File:Frances (Appleton) Longfellow to Francis Lieber, 12 June 1840 (a2534475-f327-4756-bf9d-0f7246671092).jpg

Manuscript letter

Archives Number: 1011/002.001-010#014

Boston June 12th 1840.
I know hardly any one, amico mio, whose rejoicing will echo mine more sincerely than yours at the blessed news of Mary’s safe arrival on the other side of the water for you have known the feverish anxiety we felt during this limbo of time when those we are thinking of so constantly and associating with innumerable possible disasters (as if guardian angels floated not as much over the sea as over dry land) yet seem not to be in existence a ship enfolding a little better one than poor Mahomet in his suspended coffin – you know what I mean & how the first written line brings a gush of comfort as would a token from the world of spirits. This only applies I think to over-sea journeying. The steamer Unicorn our first direct communication by steam with Great Britain brought me a long letter detailing amusingly her ship-life & company - & full of the exhilaration of excellent health & a very agreeable passage of only 23 days (but 17 from land to land) her excessive enjoyment of which comforts me particularly with the hope that her great aversion to the sea is fairly conquered (as what aversions are not in her present state of amiability with every person & every thing) & that she will be more willing to return speedily – if but for a visit. That is a matter on which you question me & which I cannot answer. Their plans were wholly undecided when they left; they had not settled down upon any-thing so common-place as a plan which requires moderate happiness to make its great importance manifest. Do you think we shall cut up heaven into lots or measure eternity by plans or distinctly conjecture what we shall do centuries in advance as we now do months? Je crois que non. So all feelings which hint strongly to us the probability of immortality partake of this vagueness – of connection with purely material bonds, such [p. 2] as time & above all plans. Excuse this little dash of sentiment in Mary’s behalf. I know as well as you in your lean Professorship that people cant nourish mortal bodies on manna now-a-days – or such food as they get from heaven only – but must grind their own mill. which Mackintosh is a wise man enough to desire most earnestly to do and speedily – but this visit to England must decide whether it is to be done there, or here, or Heaven knows where. He has many warm & useful friends in Engd & by their advices & the wishes of his family he will probably be influenced in this matter for Mary, I fear, is too little of an American to insist upon this country if he is any wise disinclined thereunto, and I cannot but think would be happier in the London society his connections open to them than elsewhere. Your friend Sumner gives charming accounts of Mac’s friends & the warm attachments of many distinguished people there to him. He, by the way, is, I imagine, tant soit peu gaté by the great civilities he has met with in England, at least for his own happiness & contendedness in this limited society & sphere. He talks very agreeably of all the great people he has seen & has anecdotes innumerable about them at his tounge’s end. Has he any-thing in his head beside a marvellous [sic] memory - & a quantity of musty law-learning hanging to it – to give him such a renown & astonishing success? As you think somewhat unkindly of my friend Mrs Butler you must excuse the doubts implied in this concerning your friend! Do you like him as a law-library of as a man? as a person of creditable study & application or as a genius, - an individual of soul, mind or heart beyond the common? I only ask these questions because I have heard him extolled so highly & it is painful to discover ones self lacking discrimination or appreciation of excellence & tho’ a warm friend you are a sincere one & will enlighten me perhaps upon [p. 3] the why you like Mr Sumner, so unlike you as he seems to me, so anti-German, anti-aesthetical anti the man who wears rings sentimentally from young ladies & mourns their losses pathetically. I can’t fancy your friend writing sonnets to his mistress’ eye-brow” can you? – or henceforward admiring any-body whose name was’nt preface with a Lord or a Lady – Forgive me, - I was saucy by accident. Tis not my custom. I eschew gossipy & scandal & insinuations – but friendship you know is a sort of Temple of Truth in which we say unconsciously any thing. À propos of sauciness Mrs Gossler has been amusing us with the very little change 10 years of married life & 5 children have effected in her temperament & ways. The deviltry of her youth is somewhat