migrate about – such an odd one sometimes takes possession of my juvenile with a very Pythagorean sense of some remote existence elsewhere than here! Are there not railroads & balloons for our spirit’s journies [sic] – just now mine is on a high trolling horse with the joy of seeing my ‘household gods’ in safety.
Fanny I. paces the mall with her ‘nebulae’ of scholars as of yore & has been rousing Mary’s harp from its 2 years siesta to discourse as eloquently as ever. We have caged a lovely bit of sunshine to illumine our wintry walls, Tom’s Claude, whose golden glories are the portal to many – lovelier – niched in my mind’s gallery. It is much to have the springs all about one whence to turn water into wine, leaden days into golden ones. It is so long since I have chatted with thee I know not where to stop. This letter is long enough to correspond with the length of my silence. Uncork me & you will have a deluge, therefore beware signore Franz how you figure me to a “multitudinous revenge”. Allyne O. with his ‘pencilled’ mustache & “stick” – actually smiles in Beacon St. & by dint of dining at the Christian hour of 5- they are sad [p. 5 cross] heathens here and the way of appetite & talking of the Rocher seems inclined to vote Boston a lesser bore than formerly. I have just discovered Mary with our usual sympathetic Siamese-twin action is writing Dr L – so nipping in the bud all I might have spun over this weighty sheet – accept dearest Matilda my warmest love & a hasty farewell. Kiss en mass all your living blessings from me & prove your Christian forgiveness of my neglect by writing that you love me as truly as ever. One of our fellow-passengers was a damsel from the “x corners” at Newton who amused me with her reminiscences of our cavalcade to church we being the great people of the neighborhood to her eyes. Sweetest Fanny Brooks we have not had a good talk with since our return & she leaves soon for N. York but I hope Mr B. will come here finally to live; he seems ½ inclined [p .6 cross] Her family are now enjoying the well-won fruit of their labours. Poor Mr William Otis is looking wretchedly sad I cannot realize yet that bright star is quenched in the “dark Fountain.” That house & Mr Sears’ are both gloomy enough. Mrs Crowninshield maintains solitary state heaped about with ‘rubbish.’ They feel deeply the fair Ellen’s foreign bridal. I have some idea of attacking German this winter – perhaps it were better to wait till my busy memories begin to mildew a little & I can chain my thought to one atmosphere. It is worth going away to enjoy the thrill of patriotism we felt entering N. York harbour! To live in I would not exchange America for any country I have seen. The warm welcome of friends is a gladlier sunshine than Austrian skies tho’ there I thought even a hermitage would be delight midst such glowing influences. I must tear myself away from thy sweet companie fair ladye – My Papa & brother send all manner of kind greetings to [p. 7 cross] thee – Give mine to Dr L. if he has returned to you & believe me as ever
thy fondly attached
Francesca.
Archives Number: 1011/002.001-007#002
U. S. National Park Service
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Correspondence (1011/002), (LONG-SeriesName)
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, 1837 (1011/002.001-007), (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
09/19/1837
Manuscript letter in Frances Appleton Longfellow Papers, Series II. Correspondence, A. Outgoing, 1837. (1011/002.001-007#002)
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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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