File:Frances (Appleton) Longfellow to Thomas Gold Appleton, 31 January 1844 (9c61cff3-9c5a-4656-a121-2bb40f6e8f9b).jpg

Manuscript letter

Archives Number: 1011/002.001-014#004

Cambridge Jan 31st 1844
Heartily welcome was the sound of your voice, dearest, after the long silence of a month, & its cheery tones rang with various melody thro’ the frozen air like those of Munchausen’s horn when a thaw released them. Many, many thanks for your N. Year wishes, & the gifts that are to follow them. We are prepared to look with gracious eyes upon the Tintoret, who little dreams to what a frigid clime he is doomed to inhabit hereafter. I wish he were here now, to send forth a glow upon us full of Southern remembrances & warmth. You may congratulate yourself that your prophetic vision of your cold bed-room was not realized; for there never was known a severer winter. For more than a week the thermometer has clung to zero, & here has been 12˚ below it! poor Mother Earth looks fairly dead & laid out in a tattered shroud of snow & ice, - the sky over her is as hard & chill as the walls of a sepulchre, the trees resemble skeletons adorning them, & the houses coffins. The ground groans under every wheel as if it suffered from their pressure, the Moon’s nose is, evidently, frozen white, & the poor stars tremble as if weeping with the cold – like many poor earthly children. There must be dreadful suffering among the poor. In fact, we have heard that a mother & 3 children actually perished with the cold in Broad St! It is horrible to think of such a catastrophe in Boston, where help is always to be procured, where there are organized Rodolph [p. 2] to hunt out all kinds of misery. How painfully interesting it must have been to you to explore the dreadful haunts of crime you speak of. It must seem like a hideous nightmare in your memory, - & your assertion that Eugène Sue has colored under life is a great grief to me, for I cannot believe that such hells of infamy exist in the souls God has made. There is a frightful fascination about that book. I have many times resolved to look no further into its horrors, but am irresistibly drawn on to finish it. To turn to a pleasanter subject. Have you seen Dickens’ “Xmas Carol”? He sent it to Felton in its English garb, with capital wood cuts & a nice clear type. It is a most admirable production I think, & has had great success in England, comforting people for the tediousness of Chuzzlewit. It is evidently written in a heat & from the heat, & it has a X mas crackle & glow about it, besides much pathos & poetry of conception, which form a rich combination. The sketch of the poor clerk’s dinner is in his best manner, & almost consoles one for the poverty it reveals. There is a most touching song by Hood, in Punch, on the low wages for shirt-making, which seems written in blood it is so vividly “rammed with life” – or death rather. We have been passing a day or two in town, - & while there poor Mr Austin had a second stroke of paralysis, benumbing his left side from his face to his foot. It is a less trying attack than the first, & he hardly seems conscious of it, but there can be but one more such arrest from Death’s icy hand; - that may come at any moment to claim his prisoner, so, of course, dear Em is full of anxiety & care. She cannot leave him, & I fear, if this passes by, she will hardly venture to make me any visits. Your letter was very grateful to her. I am very glad your [p. 3] princely heart finds such noble friends to fill it while away from us. I know its powers of enlargement & “immortal thirst” for affection, & cannot be jealous, but do rejoice in heart, that it can never be starved wherever it goes. If I did not know that there is a happiness to which even friendship is but dull & prosaic, I should not desire for you a better portion than thus to live in bachelor freedom gleaning from every harvest. Perhaps the necessity of seeking for your treasure is a greater joy to you than having it safe under your own roof. But no – I cannot think it – life is uncertain enough, without making it more so by trusting it only to those at a distance. Your fair friend, Mary Spring, is to accompany Sarah Cleavland to Europe in the Spring, both under the care of ‘Prince Perkins’ as Lord Morpeth calls Edward. They need sadly some soberer, mature escort, but, having no better, Mary Dwight declines joining them, not wishing to be another burthen upon the wings of this butterfly youth. Sarah, a fair young widow, & the lovely Mary will be in some peril of siege from matrimonially inclined Frenchmen. Sarah is a woman of great character & independence, but is a woman after all. Poor Dr Robbins, I hear, is in despair, as well as his good-hearted daughter, at the idea of losing their two loved guests, for Nancy will be married before Mary sails, & is to pass her honey-moon at Pine Bank. We had Ned Perkins & Harry Lee to dine with us lately, & talked Europe to the envy of all listeners. We are much taken with Lee’s vivacious enthusiasm for all good things, & his individuality, as you say, is wonderful. He repeated plays & vaudevilles as if he had written them himself, & has not yet been sobered [p. 4] by the dull atmosphere of a counting-house from the delirium they excited. He reminds me sometimes, & seems to have a very fair knowledge of art. Is, also, improved in manners by foreign patent polish, though without Ned’s formal elegancies, which one longs to shake out of him. Mrs Chapman has sent a note for you & a book (evidently the Liberty Bell) as tokens of her gratitude, but my shawl appeareth not, so I shall give her a hint, as she acknowledges the arrival of the box. The book I cannot well send unless I hear of somebody who can take charge of it. The same with your Buchanan books. Mrs Ford has lost her magic gift having been magnetized into too good health to feel its influence. I only hear of this great mystery through you so shall be glad of any strange facts. Your friend Mrs Bethune is dead – chilled thro’ by this icy weather. Our book flourishes bravely; we are now among the Danish poets, having despatched the Anglo-Saxon & Icelandic. I write in it every mr’g, the red-haired Diable’s knock summoning me to deliver up “copy” daily. It is a great undertaking, which Henry half repents, but will be a valuable gathering of stray poems, & of literatures almost unknown to [crossed out: the] any but scholars. I only lament it should take the time from original poetry, but Henry thinks happiness does not inspire his muse; - perhaps she is jealous & sulks. He has some fine things ‘in fretts’ which will flow out when the time comes. It is vacation now, & we enjoy the freedom thereof not a little. Our days glide on as quietly & smoothly as music. I eschew parties, & cling to my own bright fire-side, where nightly, I read aloud Prescott which is intensely interesting & written with a vigour & beauty of style I did not expect even from him. A nice young Southerner, Pringle, has been staying with Harriot. Their [p. 1 cross] is a savage article on us in the December Quarterly. Wholesale abuse in which is circulated all John Bull’s anger & scorn. If you ever see the N.A. Review read Hilliard’s review of Prescott & a brilliant article on American poets in which Henry is honorably mentioned by Whipple, a promising youth but rather too wordy. Henry’s eyes are much better & he can read a good deal which is a blessed change for him. Good bye, dearest, with kind regards to your chum, ever ever thine,
Fannikin.
Yr old teacher Dr Hedge is lodging on Mt Auburn.

• Keywords: correspondence; long archives; frances e. a. longfellow papers (long 20257); frances elizabeth (appleton) longfellow; people; document; subject; health and illness; social life; Correspondence (1011/002); (LONG-SeriesName); Letters from Frances Longfellow (1011/002.001); (LONG-SubseriesName); 1844 (1011/002.001-014); (LONG-FileUnitName)