softened but still she is a drôle de femme. Her relations have been very kind to her – but I doubt if there is much love lost between them. Gossler entre nous (Gustave) is quite amused at the sudden recognition of his existence in the family. They have just left for Niagara & the West & intend sailing from here in a steamer some time in July. She is a brave Mother to leave 5 children so many months & looks so very juvenile it is difficult to believe she has two children old enough to correspond with her. We are enjoying just such moon-lit, balmy nights as when you were a nightly sitter on our balcony & shall not leave for Newport till the fogs lift there about the 1st of July. Mrs Newton & Oakey are wandering about here in a state of supremest content with themselves, she is, as you well say, ‘bravely in love’ & seems to be crossed by none of the doubts & fears a person of her experience might be a little disenchanted by; they are wedded a week from this coming Thursday Olivia is at home; they make a beautiful group, which must make poor Mrs S. sad to contemplate – so scattered as it is. I drank tea the other night with Fanny Brooks in her villeggiatura which she likes immensely as [p. 4 bottom] she does every-thing by the help of those magnifying glasses God has graciously set in her head – or heart. She was very rosy with health & a pink sun-bonnet & spoke with as kindling an eye of her rural avocations, as of her classic ones in Rome. She will have immortal youth. I wonder you should fancy there is any coldness toward you there – that is not in her nature towards those she has once liked or indeed toward any-body. It is hardly complimentary eno’ to our vanity to be one of her friends. He, you know, is an odd fish, - speaks very bluntly – but means well & is the best hearted creature au fond. Mistrust not your friends, unless you have enough to spare. I like a notion of Coleridge’s (Plato’s before [p. 4 top] him probably) that they become through influence & sympathy a part of us linked indissolubly with our identity “filiations of our souls” as he mystically expresses it. I wish your children were here to enjoy a charming fête Mr Cushing gives soon for his son’s birth-day celebration. 200 little folks under 10 yrs are to frolick on his pretty lawn – like Spring butterflies – with fruit & nurses à discretion. I wish I were young enough to be admitted to such a fair sight. It will be a living Albans. We had a pleasant excursion lately in the steamer chiefly got up by Mr Grattan our good-natured British Consul. Decks crow-[p. 1 cross] ded with fair ladies we floated down to Salem saluting & saluted frightening our peaceful shore-echoes half out of their wits, devoured a very splendid collation danced & waltzed in broad noon-day – under awning & became the envy of all the uninvited from the charming success of this pleasure-party – unmarred by any of the usual désagrémens. I hope most truly you will not allow Matilda to slip away South when she returns without getting one of my warm embraces she used to value so much – when so near at hand. Do bring her to Newport if but for a day. On what are you exercising your brain? any more Ethics that we simple minded people cant fathom? I am glad the French pay you the compliment of translating your labours Herculean. Is the American, national cooking-dictionary still ‘in petto,’ not yet expanded into manuscript? I liked very much what you said in your last letter about the sadness of reconciling ourselves to afflictions. I have felt it strongly, have felt grieved that I bore Mary’s loss so well; that I became so patient under such new circumstances. Tis because, I believe, tis sad to lose any-thing even regrets we are put on this world to gain and a strong feeling of any sort lost is painful, it is an emo- [p. 2 cross] tion & stagnation of soul is the deepest H[crossed out: ell]! I dont believe you are in any danger of it, be your position what it may; remember a while there is life there is hope? and you wont die, yet, like the Rhine, in sand probably. I inflict upon you all this crossing because I believe it does not vex you so much as some men but there is a limit to patience. I had such a peep into old Rome the other day thro’ some Daguerreotype views fresh from thence; this year’s shadows on the arches. It is not a high art after all, only a striking one. Nature must be copied through no camera obscura except that of the ideal.
Good bye,
Yrs truly
Fanny E. A.
[p. 4 cross] Mary’s address is R. J. Mackintosh Esq. Athenaeum –
ADDRESSED: PROFESSOR LIEBER / COLUMBIA / S. CAROLINA
POSTMARK: BOSTON / MAS. / JUN 16
ENDORSED: FANNY APPLETON / 1840

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