File:Frances (Appleton) Longfellow to Emmeline (Austin) Wadsworth, 16 September 1841 (805b096f-cab4-4026-95bd-57b3a2f2310f).jpg

Manuscript letter

Archives Number: 1011/002.001-011#023

East Bourne. Sep 16th 1841.
Your last bountiful letter, my precious darling, gave me great joy – all I had hoped & prayed that you should gain from your Virginia expedition was fulfilled to my heart’s content & I thank God it turned out such a comfort & refreshment to your soul as well as eyes. Your spirited programme of life at the White Sulphur redoubled my desire to see & enjoy it all so we will keep a visit there as a nice bonne bouche for the future & you shall not find me backward in appreciating every-thing natural & artificial there – except the boiling one –self like an egg & breakfasting with 500 people. Such herding together of humanity which I have borne at home with the martyr like patience peculiar to the American character sounds very oddly in this quietest of English watering-places where I verily believe we might live 6 months without coming within speaking distance of an individual. I must confess I think our sociable ways much more amusing, beside often assisting one to the most agreeable acquaintances possible where there is no hard obligation to be civil to damp the outset. The happy thought has just gushed up that I am writing you for the last time. It seems a very incredible fact to me that in so few weeks I am to be again on board the good Columbia with the difference of an inverted-prow again to risk the perils of the Atlantic & be in your dear arms again with an exchanged joy at finding myself there, [crossed out: tho’] with the conviction, I need not have crossed the sea to secure, that I can never be happier (I may say so happy) elsewhere. My spirit has been so saddened with my poor Mary’s peculiarly distressing state & so depressed that all the good influences of summer & quiet here have not done more for her that I shall never look back upon this visit to England as a very cheering remembrance. altho’ my eyes have not failed to enjoy much at times the lovely [p. 2] things spread so lavishly before them. She has lately taken to homeopathy under Mr Scott’s direction who benevolently ministers to bodies as well as souls & it seems to me such a rational system of action upon the constitution that I have faith it will benefit her much. Of course the effect is very gradual but she already is able to walk further & look better than she has for months, tho’ at this moment suffering with a twinge of her old enemy the Grippe. It was that which put her nerves out of tune & they have jangled ever since. I believe this present trouble is but a variation of the discord. It makes my heart ache to see her so pulled down from her former self – these vile nerves triumphing with the malice of furies over her subdued nature, creating a constant craving for change It is a physical action like some mental ones I have experienced when pain lashes us on as with whips of scorpions & we flatter ourselves to outrun it while it is all the [crossed out: while] time incorporated in us, as our natural ruler. & to that hope succeeds the worse belief that it is as immortal as its victim – till we take breath to feel that there is a merciful Father wounding us & that Christ has said “my peace I give unto you.”
A few days since Tom left us to join Mr Thorndike on a fishing excursion in Scotland. The time was short for such an undertaking but he could not resist the temptation to catch salmon under such a Walton & make the Club bite off their nails in envy at such sport. We find his ever-cheerful society a great loss in our quiet life here & begin to weary of dawdling about this pretty valley staring the sea out of countenance & of reading dog-eared & very antique novels which except still antiquer histories the library alone furnishes in the way of daily manna. I have now to wander alone thro’ shady roads & over velvety downs, but yesterday accomplished a pedestrian feat for which my bones ache still, - viz mounting 3 miles to the summit of Beachy Head where I saw, as Leather-stocking would say, “all creation” from a plain like a shorn prairie for greenness & extend & heard the sea “making sweet music with the enameled stones” some [p. 3] 560 feet below me, as lying on the turf, not trusting my nerves erect, I peeped over the abrupt chalk cliffs; which in themselves are very grand being divided into huge, regular columns as stiff & ghastly as Lot’s wife in her preserved state. Like a group of flies on a pyramid of cream-ice was a party picnicing on the verge of one white mass & tho’ not very anxious to share in their laughter or sandwiches, it might seem so that while sketching them & their locale I had a very fiendish longing to see the chalk yield like cream & they & their dishes perform a flying leap seaward. There is a reading-room here where the men lounge to read the papers & the