File:Frances (Appleton) Longfellow to Reverend Samuel Longfellow, 18 March 1849 (72095e88-e65f-4eb6-88cd-f813f6c7ec26).jpg

Manuscript letter

Archives Number: 1011/002.001-019#002

Craigie House
March 18th /49
Dear Sam, Your Spring welcome find a ready echo in my heart, for I too had been rejoicing in its welcome, in one of those days when you feel the earth throbbing under your feet with recovered life as the pulse of a dear friend after the torpor of disease, & when the first bird’s song is like the first words of love from long silent lips. How suggestive is this season of birth & life! So many thoughts arise to me in connection with it, that if I had your pulpit before me I could preach many homilies – or rather each Spring a new one. Doubtless you have done so, far better than I could in your place, but if not, let not this holy season pass without working with nature for the life of man. I have given Henry some suggestions for Kavenagh, who begins his ministry with a Spring sermon, but of course they cannot be [p. 2] fully developed in a story.
One felling always comes to me in Spring, that before this new & glorified earth we should return to the purity & obedience of Adam, should, if possible, leave behind us or old sins & sorrows, retaining only what good seed they have left within us & bloom anew for the glory of God. Every day should be such a Spring you will say. So it should. But the soul cannot always, like our tardy nature, so vigorously renew itself – the Spring however demands a harmony with itself more than any other season, but alas! many an east wind & post could even then to chill its hopes & promises.
What you said about the immortality of the soul was very true to me.* I cannot understand a doubt on this subject, & yet I see so many men so dead even in this life I can imagine it must be hard to them to believe in a life separate from all earthly ends & means. It is peculiarly strange in Jewett for he is astounding [p. 3] in life – not so much spiritual as intellectual – but still life; every thing arouses in him a host of reflections, & he is not without feeling. I think his mind is rather a whirling state, now in day & now in night, than in a settled, hopeless obscurity. He used to say Xianity must pass away like other things. It had not done what was expected of it, but he evidently wished it had done more, & I hope will sometimes see what his impatient spirit cannot now discern, its beautiful harmony with all God’s laws.* I found yesterday, in Marcus Antonius, this striking passage “Remember tis that which has hid within which draws & turns as the wires do the puppet, tis that is eloquence, that life; that, if I may say so, the man; never blend with it in your imagination this surrounding earthen vessel & these little organs, they are but like the axe (any tool of any artisan) with this only difference that they are naturally united with us; since none of these parts are of any more [crossed out: purpose] service [p. 4] without the cause which moves & stops them, than the shuttle is to the weaver, than pen to the writer, or the whip to the charioteer.” How completely this separates the body from the spirit as you say “my arm” immediately disjoins them. I should think one fury would be sufficient. The inner history we all have, so detached from our outward & evident one, or unknown even to our best friends. We live in another world even here, & our thoughts & feelings have as little to do with time as they ever will. I speak not of spiritual experience, but of that innermost life all know & retire to even the worldly. I take great delight in the pure faith of my children, & I find I am tempted to speak to them of things beyond their grasp, & must be careful not to burden the young tree with fruit it has not strength enough to bear. The sin & sorrow of the world strike one with a fresh horror in contrast to a child’s innocence. Every book one opens to them, nearly every picture has some show of suffering physical or mental, in beasts or men, which they marvel at & grieve over, & we become children with them & wonder too men could ever have committed so much useless cruelty & wickedness. I hate to think they must know it all [p. 7] I spoke to Charley, one Sunday, of the reason why people loved that day & kept it, giving the Christian, not the Jewish, reason, I [crossed out: gave] told him as simply as possible the story of Christ. He seemed much interested, but immediately added “why does God make bad men?” – of course the beauty of self-sacrifice was far beyond his reach, & I shrink from blunting the first impression of this great event by presenting it too early to his mind. As God has always been spoken of to him as a loving Father, he seemed distressed & puzzled, the other day, on seeing a picture of a drowned sailor, & said “How could God blow the ship over and drown the poor sailor?” I cannot of course explain these as I should if he were older, & they make no lasting impression on a child’s mind to sadden it. I tell you these things, because I like to have you keep pace with my childrens lives now you are no longer an inmate with us, & you can thereby give me advice and teaching occasionally which will be useful to me & them. Whoever has had [p. 6] children, & seen their existence opening to life & truth on every side, & been deprived of them here, can never believe this life is all. If the heart dares not claim a continuance of the love so precious to it here, nor hope for a consolation for all its tears & quenchless aching, the soul knows that these questioning spirits, yearning towards heaven & earth, must be satisfied, must be towards heaven & earth, must be satisfied, must be uponed & perfected somewhere. My departed child has already a double existence to me. I cannot help thinking of her as a child, & shall probably always do so, but behind that ever-present figure, floats an angelic maiden, growing in all heavenly grace, & taught by angels the simple wisdom of truth. We have had great delight in Mrs Jamesons book on the Saints. Most instructive & touching are their lives, beautiful allegories, when not most valuable biographies. What zeal & what suffering hallowed the dawn of Christianity! It was truly baptized in blood & tears!
[p. 7] Stephen has engaged his passage for California in a ship which sails from Boston about he 25th. He found it too expensive to go with Major Allen across to Panama, & thinks he shall not mind the long voyage. He could not obtain an appointment as an engineer from the Government, but believes he shall succeed even better independently, as much surveying will be needed there. Major A. has lately married a wife. I am sorry Stephen has not gone earlier in the season; he is rather wanting in energy. Kavanagh is coming on bravely, & will probably be out in May. It is a story within a hero story. A practical village schoolmaster wishes to write a romance & remains wishing, tho’ one passes before his eyes. There are therefore two heroes. This is all I shall tell you of the story. I am sure you will be charmed with it. There are many very beautiful thoughts in it, & a background of Yankee life humorously depicted without the vulgar element. Emerson dined here the other day with Lowell & lately gave his lecture on [p. 8] England which is full of shrewd observation. Mrs Butler charmed every one with her reading here & came & supped with us afterwards with Sumner & Hillard. We had a very pleasant little supper, & at its close I presented her with a bouquet & Henry read a sonnet, which you have doubtless seen in the paper, as he published it since, finding she desired it. She returns in May. My brother Tom has slipped off suddenly to England, where my sister will meet him, as she is to be there this summer. We go in now & then to the Opera, but have been pretty quiet since the Butlerian excitement. My cousin Sam Appleton has just lost his little baby – about a month younger than little Fanny. Her mother, you may remember died [crossed out: just] a year ago - & this child seemed to belong to her. I heard lately from yr sister Mary. She & James were well & enjoying their house & garden – tho’ dreading an inundation in the town Dr Hawks is to leave them which she much regrets. Poor Eugene Weld died of the Cholera a martyr to his duty as a physician. Alex was well by last accounts, as all in Portland, but we very rarely hear from there. We have had thoughts of Newport this summer, but shrink from the flood of people, the bore of calling, parties &c, which one cant entirely escape. If I had thought of writing such a volumin [p. 5 cross] ous epistle I should have begun on a bigger sheet. I hope you will [p. 1 cross] have patience with the feminine closeness & overflow of words – Wishing you all good things with Henry & Stephen’s love yr ever affte
Fanny EL.
Mr Gannet has provokingly anticipated Henry in the use of St Christopher, tho’ H’s was written first & cannot be cut out of Kavenagh where it is in better keeping than in Mr G’s report.

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