File:Frances (Appleton) Longfellow to Anne Longfellow Pierce, 3 May 1855 (a108f9c2-e1f4-4529-af6e-60806e4db396).jpg

Manuscript letter

Archives Number: 1011/002.001-025#007

Cambridge May 3d / 55
Dear Anne,
You will be amazed at seeing my handwriting so soon again, but, after receiving your note, I felt impelled to relieve your mind at once of some of its unpleasant feelings towards Mr B. Do not be alarmed & think we regret your frankness. On the contrary, I think that is a quality there can hardly be too much of, especially between relatives, & we are grateful [p. 2] to you for your warning & will be on our guard.
But I wish to tell you that Mr B. & Louly, not succeeding in finding lodgings in Brooklyn, decided to get them here, & Henry had in fact engaged rooms for her at John Owen’s, & the were all put in order, & when Mr B. sailed it was there he supposed she would be until his return, but, at the last moment Henry thought it best to bring her here. She also has evidently never dreamed of burthening you at Portland, knowing Aunt Lucia’s state of health, but has always [p. 3] talked of lodgings & thinks of running down some day with Henry to look at some. Mr B. returns in June, & after depositing her there, is obliged I believe, to go South. She has grown more mature & sensible than I expected to find her (I mean common-sense-ible) but has certainly rather extravagant habits, & he has had many business troubles from her account. She seems very precise about her own funds & I should think might have a good influence upon him in that way – except in her liking for pretty things. She has a very nice girl for nurse, who attends to her room as my [p. 4] chambermaid has quite as much to do as her strength will allow, & except in her rather too free use of it as a nursery (poor Louly will have her baby to sleep with her tho’ it keeps her awake all night & she is not well just now expecting another by the autumn I imagine) I have nothing to complain. Henry enjoys her music, & I find her more sociable & with less of that supercilious air I thought she had when I first saw her as a young girl.
Willy got thro’ his part pretty well & I suppose feels greatly relieved. Lowell has just presented me with his wife’s poems with a photograph portrait & these lines on the blank page:
“I search no dells for fresher flowers today:
Accept this bunch of amaranth blooms for May.”
Is that not pleasant? They are all [p. 1 cross] most sweet & fragrant with that peculiar delicacy & grace of feeling in them she showed in every thing she touched. We are beginning to look quite Mayish. Now I wish you could come tho’ I cannot offer you a bed but I might a sofa.
With love to Aunt Lucia
Yr affte
Fanny.

• Keywords: correspondence; long archives; frances e. a. longfellow papers (long 20257); frances elizabeth (appleton) longfellow; people; document; social life; family life; subject; Correspondence (1011/002); (LONG-SeriesName); Letters from Frances Longfellow (1011/002.001); (LONG-SubseriesName); 1855 (1011/002.001-025); (LONG-FileUnitName)