File:Frances (Appleton) Longfellow to Anne Longfellow Pierce, 31 August 1849 (806efa08-50c7-426f-8f37-4c6deaad1c04).jpg

Manuscript letter

Archives Number: 1011/002.001-019#023

Craigie Castle.
Friday
Dearest Anne,
I thought you would like a line from me, perhaps, before the week ended, altho’ Henry has announced our safe arrival home. We were very fortunate in our day for returning, having no dust nor cinders, & reached my Aunts just in time for dinner, enjoying, not a little, the quiet & coolness of her mansion after the heat & crowd. We met my Uncle Wm there, & passed a delightful afternoon, the children in ecstasies with her fountain, which throws up a gilded ball very prettily. We took the cool of twilight to return home, & [p. 2] found our beloved Craigie Castle in good order to welcome us. I always return with fresh affection to its walls, for, besides their inheritance form the past, they are already filled with precious & endearing memories.
Everything is as green as June, & the garden a perfect blaze of protulaceas, petunias, & coreopsis. This warm week I have hardly stirred from our cool & spacious Library, and the country quiet is so delicious, I find myself sitting still merely to enjoy it. The children flit about like humming birds, wild with delight at their recovered freedom, & do not suffer from the heat at all, tho’ there is a great contrast from your [p. 3] delicious atmosphere. But they tell us it has been much cooler before this, so I imagine you also have some of this sultriness, which I hope will give mother long & pleasant drives. I trust she has been strengthened to sustain the beautiful Christian cheerfulness & calmness she had while we were with you. It was a lesson I shall never forget, & seemed to bring the very atmosphere of heaven, of peace & holy joy within your house. It soothed & strengthened me as I have not been for a long while, as did the whole of Father’s illness I was allowed to witness, & thus I trust will his loss be sanctified to all of us. I consider it a great privelige [sic] to have ben with you at this time, & shall always cherish the remembrance of those holy [p. 4] days. I hope, dear Anne, you have been enjoying the refreshment of Baldwin this week, & will return with new strength to your noble duties. Sam’s sermon remains upon my table & will, till he claims it.
Our domestic machinery is getting into order. We have a venerable man-servant on trial, who seems capable, respectfull [sic] & very lively for his years. He reminds me of Henry’s little taxidermist, & hops about in the most original habilements. I went, yesterday, to see my friend Mrs James Lowell, who has a new baby, a girl, of a few weeks. She says Aunt Sally is about the same. Mrs Patten has artfully exchanged her calf for a female one from Mr Cushings, so we shall have another cow in time. I found an invitation to dine with the Scientific Association every day during their stay – ten in all. It must have been rich feasting for the Faculty [p. 1 cross] ladies. Sumner passed Sunday with us. The chicks send much love & many kisses to Grandmama & Erny often says he would like to dance to her. They wish they could be both there & her too. Felton has lost his mother-in-law since our return, by dysentery. Mrs Whitney I mean. Much love to mother, Aunt Lucia, Maria, Anne Sophia, & the boys. Yr affte Fanny

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