File:Frances (Appleton) Longfellow to Emmeline (Austin) Wadsworth, 29 May 1841 (80deb43d-d992-4f16-920c-10de2a09eb00).jpg

Manuscript letter

Archives Number: 1011/002.001-011#010

London. May 29th 841.
Dearest Em,
I have been at my old, & yet new, trick of wishing for you, & so, as consolation for its inutility, will begin an epistle as our good steamer goes in a few days; bringing back, by the way, your friend Mrs Rogers who has just been here but whose ‘infant phenomenon’ I have not seen. À propos of infants, how your mania for the wee folk would thrive & luxuriate here! I have been enjoying this warm twilight in the Park, sitting with Tom on a green bench after the sentimental fashion we sometimes indulged in in the Mall, & we were literally knee-deep in children of every age & rank from the tidy, little, strutting patrician to the shoe-less, frock-stained, picturesque “child of the people.” They were frolicking on the grass, plucking daisies, throwing ball, or grouped about their nurses who throng this Park as if it were the only nursery in London. I could not weary of admiring their grace & winning ways to each other; their sprouting notions of patronage, protection &c. All this after an English way too; then their dresses are so various & pretty, babies with huge cockades & cap-frills, & boys with dancing feathers & shining buttons. Ronald is usually one of this merry company but he has accompanied Mary & Robert to Woolwich to-night, where we join them tomorrow to pass Sunday, see a bit of rurality & hear Mr Scott preach. He is Mrs Rich’s pastor par excellence. Tom & I steam it down the Thames in the mn’g in time for service & return hither with them on Monday. Now for my late proceedings which I will give you in a crab-like fashion. Last ev’g Tom & I (Mary being lazy & Rob driving out) went to a soirée at Mr Kemble’s which was delightful in some respects though I must confess I felt dismally lost among so many strangers, having little talk but with my own thoughts the greater part of the ev’g, from this English horreur of introductions & lack of the French bonhomie to speak [p. 2] without, recognizing too, may people I knew there formerly but unwilling to make the first advances thinking it likely I was blotted from their memories long ago. One fat, good-natured old soul Miss Cottin however, I boldly reminded of my existence & she was at once all warmth & brimming over with civility as the English are whenever they do know you. Our manner to each other must seem very frigid & indifferent to them, for I am constantly startled by the warmth with which they grasp my hand & the impressment of an ordinary greeting. Mrs Ticknor has, I think, caught it from her English friends for I believe she had it not naturally? Kenyon has it to a heart-warming degree & you can believe how welcome his ruddy face was to me last night after vainly seeking an old friend. He is as brisk & chatty as every but is too kind to every-body to bestow much upon one. Par exemple, he poured forth a flood of civil speeches expressive of his pleasure at seeing me, that he had come on purpose &c & then dashed off to faire l’aimable to a Dowager. Mary says he is very American in his way of talking, so rapid & cramming so much into a short time, for most Englishmen wont take the trouble to give you there ideas & never care to entertain, dropping out there easy, careless sentences when the spirit moves them only. But they rather relish an eager enquiring spirit in a stranger, from its novelty & Milnes told Tom that Sumner won so much regard from this mainly. He was there last night but I caught but a hasty glimpse of his profile when Tom was talking to him, who says he performed divers affectations in the way of beating time to Miss Kemble’s singing with his arms raised &c. He thinks him like the Prof in looks. He will probably give you a fine account of his breakfast with a knot of poets, a camaraderie probably to puff each other’s sickly offspring of green tea & soda water. One, with a name to [sic] high water mark for novel reading damsels – Aubrey de Vere! Milnes is [p. 3] the brightest star of the group with wealth & station to ennoble his Muse with, & make her seem courtly if she be but a kitchen-wench. Not that I mean to disparage her, for, to speak à la Stackpole, she has many good points by nature, I think, though she affects the lackadaisacal [sic] unnecessarily perhaps, he being, “l’enfant gaté de la fortune” as one of his fellow bards said over an egg; which dubious compliment you may tell Sumner if you are inclined to give the poor man a scrap of charity. It is all I can do & as this is very innocent food, but manna to him, and if you like the office of almoner you had better dole out whatever notices of his friends here I may stumble upon. I know you like him eno’ for such little kindnesses, beside that they may fill up the pauses, & be assured I wont risk any mention of Basil Montague or Lord Denma to draw down upon you the ‘doleful stoure’ of an inward bruise, for the sound of an oft-repeated idea is like a pressure on a sore spot; a positive internal injury for which alas! there is no panacea. So felt I, when Mr Grey t’other night tried to resuscitate the ghost of a laugh at his galvanized joke of “poor puss…”! But to return from these digressions to the Kembles. There were divers greater folks there than Milnes but I did not find many out. Hallam & Lizts [sic] the pianist, the former stout & with a manly, open countenance & latter slender, leathery pale, with lank hair but a look of genius, were pointed out to me & Mrs Butler introduced me to old Rogers – with rather an appaling speech, disturbing his repose in a secluded boudoir for the purpose. He muttered in an idiotic way his compts pressing my hand continually which I was willing