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Frances (Appleton) Longfellow to Mary (Mackintosh) Rich, 20 August 1841
Manuscript letter
St Leonard’s. Aug 20th 1841.
My dear, dear Mrs Rich,
We have just arrived at this sea-side place so I take immediate advantage of a pause in our pilgrimage to acquaint you of our late doings & to thank you from my heart for your kind wish to hear from me.
It is such a joy to find myself drawing night to you again in any shape! [crossed out: that] I should have claimed your gracious permission sooner had I believed it [crossed out: would] was to prove a comfort but writing is such a dismal test of separation that I always shrink from it at first. I liked to fancy every opening of the door would admit you & scrutinized every black gown as something in which I must take a personal interest; so exacting are we, so unwilling to resign a blessing we may not easily recover - & this is one too dear for me to yield it without a feeling that it can never be wholly lost, - that it has grown into that inner soil where only abiding plants take root. But I feel too seriously the absence of that atmosphere of kindness just now to speak of it -; keep a snug corner in your heart open [p. 2] to my free ingress, dearest Mrs Rich, & I will patiently submit to the probability that I am [crossed out: never] not to be indulged again with the happiness of the last few weeks.
I took a great fancy to Tunbridge Wells, & felt sorry to turn my back on it, such a rich variety of country, such a pure invigorating air & such a nice old-fashioned watering-place in all respects are not to be encountered every day. I explored very thoroughly with my brother & sketch-book all its heathy commons & green lanes & we were constantly reminded of America – by a rough nature, unusual in England where hardly a blade of grass follows ‘its own sweet will’ but is drilled to act as much like its fellow as the red-coats on Woolwich Common. There were tangled woods, full of fern, unkept roadsides & rocky heights combined as picturesquely with sleek fat meadows as the groups of shaggy donkies & fair saxon children. We left them rejoicing in the turmoil of a race-course & Fair & drove away in a sunshine which would do credit to a Transatlantic August & has not yet deserted us. We dined, yesterday, at the loveliest rural inn, half smothered in flowers with such a pretty garden that we resolved to devour our bacon & eggs ‘al fresco,’ but could not resist the attractions of such an in-door arrangement either so compromised the matter by uniting the two. (an open door is a rare luxury [p. 3] in this shady side of the world.) Mary was obliged to resign Bayham Abbey finding it too far for her walking powers. & the road being only free yesterday for pedestrians. Tom & I passed a delicious half hour under its mouldering arches, sketching some of its richest masses of stones & ivy which clings over the former with an intensity of affectation always touching & beautiful. It keeps alive a human interest in these lone, desolate places, for it recalls so many images that came near our hearts – such as Ruth supporting her aged kinswoman, or a Soeur de Charité doing the last kind offices – or any love that is stronger than death. It is less perfect than many Abbeys I have seen in England, but, like them all, is nestled in the loveliest country in the lap of the softest turf kept green by a stream which seems to ripple audible Aves. These luxurious monks might well resign the rest of the world after appropriating its fairest corners. We enjoyed our afternoon drive highly thro’ a country increasingly various & fertile, - hollowed out into valleys brimming over with plenty, or heaped into slopes of a green other countries only dream of. We slept at [crossed out: Battle] Robert’s bridge very comfortably in a quaint old inn with no two rooms on the same level, & this mn’g proceeded hither where we are at a large very grand Hotel within a stone’s throw of the lazily-falling waves. Mary [p. 4] has not quite made up her mind to like the congregation of townish houses & people & seems to relish so much rolling over smooth roads that it is doubtful if we shall be very stationary any where. We passed thro’ Battle & bestowed fit sympathy on poor Harold & great admiration on the stately Abbey over his grave. I congratulate you & every body at Plumstead on Mr Scott’s return & shall, on Sunday, think of its blessed fruits with some envy. I am more thankful than I can express for every fraction of his spirit I have with me, as also for Mr Erskine’s little book which has enough living truth in its few pages to scatter every mist of theological sophistry into thin air & to warm thro’ the “thick-ribbed ice” which so often encases man’s religion – I cannot tell you how shocked I was at Seven Oaks with a sermon I heard under its noble old church. The very stones seemed more full of life than the clergyman’s well-balanced tones & sentences & after Mr Scott’s Paul-like fervor & Mr Campbell’s John-like tenderness it seemed to me the man must be an atheist or a machine. And yet alas, it was very like many other sermons I have listened to in this country & listened to as impatiently as wonderingly. How can so many living souls feed on corruption? on the dead letter, I mean, for it so sounds when the man has not lived the truths he preaches – but the limits of my paper warn we how limited is my knowledge – may my charity be less so! With us comparatively few preach, for a profession merely, so I am unaccustomed to this languid utterance of realities almost too awful for any words. Ronald vociferates famously with the aid of his new teeth; tried to embrace the sea when he saw it, & has his Saxon blood in a ferment to-day; probably from [p. 1 cross] the associations of the ‘locale’! Miss Sedgwick begged to be remembered to you in a letter the last steamer brought me. Pray give much love from me to the dear inmates of the cottage on the lane to whom I shall soon write.
Robert, Molly & my brother send the same to you & them. The Babes many sweet kisses –
With much affection yr
Fanny E.A.
Is not this heat as welcome as a foe turned friend? The East to you, to me the West but the same in kind & home – memories.
My dear, dear Mrs Rich,
We have just arrived at this sea-side place so I take immediate advantage of a pause in our pilgrimage to acquaint you of our late doings & to thank you from my heart for your kind wish to hear from me.
