File:Frances (Appleton) Longfellow to Thomas Gold Appleton, 13 September 1853 (6363c344-217b-4c35-bc1c-ddd1e3dbf7b3).jpg

Manuscript letter

Archives Number: 1011/002.001-023#020

Cambridge Sep 13th 1853.
Dear Tom,
I have only time for a word but it is so long since I have written you I could not refuse myself that. We were most happy to hear you enjoyed Dieppe so much, & continue to be cheered by the best of blessings – good health. May it be a permanent guest with you & give you a serene old age. Almost any disease wears out in time, & the constitution has often a wonderfully [p. 2] recuperative power which may be a hope to you if the doctor’s aid weakens –
We have returned to our comfortable home & these sharp September mornings warn us it was time, tho’ the cares of life seem to fall upon me in one fell swoop’ when we cross our own threshold.
Sad news too soon greeted me here. This Year seems fated to bury the Past in one great sepulcher. Margaret Weatherston, our good old nurse & warm friend of so many years is no more! She died at the South, with her daughters [p. 3] about her, of paralysis or something similar.
Do you remember her unusually solemn farewell to us when she went away? We have lost a true friend, who loved us almost like a mother, & it seems to take so much life-blood out of my future.
Then papa’s parting with the old Pittsfield house to strangers goes to my heart as it does to Aunt Dorothys – but I wont sadden you with all these things. We must live & hope in the ‘living Present’ & learn to see all our cherished associations become ‘vanishing pictures’ with as few sighs as may be.
[p. 4] Hetty Coolidge has a daughter a week old & I am hoping speedily for another which are new hopes indeed – or cares – It is hard to say which – for they being an anxiety & a fear which never sleeps.
Your poor friend Seldon has sad news awaiting him. His daughter Mrs Morgan has been so brutally treated by her husband at Newport that her friends have taken legal steps to protect her. It has made a great scandal there. Mr Norton is failing rapidly - & Louisa Bullard has a boy. So the balance hangs. Curtis has been all summer at Lenox to recruit his head – perhaps his heart – tho’ I think that is pretty sound yet. Maria & Aunt Sam are more like themselves again but dear papa looks very sad I think. Harriot was nervous & gloomy all summer & they went [p. 1 cross] no where to cheer them. Sumner coming out lately we spent the Baune & the light wine & found them both delicious & in excellent order. Bogue is to publish an illustrated Golden Legend & Foster promises H. a drawing out of the Hyperion. I see Rachel’s Hotel is to be sold – but I suppose everything will be very dear or I should be tempted. Perhaps you will find something we might like. Henry’s love. Did you see the Fête? Yr aff Fanny.

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