to yield for a firmer grasp thinking he w’d fall to pieces at my feet when he rose, so feebly tottering on this world’s verge seems he & his very gaiety is galvanic. He told Mary he died when he saw Miss Wallace but it could not have been for the first time. Miss Kemble’s person & voice have expanded wondrously since I saw her & have become Italianized. She sings with immense vigor & prima donna effect & her classic brows & Kemble eyes aid it finely but her voice [p. 4] has not the mellow richness of a true Italian one ripened into sweetness by that climate like their grapes -, yet it must tell much on the stage & it is most skillfully managed. Mrs B. seemed wrapt in admiration of her sister’s voice & looks and she herself is looking her best, & has much more ease of manner in a society where she is immensely caressed & feels now at home, her husband’s presence rendering her position more agreeable here than it has ever been before, but he pretends to be weary of such unceasing dissipation where he says they can make no discrimination without giving offence. We have been wilting under such heat lately that I rejoiced we were free from invites, having accomplished last week only a family dinner-party at the Wedgwoods, tickets for Rachel being unprocurable. We must get them for her benefit next Friday – though I have one fine impression of her so strongly cased in “the amber of memory” that I hardly care to gain a new one. On Wednesday was the Derby day at Epsom. Mary had not courage for it, but I, finding I should have the company of a nice damsel & a cousin of Robert’s, Miss Gifford, neice [sic] of Lady Alderson & now on a visit to her, resolutely entrusted myself & Tom to R’s driving thither in our little, low phaeton whose innocent appearance should have plead in its favor with the merciless frequenters of race-courses, but, as the youngest boy at school is apt to become fag to all the rest, so all the dashing chariots with gay-jacketed postillions [sic] & coroneted hammercloths & the huge coaches of the ‘4-in-hand-Club’ showed divers aristocratic intentions of running us down, or cutting us out of file, when the press of vehicles became severe, which it does for 3 long miles before you arrive there – keeping one’s nerves in a somewhat uncomfortable state of tension. There was a greater gathering than usual & it was a magnificent show of the human & brute creation (they almost unite at such places) but nothing w’d induce me to undergo again that 3-mile-terror- [p. 5] Poor Miss Gifford was dreadfully frightened & had cause, for horses were champing at her bonnet & the pole of a carriage behind, nearly impaled us; nothing but Robert’s admirable driving saved us from accidents for all London on one road, constantly arrested & crammed together by toll-gates, makes an awful mass of life, as you can suppose, but, luckily, the horses are so well trained that they obeyed checking to a hair as was very necessary. The army of horsemen (mostly wearing veils ludicrous effect!) scampering over the fields was a pretty part of the show & next to the horses I was in admiration of the good looks of the riders, for “England & the English” certainly bear the palm for physical beauty of all kinds, - but such intellectual features, as Motley’s for instance, I have not seen yet. At the Kembles, where literary people were chiefly, Tom & I were struck with the snobbish looks & air of the men – Tom Davis’ squeaking prototype Charley was there, of whom it might be said, as it was of Mrs Jameson by a waggish friend of Mac’s, “his hair will be re(a)d long after his books.” The running at Epsom, where we safely arrived at last, was beautiful & well seen by us from the grand stand, above the reach of rabblement & thimble-riggers. I held my breath with awe (odd feeling as that may seem for a race-course) when I saw these lithe graceful creatures dropping as easily over the velvet turf as if it were a free exercise of their limbs, & thought in that instant of time what a concentration of doubt, hope, dismay, perhaps [crossed out: ruin] despair, was agitating the thousands of human hearts swarming on that plain. And a hoarse murmur, like that of the sea, arose from the gleaming crowds – as the tides of feeling rose & fell. The stakes were very heavy & bets too calculably disastrous for the Favorite (Coronation) won the Derby & few bet on the favorite. The return in the cool of the ev’g (for we have had our July sun & heat) was delightful, - thro’ the green hedge-rows, & by pretty villas whose occupants were all out to gaze upon us & it grew very tiresome to run the gauntlet of so many human faces, handsome though they were & staring at us most graciously. Such a day crushes out all personality so lamentably that our vanity cries aloud in its agony for little Peddlington! But enough of Epsom –
[p. 6] We had a charming visit to Mrs Jameson the other day. Found her in a snug little house just beyond Kensington gardens. & in a snug little room most artistically lumbered up, with birds & boughs peeping in the window. It was her leisure day & she talked in that free, graceful, hearty withal & poetical flow I admired so much in America, - her rich, full mind & heart brimming over at her lips, in the sweetest tones too. It was an intellectual treat I long to renew. She discoursed much upon animal magnetism & the equal tenor she had in believing or disbelieving it. She says an interest in it has been greatly revived here & many ladies of rank patronise patients! The Bootts drank tea with us lately thro’ a terrible thunder-storm, - & the old lady & I talked over Boston people together, - she chanted your praises in fullest measure. Mary Boott has grown up a stylish, pretty, knowing damsel & all the other children are lovely – but I forget that you know them not.