It is such a joy to find myself drawing night to you again in any shape! [crossed out: that] I should have claimed your gracious permission sooner had I believed it [crossed out: would] was to prove a comfort but writing is such a dismal test of separation that I always shrink from it at first. I liked to fancy every opening of the door would admit you & scrutinized every black gown as something in which I must take a personal interest; so exacting are we, so unwilling to resign a blessing we may not easily recover - & this is one too dear for me to yield it without a feeling that it can never be wholly lost, - that it has grown into that inner soil where only abiding plants take root. But I feel too seriously the absence of that atmosphere of kindness just now to speak of it -; keep a snug corner in your heart open [p. 2] to my free ingress, dearest Mrs Rich, & I will patiently submit to the probability that I am [crossed out: never] not to be indulged again with the happiness of the last few weeks.
I took a great fancy to Tunbridge Wells, & felt sorry to turn my back on it, such a rich variety of country, such a pure invigorating air & such a nice old-fashioned watering-place in all respects are not to be encountered every day. I explored very thoroughly with my brother & sketch-book all its heathy commons & green lanes & we were constantly reminded of America – by a rough nature, unusual in England where hardly a blade of grass follows ‘its own sweet will’ but is drilled to act as much like its fellow as the red-coats on Woolwich Common. There were tangled woods, full of fern, unkept roadsides & rocky heights combined as picturesquely with sleek fat meadows as the groups of shaggy donkies & fair saxon children. We left them rejoicing in the turmoil of a race-course & Fair & drove away in a sunshine which would do credit to a Transatlantic August & has not yet deserted us. We dined, yesterday, at the loveliest rural inn, half smothered in flowers with such a pretty garden that we resolved to devour our bacon & eggs ‘al fresco,’ but could not resist the attractions of such an in-door arrangement either so compromised the matter by uniting the two. (an open door is a rare luxury [p. 3] in this shady side of the world.) Mary was obliged to resign Bayham Abbey finding it too far for her walking powers. & the road being only free yesterday for pedestrians. Tom & I passed a delicious half hour under its mouldering arches, sketching some of its richest masses of stones & ivy which clings over the former with an intensity of affectation always touching & beautiful. It keeps alive a human interest in these lone, desolate places, for it recalls so many images that came near our hearts – such as Ruth supporting her aged kinswoman, or a Soeur de Charité doing the last kind offices – or any love that is stronger than death. It is less perfect than many Abbeys I have seen in England, but, like them all, is nestled in the loveliest country in the lap of the softest turf kept green by a stream which seems to ripple audible Aves. These luxurious monks might well resign the rest of the world after appropriating its fairest corners. We enjoyed our afternoon drive highly thro’ a country increasingly various & fertile, - hollowed out into valleys brimming over with plenty, or heaped into slopes of a green other countries only dream of. We slept at [crossed out: Battle] Robert’s bridge very comfortably in a quaint old inn with no two rooms on the same level, & this mn’g proceeded hither where we are at a large very grand Hotel within a stone’s throw of the lazily-falling waves. Mary [p. 4] has not quite made up her mind to like the congregation of townish houses & people & seems to relish so much rolling over smooth roads that it is doubtful if we shall be very stationary any where. We passed thro’ Battle & bestowed fit sympathy on poor Harold & great admiration on the stately Abbey over his grave. I congratulate you & every body at Plumstead on Mr Scott’s return & shall, on Sunday, think of its blessed fruits with some envy. I am more thankful than I can express for every fraction of his spirit I have with me, as also for Mr Erskine’s little book which has enough living truth in its few pages to scatter every mist of theological sophistry into thin air & to warm thro’ the “thick-ribbed ice” which so often encases man’s religion – I cannot tell you how shocked I was at Seven Oaks with a sermon I heard under its noble old church. The very stones seemed more full of life than the clergyman’s well-balanced tones & sentences & after Mr Scott’s Paul-like fervor & Mr Campbell’s John-like tenderness it seemed to me the man must be an atheist or a machine. And yet alas, it was very like many other sermons I have listened to in this country & listened to as impatiently as wonderingly. How can so many living souls feed on corruption? on the dead letter, I mean, for it so sounds when the man has not lived the truths he preaches – but the limits of my paper warn we how limited is my knowledge – may my charity be less so! With us comparatively few preach, for a profession merely, so I am unaccustomed to this languid utterance of realities almost too awful for any words. Ronald vociferates famously with the aid of his new teeth; tried to embrace the sea when he saw it, & has his Saxon blood in a ferment to-day; probably from [p. 1 cross] the associations of the ‘locale’! Miss Sedgwick begged to be remembered to you in a letter the last steamer brought me. Pray give much love from me to the dear inmates of the cottage on the lane to whom I shall soon write.
Robert, Molly & my brother send the same to you & them. The Babes many sweet kisses –
With much affection yr
Fanny E.A.
Is not this heat as welcome as a foe turned friend? The East to you, to me the West but the same in kind & home – memories.
Archives Number: 1011/002.001-011#020
U. S. National Park Service
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Courtesy of National Park Service, Longfellow House-Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site; Archives Number 1011/002.001-011#020
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Correspondence (1011/002), (LONG-SeriesName)
, Letters from Frances Longfellow (1011/002.001), (LONG-SubseriesName)
, 1841 (1011/002.001-011), (LONG-FileUnitName)
, Letters from Frances Longfellow (1011/002.001), (LONG-SubseriesName)
, 1841 (1011/002.001-011), (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
08/20/1841
Manuscript letter in Frances Appleton Longfellow Papers, Series II. Correspondence, A. Outgoing, 1841. (1011/002.001-011#020)
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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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