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Frances (Appleton) Longfellow to unknown, c. January 1850
Manuscript letter
[partial, first leaf missing, begins p. 5, marked 2] But I ought not to recall this awful subject – Let it rest till the fatal day comes when all shall be made known Sumner is very earnest to have Dr W. confess to spare his own conscience further deceit – the public the horrors of the trial & the state the expense of it. He spoke to Mr Prescott about it, but he is of course in too nervous a state to urge it. You can imagine how it must have embittered his days & nights, so sensitive as he is – The old lady & his wife – I am sure have never borne it much more calmly – You know he cannot bear to have the rose-leaf ruffled – what then must have been this. It affected his stomach & his eyes – his outer & inner man cruelly.
My dinner to Miss Bremer went off very pleasantly. She is more & more winning & her triumph takes nothing from the quiet & modesty & most loveable gentleness of her manners. We found Miss Cushman & Miss Hays very agreeable guests, the former is very sensible & full of pleasant anecdotes of her English friends – the lat [p. 6] ter like Fanny Butler in her best days in looks, or like Keats in his, & very interesting in conversation. She knows Kenyon, Milnes & all the London literati & is the daughter of a man of fortune there – now poor. I had excited Sumner’s curiosity about her, but he was perfectly fascinated, & has been talking of her ever since. I wish she were rich (or he) for I think she would suit him admirably! - & he is tall & graceful with a very vigorous nature & a cultivated mind, but as it is he had better keep his admiration within safe bounds. They return here in June to make Mrs John Bryant a visit. Miss Cushman has not had much success owing to choosing a bad theatre, & the tragedy out of doors more exciting than any within. It is mortifying to win fewer laurels at home than among strangers, but it has been the fate of greater geniuses than she.
You ask me of Crawford. On Saturday he exhibited to his friends for a great affair at Richmond which he hopes to secure. It is very noble [p. 7] An equestrian statue of Washington crowns a pedestal, below which branches out a star, - at each point upholding a statue of some great man (of Virginia) larger than life, & all encircling the Washington -; then below this a space & low steps – the whole pyramidal in design. It is for a square in the town & on a grand scale. I am much struck by his fertility & poetry of invention? He is constantly devising some new form of beauty. Among his terra cotta statuettes a guardian Angel charmed me particularly. She (or he) is seated, looking sadly at a snake on the ground before her, - one child encircled by her arm, another leaning confidingly upon her lap looking up in her face & her vast broad fans spreading around both as if to shelter them. I wish he would give me this, or have it executed in Parian, but he has made an Excelsior in terra cotta for me Henry does not like as well
Miss Louisa Stuart Costellow has writte[n] divers pleasant books, tours &c, & has [torn off] lated from the early poets of France [torn off] as you may see by turning to the Poe[ts] [p. 8] & Poetry of Europe.”
Here is a conundrum for you which came out last night & is I think very good.
“In crossing the deserts of Arabia on what does the traveler live?
-
On the sand-which-is under him.
---
Lizzie Allen is with Harriet looking as charmingly as ever –
At last we have a Speaker – such as he is - & I trust the troubled waters will subside I never feel alarmed at southern bluster for I know that the Mississippi is as good as a marriage ring & one that ca’nt be lost – I am very glad the Hungarians are so warmly received – The papers give no mercy to Bowen, & the report is he keeps his house for fear of the warlike Jagella – Henry has just had a very touching note from Mrs Brewster to whom he sent his book on [ac]count of the ‘Open Window’- She lost her chil[dren] in the “old house by the lindens” where [torn off]n passed the summer, & the poem is fact- [torn off] walked by with Charley & saw all he describes
My dinner to Miss Bremer went off very pleasantly. She is more & more winning & her triumph takes nothing from the quiet & modesty & most loveable gentleness of her manners. We found Miss Cushman & Miss Hays very agreeable guests, the former is very sensible & full of pleasant anecdotes of her English friends – the lat [p. 6] ter like Fanny Butler in her best days in looks, or like Keats in his, & very interesting in conversation. She knows Kenyon, Milnes & all the London literati & is the daughter of a man of fortune there – now poor. I had excited Sumner’s curiosity about her, but he was perfectly fascinated, & has been talking of her ever since. I wish she were rich (or he) for I think she would suit him admirably! - & he is tall & graceful with a very vigorous nature & a cultivated mind, but as it is he had better keep his admiration within safe bounds. They return here in June to make Mrs John Bryant a visit. Miss Cushman has not had much success owing to choosing a bad theatre, & the tragedy out of doors more exciting than any within. It is mortifying to win fewer laurels at home than among strangers, but it has been the fate of greater geniuses than she.
You ask me of Crawford. On Saturday he exhibited to his friends for a great affair at Richmond which he hopes to secure. It is very noble [p. 7] An equestrian statue of Washington crowns a pedestal, below which branches out a star, - at each point upholding a statue of some great man (of Virginia) larger than life, & all encircling the Washington -; then below this a space & low steps – the whole pyramidal in design. It is for a square in the town & on a grand scale. I am much struck by his fertility & poetry of invention? He is constantly devising some new form of beauty. Among his terra cotta statuettes a guardian Angel charmed me particularly. She (or he) is seated, looking sadly at a snake on the ground before her, - one child encircled by her arm, another leaning confidingly upon her lap looking up in her face & her vast broad fans spreading around both as if to shelter them. I wish he would give me this, or have it executed in Parian, but he has made an Excelsior in terra cotta for me Henry does not like as well
Miss Louisa Stuart Costellow has writte[n] divers pleasant books, tours &c, & has [torn off] lated from the early poets of France [torn off] as you may see by turning to the Poe[ts] [p. 8] & Poetry of Europe.”
Here is a conundrum for you which came out last night & is I think very good.
“In crossing the deserts of Arabia on what does the traveler live?
-
On the sand-which-is under him.
---
Lizzie Allen is with Harriet looking as charmingly as ever –
At last we have a Speaker – such as he is - & I trust the troubled waters will subside I never feel alarmed at southern bluster for I know that the Mississippi is as good as a marriage ring & one that ca’nt be lost – I am very glad the Hungarians are so warmly received – The papers give no mercy to Bowen, & the report is he keeps his house for fear of the warlike Jagella – Henry has just had a very touching note from Mrs Brewster to whom he sent his book on [ac]count of the ‘Open Window’- She lost her chil[dren] in the “old house by the lindens” where [torn off]n passed the summer, & the poem is fact- [torn off] walked by with Charley & saw all he describes
Archives Number: 1011/002.001-017#034
U. S. National Park Service
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Correspondence (1011/002), (LONG-SeriesName)
, Letters from Frances Longfellow (1011/002.001), (LONG-SubseriesName)
, 1847 (1011/002.001-017), (LONG-FileUnitName)
, Letters from Frances Longfellow (1011/002.001), (LONG-SubseriesName)
, 1847 (1011/002.001-017), (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
01/01/1850 - 01/30/1850
Manuscript letter in Frances Appleton Longfellow Papers, Series II. Correspondence, A. Outgoing, 1847. (1011/002.001-017#034)
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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 6:09:58 PM
Wednesday, November 9, 2022 6:09:58 PM
1011-02-01-17-34 p5+8.jpg
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