May 31st I have just returned from Woolwich, my darling, & not caring to encounter this warm sun in the Park till later will inflict further torture on your martyred eyes. I kiss their lids for pardon. There is the strangest medley of sounds in my ear, birds trilling as joyously as if they were ‘alone in wood so gay,’ &, likewise, the heavy & continual rumble of town equipages dragging lounging fashionables thro’ their daily round. Ah if you were here I would send our alert Oliver Twist for the phaeton & we [crossed out: we] should stumble along too, returning stare for stare, & you should admit Englishwomen can dress well & English men be seen by thousands & steal never a bit of the heart of 2 fastidious Americaines! & you should see how much lovelier than either are the beasts they rule & the Earth they trample underfoot. What would I not do to astonish & delight yr weak mind had I you but in arm’s reach, but I care not for it alone – “man delights not me, nor women either,” for I am piqued to show disdain to quench Mary’s English prejudices! You would laugh at her whole-sale denuncia [p. 7] tions of Americanisms, her just & vigorous mind having grasped with satisfaction the broad, manly traits of English character with its easy, strong developments of strict moral culture she forgets, I think, it is more prominent because ever fighting with vice, whereas with us it grows spontaneously & needs not to say ‘me voiçi’ continually. But I will tell you what a nice Sunday we passed at Woolwich. Steaming down the river is highly amusing with the constant rushing by of steamboats crowded with cockneys airing themselves all along shore, the picturesque huddle of brown oddly shaped houses on either bank of muddy Father Thames, Somerset House trying to look Venetian & the Tower & St Pauls looming high in air above them, the sweeping under the many noble bridges with the dropping of our chimney under each successive arch, like the statues head in Don Giovanni, & picking our way through the bristling forests of shipping here congregated. We had a passing look at Greenwich’s magnificent Palace for England’s victims (much happier I should fancy by their own fire-sides, heroes of their own villages, than ‘packed up here in a glist’ring grief’ of splendid discomfort) & arrived at W. in time to hear Mr Scott preach a sermon of strong original thought & feeling which was more soul-satisfying to me than I hoped to find this side the water. He is patronized by Mrs Rich & her friend Miss Fanter – (a sensible, pious woman I like to hear talk) but, being a dissenter, only gets an audience in this small chapel where they come every Sunday to hear him, - having there, on a lovely, rural hill-side, a nice little cottage where we were all packed for the nonce, Mary, Baby & I in the same room. Our afternoon loll on the grass of the Common, talking dawdlingly of divers topics, recalled Stockbridge &, as usual, I longed to take you up the hill thro’ sweet-smelling hedgerows, (where we met quantities of red-coats with their lassies sentimentalizing over stiles & thro’ winding lanes) & hear you exclaim at the glorious view thereupon [crossed out: of] an ocean of verdure below, softened, as it always is here, by silvery mists, & the broad, winding Thames – freighted with vessells, the main artery of the mighty heart beyond – St Paul’s betraying it – [p. 8] tell me if I tire you with descriptions of things you have never seen. Travellers [sic] are apt to fall into the error that what strengthens their own impression, namely talking about it, must, perforce, inspire another into second sight. Tell me what to write you about; things or people or myself mainly; of the latter I have surfeited you so sorely at home that I feel remorse to do it here. When we are quiet in the country I may enlarge upon opinions which spring up here &c if you care to hear them. Mrs Rich I am fast getting to love. She is a very rare old woman’ such strength of head & heart, such vigour of body too, & what I was not prepared for, such liberality & justness of feeling – particularly on religious matters. She is neither Episcopal, nor Calvanist [sic], but has an open ear to every-thing that is good, far-reaching & true under whatever name. She pets Ronald even more than Fanny Wedgwood who has chicks of her own to attend to. It is useless to describe to you the Bab’s many fascinations, - they are as shifting as sunlight, - but good-nature is the most prominent. He is very like Robert at times. I hardly feel, yet, that he belongs to Mary, - for, like a sensible mamma, she does not sacrifice all her time to caressing him & the nurse is the true mother of so young a baby. M. seemed so well & strong at Woolwich, invigorated by country air, that in about a fortnight probably, we shall leave this Babel & niche ourselves by some hedge-side. They think of an excursion to Scotland, but later, when they can drop us at Liverpool, en route, going or returning. Woman-like I have put business at the tail of my letter. I looked over Bibles the other day of divers kinds but found none in 2 vols. Now for very good print a large one is essential, but in 1 vol has a cumbersome, family look, bad for travelling &c, &, therefore, I purchase not till informed by you how big you want it – if distinctly in 2 vols (for they will bind one so for me) & whether with the Apocrapha [sic] or not, which important facts I wisely omitted to glean from you.
