File:Frances (Appleton) Longfellow to Emmeline (Austin) Wadsworth, 16 July 1840 (a53b47c9-99c5-4a1a-8242-99f744ae0d7e).jpg

Manuscript letter

Archives Number: 1011/002.001-010#015

Newport. July 16th 1840.
My dearest Em,
As Father is going to-day to leave our cool retreat for a peep at your frying-pan town I make him the bearer of a dispatch to thank you for your 2 nice letters which quite reinstated me in Boston again & by your side – listening to tortured flutes & French horns ‘making night hideous’ with the blasé atmosphere of Allyne breathing about instead of this one of healthiest Wordsworthian tone & freshness. Ah I wish I could cork up for you a dozen bottles of it to perfume your chamber withal; better than eau de mille fleurs tho’ that forms an essence of it. The thermometer, to be sure, has been near 80 for the last few days but we are visited at this exposed corner by all the airs of heaven & of the sea & consequently have none of that debilitating fade heat we find even in the streets of Newport. I am exceedingly sorry to hear that the North gives such a rough welcome to your good brother Edward; give him my condolences & good wishes that he & his cough may soon be ‘excellent strangers.’ I should doubt whether Northampton were a very good locale for a person afflicted in this way – the excessive dampness & vapours rising from the river making all night exposure so dangerous. He had better renew acquaintance with worth Mr Galpin for Stockbridge air is said to be a sovereign remedy for all pulmonary complaints. I read with pleasure that you enjoyed so fully that delicious moonshine on Friday for by a very agreeable coincidence that very night I was likewise driving with my brother drinking in the soothing benediction of that poetical mistiness. (I will out do you in Fullerisms any day) & remarking how distances [p. 2] enlarged in that half obscurity. I thought we were reaching the verge of all things before our white castle loomed in sight. Such nights affect me like reading Ossian & we have had many more glorious since – the golden Moon rising out of the sea directly en face of us & shimmering over the water & upon our piazza with the radiance of upper heaven, touching into life, like Ithuriel’s shining spear, many hidden thoughts that become alone phosphorescent under such influences & burn with the light of the past rather than the present. The Moon is a great resurrectionist but handles graves gently so that we look on the corpses forced to revisit her glimpses with less shuddering than serene & solemn wonder, marvelling [sic] that such once had such glowing life & feasted & made merry in our hearts & were our daily boon companions & seemed so a part of our identity & are now (thank God some of them) such unfamiliar faces there. But I wont dose you with Laura Matilda isms. The drive I mentioned above was the return from a delightful visit to Dr Channing in his lovely little nest so like an English parsonage in its sweet seclusion from the high way, pretty arrangement of shrubbery & lawn, flowers peeping out in unexpected corners & old-fashioned, vine-draped house more picturesque than comfortable with its low ceilings & “zoological smell of mice” as Lady Bulwer says. I like so much to see him there, looking like an old rat himself mousing about in its quiet nooks, moralizing so poetically on the [crossed out: the] gentle influences about him so much more in harmony with the refined delicacy of his nature than those midst the shock of men - & appearing less physically feeble & contemptible in his easy dress & large straw hat than when in his mummy-like city bandages. Mary was away sailing with 2 Philadelphia youths on the river & Madame like a large old cat sat [p. 3] purring sleepily in the corner. Tom’s horse undertook to be a little restive at departure & it was a caution to see the dear little Dr trying to hold his bride & nearly precipitated thro’ his own hedge by the greater animal strength of the inferior beast. So easily might the Sun of Unitarianism have been quenched – that is the body-cloud which feebly contains it. Your guesses about our occupations were just a week too early for last Saturday the targets were erected in very nice position & I am improving à ravir. Tom recalls the days when he massacred squirrells [sic] in any quantity with arrows & gave a cruel proof of his deadly aim the other day by killing a darling little freewit with a stone which I held still warm in my hand & wept over as Eve is supposed to in Powers’ statue. To do him justice he little imagined it would take such effect. The murder of an unedible bird gives one the original Cain-like shudder – a joyous, innocent life quenched which no mortal skill can illume – like the taking a single life when masses in battle excite less horror. Mrs Barclay & Sumner they say are flirting here but there is no [rep]ort of any-thing serious. Serious enough it would be to him, poor man! such a Kanteppe with a dozen children nearly. Mrs A. is waiting for stronger proof to call. Pleasant sister-in-law if Mr Charles made himself fascinating! Yesterday, on returning the Harper’s visit we stumbled on Sarah an arrayed in white flounced up to her knees (her Mother says “Miss Parker cant live in black this weather”) with a black chain & cross suspended from her waist & black streamers of all lengths coat-plastered about her, - such a figure! but very pretty through it all. Luckily she dislikes Newport so we shall be soon quit of her. Saratoga is her true element, this is too tame. I have seen Sophy T. but once, having missed her the last time I was in town, & that same day she went to N. York to have her teeth put in order, the first step before going abroad which good resolution (going in the Brittannia I mean) I helped her to decide – as she was not well & [p. 4] her spirits need, much, a change. Wm Middleton hinted that her cousin was like to be related more nearly – he has been here but I cant think wishes to marry her & fear much is flirting villainously. I hope he wont go abroad with her for she will have a better chance with the young Captain. He has one of those faces (like Henry Middleton’s & some others I have known) which always puzzle me – not quite too sanctified to be suspicious of hypocrisy & yet enough so to hide either the best qualities or the worst, - high, white foreheads soft but not straight forward-looking eyes &c. Miss Harper is more talkative than when in Italy & being our nearest neighbor we shall probably see something of her but I never took an especial fancy to her à vrai dire. Her brother’s widow seems a nice little body – but the old woman sports the most marvellous [sic] perruque that ever disfigured a female visage if any-thing so hideous can be artificial. Did you ever drive to the southernmost shore of the island? The grandeur of the rocks & surf there surpass any thing at Nahant I think - & the views thence in every direction are worthy Vernet’s painting. Such ocean-like waves broke on the huge black rocks, throwing massive fountains of spray into the air 100 feet high I should think! We go often, of course to sit on the cliffs near here & at sunset & as Tom, on one such occasion, was inspired to a very sublime impromptu effusion I have got his permission to copy it for you thinking it will please you as original & spirited. It was all literally scribbled while we were sitting there, on the back of a note as is his wont & has the freshness of the salt air therefore in it. I am desperately hurried as dinner is hastened for Papa. Will you be kind eno to purchase for me a pretty parasol of the large sort tastefully covered as my old one is already much too shabby except for roughest use? N.B. a Will you please do no such thing as I find Mr Hammond has them!! [p. 1 cross] All beg to be remembered to you – poor little Pic is drooping after a dose of caster oil having been invalidish! Good bye Yr aff Fan.
Fanny & I enact mermaidism à ravir our dress with straw hats, defying discovery of our sex & I long to introduce you to our nice rocks & the fresh billows that dash over us daily there.

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