women to purchase for the sake of buying as we were apt to patronize Mr Hammond’s omnium gatherum. & even the sisters of the Earl of Burlington (whose mansion is hid in woods like the sleeping Princess) show themselves there as freely as nobodies. Tom was vastly struck with their high-bred air - & tries to make me admire the strides they perpetrate in the way of walking & their indifference to betraying a foot of their under petticoats to save the outer from the dust. Robert has a parson friend here a Mr Hughes, - a douce youth who drops in now & then & his Mother is very civil in sending us bouquets almost daily & baskets of fresh figs which I have got to relish as well as peaches. I hardly know what I am writing for Mary has just astounded me with the intelligence that she has decided to return with me after all. I had quite despaired of it she dreaded so much the bustle of a steamer &c & am proportionably overwhelmed with surprise & delight. I dare say the voyage will brace her nerves to bear the welcome from her friends on the other side, as it will gladden Papa’s heart to have his wish acceded to. I long to show off to you the Tunuo’s drolleries – his Punch-like attitudes with his arms, - his vehement discoursing in the unknown tongue, his hour-long heel-rappings &c, &c. Robert enters to announce the arrival of the Columbia – which is next to putting one’s foot on the draw-bridge n’est-ce pas? I believe I never thanked you as I intended for all your kindness to Mary Allen. She is an imitative creature & ambitious of admiration eno’ to profit by seeing [p. 4 bottom] what good breeding is. We shall go next week to London to get Mary ready & pick up Miss Wormley & Tom & I shall endeavor to [crossed out: get] execute your commission of the Bible tho’, for the bracelet, I have not time – beside having hardly a bracelet width of hair left it has been taking French leave at such an appalling rate. Do not expect to see me with an English complexion or contour – 6 months, have not produced any visible change in me – the weather has been of late delicious eno’ to create a soul but mine has only been too much alive to give the body leisure to think of itself & fatten on repose. My gowns give little testimony of expansion but I will do my best on board ship to satisfy your [p. 4 top] kind desires. I suppose you are at home now after cramming your brain with more wisdom under the Ticknorian press than I shall ever accumulate while I possess one. My “dome of thought” is blackened over with so much tallow-smoke that it resists such gas-like illumination of sudden yet steady light. It think of beginning a scraping-process & then starting afresh. But, just now, it seems returned to chars – in so whirly a condition it has been thrown by Mary’s communication so I am but giving you too good cause to rejoice that this is my final scrawl.
[p. 4 cross] 17th I have received just now your Columbia letter, my darling, & thank you from my soul for its thoughtful kindness & disinterested advice. I have kept from you hitherto the painful agitation of my mind on this matter not wishing to [crossed out: pain] dis- [p. 1 cross] tress you with the fluctuation of my decisions – I have felt my presence so needful to Mary while she was in her weakest state that I had pretty much resolved to remain even without Father’s permission if she continued to find me an important solace. But as he has given me no such leave & she is so much better [crossed out: that] I do not feel myself justified in prolonging my visit – for I cannot forget how hard it came to him to grant it at all & I am [crossed out: too] therefore anxious to fulfill my promise of returning to the letter. I need not say my darling, how many thoughts of you have made this a trying decision to me; where there are nearly equal reasons for & against it is difficult to see the rightest right – I have spoken of Mary’s returning with me & have not time to write you another letter, or should not send this, for she is again doubtful & you must all be left in suspense till we reach your shores. Her mind cannot be forced & deciding is such a wearisome necessity that I can understand her desire to postpone it as long as may be – I rejoiced at your account of Frank’s promise of strength & health & hope it will not die with the present cause but renew his whole nature. How little men appreciate the blessed resource they have always open of action to stifle mental over-action. But I am hurried to a close, so again good bye dearest – soon to say so no more I trust –
I am ever yr true friend
Fanny E.A.
ADDRESSED: MISS AUSTIN.

• Keywords: correspondence; long archives; frances e. a. longfellow papers (long 20257); frances elizabeth (appleton) longfellow; people; document; places; europe; england; Correspondence (1011/002); (LONG-SeriesName); Letters from Frances Longfellow (1011/002.001); (LONG-SubseriesName); 1841 (1011/002.001-011); (LONG-FileUnitName)