[p. 9] June 1st Last night, my darling, I went with Mary to a small party at the geologists Mr Lyell, who, with his wife a very pretty pleasing little woman, like Mrs George Dexter, is to pass next winter in Boston & I think will be liked. He is a sort of diminished Spurzheim or Grattan in looks with an expansive brain. It was dark & dingy (they not being very pretentious people) &, tho’ they did not give us stones for bread as I expected, a feeble show of one waiter of lemonade sufficed! These dark parties are good for quiet, comfortable talking, tho’ not for display of dress & complexion, & after our glaring, noisy gatherings, when every one seems conscientiously impelled to pump out as many words as possible I rather like the easy nonchalant air of these. There were many Germanic-looking, scientific foreheads there, probably known to fame in some wise way. I was introduced to Miss Rogers, a plain well-meaning old lady who asked after the Ticknors. We at once struck up a sympathy of admiration upon our Park (Regents) which is her hobby. She kindly invited me to come & see her pictures – which rival her brothers I believe tho’ they have little else in common. I have not yet seen Mac’s cousin Lady Alderson, having refused an invite there for last Saturday, but she is a near neighbor. These distances are so tiresome! Parties dont begin till after 10. & then you drive miles so that half the night is consumed in the streets. Tomorrow night we got to Lady Inglis’ & the Kembles where I hope to feel more at home than before. Thom has gone to get Mr Grey to railroad it to Windsor to see ‘Eton Montem’ but tho’ the Queen is to be there I was too lazy to accompany him having some shopping to do too & a visit to Mrs Stevenson on my conscience. What art about, darling mine? Intending to Ticknorise at the Hole or lead “the life of a caterpillar under a gooseberry bush” (Fanny Kemble th’ot so desirable) in Brookline? Write me every fluctuation of the tides in yr dear brain & heart, let me feel yr pulse in yr letters. for I long to know just how it throbs. Comfort me with every solacing thought that gushes up, in that inner world where, “like Alexander I would right & I would reign alone” till deposed by the true sov’reign if there can be a truer. I am richly blessed here with all my darlings about me & thank God for it sincerely but grow no less exacting of yr love, for it is mine more exclusively than any of these, is more indulgent to my failings, is more my all than Mary’s ever can be again. I cannot spare a drop of it. Check not its overflow for it is precious to me as holy water &, like that, exorcises all evil influences. Dont let Sam stumble on this sentiment; like the ancient mariner I bless you unawares but am jealous of being overheard as when we pray. Give him & yr Father my kind regards, however, & to whoever else you care to disperse them. God continue to bless & preserve you, my treasure, from all manner of evil & sorrow –
ever yr life-bound & true Fan –
[p. 10 top] I send this to Captain Judkins to deliver in person, that he may run a chance of seeing the lady of the cigars whose health was often drunk by him included in the toast “All round the State House” – Again good bye sweet
Mary, Robert & Tom send warmest remembrances –
[p. 10 bottom] Ronald has just made his entrée in your cambric muslin dress which has been nicely made up & is very useful for him this warm weather. I have only sported your cape shawl once (at Lady Coltman’s lunch) but look at it with pleasure as a having been often folded over your heart. That’ll do I think!
[p. 1 cross] Will you please tell Aunt Nat when you see her that Mrs Wormley has just arrived & that I have delivered her box into her own hands.
At Woolwich I heard by moonlight my first nightingale but it was only a lone gurgle hardly audible – like the breathing of the Night it seemed or its subdued hymn to the Moon.
ADDRESSED: MISS E. AUSTIN. / CARE OF SAML AUSTIN / 41 BEACON ST. / BOSTON. U.S. A. / CARD BY CAPT JUDKINS.

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