File:Frances (Appleton) Longfellow to Nathan Appleton, 25 May 1841 (b129cc09-23bb-41f6-ac37-7bbec0020a75).jpg

Manuscript letter

Archives Number: 1011/002.001-011#009

St Catherine’s – May 25th 1841.
Dearest Papa, I hope I did not distress you by my description of Mary in my letter to Aunt Sam. I have since repented laying such emphasis upon her thinness for the excitement at seeing us made it more apparent than it has been since & she seems to have improved already so much that it was a pity to give you the worst impression. She is not strong eno’ & her nerves are rather excitable but she is prudent in refusing ev’g invitations & can hardly fail to gain if this weather continues. Robert is looking remarkably well & is one of the handsomest men I have seen (tho’ they are not rare here) & the baby is the ultima thule of health & good-nature. So much for your chief objects of interest. This our first week in London has passed off delightfully, the weather for the most part warm & soft, tho’ showery, & our time has been stuffed with memorable sights as richly as a paté de foi – In the way of lions we have seen, Carlyle, Rachel, Persiani, Cerito, Heinefelter & last, tho not least, Jaudon whom we met yesterday at Mrs Wiggins & who made many civil proffers to us of his wife’s services for shopping &c. He is a strange-looking man with a staring halo of white locks. We met Carlyle at a quiet tea-drinking at Mrs Wedgwoods – where he was introduced to me & began at once, in the strongest Scotch accent, to question me about Mr Emerson, lauding him immensely & his essays. He has a heavy farmer look with rough features & hair, a slouchy manner but eyes soft & clear like Burns & talks after a humorous fashion. His wife invited us to come & drink tea with them someday which I hope we may do as I should like to see something more of him. I like all Mary’s relations here exceedingly – they are what I supposed, kind-hearted, intelligent, unpretending; the true stuff for wear. Mrs Rich is a fine-looking old lady with gray hair & a very gracious manner, - but Mary has described them all so fully I shall omit further particulars. Yesterday Mac’s Uncle John Allen & his son dined here & a very agreeable old gentleman he seems to be (the proprietor of Cresselley) rides every day in the Park so hale is he & tells good stories in a jocose way. I have just been interrupted by a visit from old lady Boott & Genl Miller & now discover I have begun on the wrong page [p. 2] which I hope you will excuse as I am too much hurried to retrace my steps. The Genl is as ruddy as ever but has been suffering much from the ghosts of old wounds & is but just beginning to go much into society. Of course he has been making a thousand inquiries about his friends in Boston & regrets with us all Prescott’s ignoble retreat. We are at such antipodes from Mr Grey that we are not like to see much more of him. He accomplished with us a mn’g at the Gallery, and ev’g at the German Opera & 2 dinners here on consecutive days; the last time with Mr Phillips who seems to retain the greatest enthusiasm for American people & things, - which enticed Mr G. to the perpetration of some of his oldest stories. I have missed thus far the Tuckermans, & Kenyon who came yesterday just as Mrs Wiggin drove up to take us to the Park which was unusually brilliant in such bright sunshine & showed more beauty than I ever saw there before. Mrs W’s house, tell Aunt Sam, is exquisitely ‘rich & rare,’ all gorgeous gilding & carving, gold paper & cornices & with her dining room carpet. Divers choice tables of marquetrie & inlaid wood, &c. It is just corner-wise across the Park from us. She & Tom contemplate shopping together; as yet I have not thought of such matters – so fully occupied am I with Mary, the baby, & this lovely locale. I wish I could make a shipment to America of English nurses for the well-being of the juvenile republicans. Mary’s is a young woman, & rather slight, yet she carries the baby (& he is no slight weight) in her arms the whole day in the Park. & I am amused at Mary’s indifference to his being caught in showers of rain which he runs the risk of continually. His American gown was much admired but as yet he sports only white. We met yesday Mr Coffin & had a little chat with him. He is as full of life & spirit as ever & is very sanguine about the success of some new scheme for an instrument to hold colors. We heard service in the mn’g in our won church here which is vastly convenient; has pretty Gothic arches & painted windows but