File:Frances (Appleton) Longfellow to Reverend Samuel Longfellow, 28 July 1848 (8b0dcde1-1904-4d4f-8de9-13169f522057).jpg

Manuscript letter

Archives Number: 1011/002.001-018#025

Melville Hall. Typee Valley
July 28th /48
Dear Sam,
I wish you could find, or make, leisure between tomorrow & next Sunday (if you could get no one to take your post) to run up here & enjoy a little of our mountain air & scenery. We have a bed-room at your disposal, & I think you would relish walks and drives in this neighborhood very much, & be refreshed by the change for your labors, which I fear must wear upon you this summer weather. We have a grand old mansion here, in the style of ours, with immense halls, a porch in front & a stoop with blinds behind, built by a wealthy Dutchman of Kinderhook. It is very spa- [p. 2] cious & comfortable, & very well kept by Typee’s cousin, an intelligent farmer. A wooded mountain rises directly before us, but elsewhere the view is free to the hills that hem in this wide valley, Greylock, rising proudly over them, & always beautiful with the blue of distance. We have found some charming walks, one the children like especially thro’ the woods to a little lonely lake, where we pic nic on the pebbly beach, or they wade in the water, or paddle about in a rough kind of boat.
Our Lenox friends are all well. Mrs Butler & James Colman are with them, & the latter make excursions almost daily in search of fishing ground, or water rather, that being one of Mrs B’s passions. One would think her own fate on the hook would teach her mercy to every thing living. She is picturesque & strange as ever, but always an interesting companion from her abundance of life.
We went yesterday to Roaring Brook, a few miles hence, which charmed Henry, who had never seen it before, with its deep amber colour & wild dashing thro’ its wooded defile. Henry has been tempted to join Sumner for Niagara (who delivered an address at Schenectady on Tuesday last) but, though I urged him to go, he could not [p. 4] make up his mind to the fortnights absence it would require.
Last Sunday we had a sermon from a young man going to China as missionary & it made me melancholy that such men should be sent for such work. The chanting of the Beatitudes before service was the best part of it. Introduce that into your church Sam. It is falls like gentle rain upon the congregation to prepare the way for whatever seed you may wish to scatter.
The children are all well & greatly enjoying their free life here. Mary finds it hard work to keep hers at their lessons, but their reward is a walk which they much appreciate. Charley is beginning to learn a little too. Do come if you can. It will give us all much pleasure. With Henrys love & my sister’s kind remembrance
ever affly yrs Fanny.

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