File:Frances (Appleton) Longfellow Emmeline (Austin) Wadsworth, 25 July 1859 (d3ec0edf-5c35-4cba-91fe-68dba47dd10f).jpg

Manuscript letter

Archives Number: 1011/002.001-029#011

Nahant July 25th 1859.
Dearest Emmeline,
I was so glad to hear from Mary that, at last, she had the happiness of seeing you, and I hope your stay in London was not so brief as she feared it would be. It seemed a long way to go to Switzerland, before you & your boys could rest, after so much travelling, & you could have found some delicious nooks near London, but comparatively uninteresting, of course, compared to the former. Your meeting Murray & Motley must have been very pleasant. What a dreadful experience the Perkins’ have had! it must have shaken their nerves [p. 2] & haunted their memories for a long time. Mary Parkman has a letter from Sarah Cleveland, and she says, I hear, in it that Mrs Doane is again quite insane, tho’ I did not understand in consequence of this, but rather fortunately before (which caused them to select Perugia for quiet) & therefore she did not notice the horror of their trial. Mrs Perkins was the one who came out of her usual quiet & appealed to these brigands for mercy. It is too disgraceful for the Pope to honor, as he has done, the leader of such a massacre in which women are the chief victims.
We are enjoying quietly our seaside cottage, & leading the laziest life imaginable. The hotel being in different hands does not seem to attract many, of our acquaintance, & there seems is little life [p. 3] from that quarter, which to me is a great comfort, for I dislike much the bore of hunting up people there.
We lounge in the hammock, reading Tennyson’s new poem, which is very fine & well-sustained in grace & power, but without the rich fancy of his youth, - or walk under the willows which temper the morning sun, & where the sea & distant headlands make between each a picture, - & in the afternoon the usual drive over the foaming beach & along the Swampscott shore always green with showers –
It is dull enough compared with the splendors you are seeing, if in Switzerland, but there is the grand old Sea, always monarch, however tamely surrounded.
The children so enjoy every thing that I see with their eyes - & enter [p. 4] into their wild delight & freedom in this place, whether picking berries among the wild roses around the cottage, or bathing from our little beach, where even little Annie frolics like a mermaid, or rowing over the rosy sea, at sunset, with their papa. They are all as brown as gypsies but in fine health. Charlie, as usual, lives in his boat, & the other day enticed a pretty young lady to a sail, which was quite an adventure for him – I hear the Martins are here & shall go to see them.
Mr Choate’s death fills the newspapers with mortuary eloquence. More honor seems to be paid him than to Mr Prescott – showing how dear a lawyer is to our people, but as I cannot forgive him his famous saying of the “glittering generalities” - & other swears at good things, they seem exaggerated to me. He seems to have fascinated young men especially, but his clergyman Dr Adams has almost a ludi [p. 1 cross] crous bathos in his praise. Margaret Chadwick was married lately quietly in town, & will be here bye & bye. Sally Butler is engaged to a Mr Wistar of Phil. I hope a good match for her.
Tom has returned from his fishing tour with Darley to Moosehead Lake, & has now Kensett here, as the former is absorbed with his fiancée Miss Colburn of Cambridge Mrs Amory & he find this slow & will go off to Newport – Lilly Lodge has been brought down here & they now hope for a speedy recovery. Mrs Agassiz has lost her father since her departure. Write me often. Yr loving
Fanny E.L.

• Keywords: correspondence; long archives; frances e. a. longfellow papers (long 20257); frances elizabeth (appleton) longfellow; document; family life; united states; ma; nahant; Correspondence (1011/002); (LONG-SeriesName); Letters from Frances Longfellow (1011/002.001); (LONG-SubseriesName); 1859 (1011/002.001-029); (LONG-FileUnitName)