a clergyman as elaborately common-place as these English divines are wont to be. I will give you a plan of our position that you may comprehend fully how snug it is – [hand-drawn map with caption “Regent’s Park”] thus looks our court & the house with the x is ours – the church closing up the end with its two graceful towers behind which is a pretty garden free to the occupants of the 6 mansions built for the Queen’s charitable gifts to impoverished gentlemen but usually let by them as lodgings. On the Queen’s birthday we lunched [p. 3] with Lady Coldman wife of Chief Justice C. & she has civilly invited us to a dinner, which we refuse as Mary had better not fatigue herself with such things. She is a very pleasing, affable person, living in a beautiful house in Park Lane & before lunch insisted upon taking us in to see her next door neighbor & friend Lady Heywood dressed for court; where I was startled to find the drawing-rooms carpeted like our parlour; carpets being strong links of association to me. Lady H & her daughter looked very magnifique in their trains & feathers & Sir James H. made many enquiries of me about ice-bergs &c in the interval of inspection. We made an attempt to see the Queen on her way to the Drawing-room by traversing Green Park & undergoing a crowd at the entrance to the Mall but as Mary & I were alone, having refused Lady C’s kind offers of a footman as escort, lingered but a little to admire the display of splendid equipages & pompous coachmen in cocked hats, wigs & flaring bouquets. I have no time to express my admiration of the French Siddons, now here, Rachel, but if you care to know what she is like ask Miss Emmeline to favor you with Tom’s elaborate description of her. Her high conception of the part (Roxane) struck me with wonder & the finesse of her expressions; for that you would hardly expect from a girl picked out of the gutter. & she acts as if it had been a long & careful study not a mere out break of genius. But her genuine genius gives that effect probably. & fire & energy are her predominant gifts allied to a beautifully mobile face & person. We have not yet talked of plans for the summer but Mary seems desirous to go into the country before long. Miss Nightingale kindly invited us to visit them at Southampton in a week, but there is too much here to leave so soon, so if we go northward may accept their civility at Matlock instead, where they also beg us to come. Tom appears vastly pleased with English ways & things, & here, to be sure, we get the cream of it. Next to nurses I long to export carriages of all the manifold kinds I see here; there are so many pretty comfortable vehicles of every possible construction. We drive in a nice, low affair for two with only a permanent padded step requisite, one horse & a coachman attached. I should like to send Willie a carriage drawn by goats of which there are crowds in the parks for children. The M Adamization in London is not better than ours now, & yet one horse drags heavy carriages because they are willing here to roll along [p. 4 top] at a very slow pace. I can hardly believe that a stage coachman has become an extinct personage since my last visit for such changes in 4 years in this part of the world are much more marvellous than with us. I asked when the showy turn out of the mails would take place as formerly on the King’s birthday & found there were none left to turn out. Railroads every where – a vile insult to this lovely country & what a sad waste of good roads, horses &c! I hope Harriet will remember to give any orders she may think of before we leave London because there is no knowing when we may see it again. I suppose you will have seen Capt Miller who will tell you what [p. 4 bottom] a famous sailor I was &c. He is a very agreeable person with a magnificent voice. Poor Mrs Stevenson I have not seen yet. She is laid up with an injury of some sort to one of her legs obtained entering or descending a carriage. Give my love to every-body that cares for it - Kiss Harriet & Willie for me. I would give much to introduce him to his promising nephew. Write me, dearest Papa, how you all are & what you intend to do with the summer & that you are getting reconciled to the solitairness of the house which I hope with all my heart. God bless you all! ever y raff Fanny –
Is it true that Judge Story is to be our minister here? What a loss for the law.
ADDRESSED: HON N. APPLETON. / BOSTON MASS. / U. S. A.
ENDORSED: FANNY A. / MAY 25 – 41

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