File:Frances (Appleton) Longfellow to Anne Longfellow Pierce, 19 March 1852 (90952adb-a743-44aa-8db5-c2932ac992d9).jpg

Manuscript letter

Archives Number: 1011/002.001-022#008

Cambridge March 19th
Dear Annie,
Your note from Augusta, with its enclosure, safely arrived, & tomorrow we shall do our best to execute the commission & at the same time find something pretty & useful for our own gift. I am afraid I cannot get a pitcher like mine as I have never seen one like it in the shops, &, by the mark on it, think it must be English, of rather an ancient pattern, but if we can see nothing as graceful [p. 2] it can no doubt be copied. You know the shape of these things changes every few years as of every thing else.
I think I shall send a dish for butter, if I can find one to my mind, for in the country tea is a more important meal than dinner, & a soup ladle is usually only plated.
So all your fears & misgivings about fires were prophetical! We were very thankful it was no worse, & that you bore it so well, but are very glad this visit to Augusta came so à propos to relieve your mind. I wrote Sam yesterday, for [p. 3] tomorrow’s steamer, of the fire & the wedding & told him I did not know whether the bridegroom was a Unitarian clergyman but took it for granted he was! – but on asking Henry he says probably not – so little do I know of Sophia’s religious creed, & I have always thought of Dr Nichols as moulding all the young minds in his neighborhood. I wish we could be with her but do not see how we can make it out. I have at present so lame a back from rheumatism that I can hardly walk. Baby has just come in very rosy from her walk. The boys have begun dancing lessons under the same master who taught [p. 4] me, who has lost neither agility nor grace.
I have a lovely bunch of snow drops on my table I wish I could send you. How their little tender heads ever pierced the frozen crust is a wonder, a yearly miracle, but in sunny spots there are some signs of life & Spring – as in the hardest hearts some charity.
Why don’t you accompany the bridal pair to B & so get a longer rest from nervous fears. I wish you would
ever yr loving
Fanny E.L.

• Keywords: correspondence; long archives; frances e. a. longfellow papers (long 20257); frances elizabeth (appleton) longfellow; people; document; family life; health and illness; social life; subject; Correspondence (1011/002); (LONG-SeriesName); Letters from Frances Longfellow (1011/002.001); (LONG-SubseriesName); 1852 (1011/002.001-022); (LONG-FileUnitName)