File:Frances (Appleton) Longfellow to Isaac Appleton Jewett, 24 May 1838 (05dff317-3150-453e-bd9e-ddc4f1a8ce09).jpg

Manuscript letter

Archives Number: 1011/002.001-008#002

Boston. May 24th 1858.
This cometh greeting to the most melancholy Jaques from his cousin Fanny, who announceth herself even before making the courtesy which should herald such a correspondence thro fear that unrecognizable, feminine hand-writing should startle him from his abstruse meditations into the same perplexity as Indian foot-prints did Crusoe of classical memory.
I have not been waiting for that formidable ‘peut-etre’ to shake off its spectral habiliments & emerge flesh & blood but have deferred putting my pen “in rest” till you had answered the challenge of Miss Mary as two lady-charges at once would be too much for one man’s gallantry, moreover one so persecuted by their courtesie! We are curious to know how your porcelain-city struck your travelled eyes & thoughts (by the way, Elia’s “essay on Pig” should it not be graved in letters of gold therein?) whether you have decided your anchorage-ground, & how you resign yourself to harnessing your vague philosophy to a tread-mill labour. Have you ever seen Retly outlines of Pegasus – degraded to work in a dray; how his winged feet disdained the clogging mire, his arched neck the yoke & his fiery-eye the lash? So any-one, I should think, who had thoroughly enjoyed the dream-life of a traveller would fly off like a wild hawk from the narrow bondage [p. 2] of actual work-a-day life, - ‘tis like enclosing the giant in the nut-shell again, when he has expanded over half heaven. I wish you all manner of success in thus clipping your mental wings. when they interfere with the homespun jacket they must be folded under. May your golden thoughts be the philosopher’s stone to your fortune – one that is worth much to such true philosophers – which will retain a ‘golden age’ in spite of “shin-plasters.” What strata of literary mining are you resolved upon? be it writing “dying confessions,” d’avance, for the steam-killed. I wish you a profitable speculation. Now, I remember, your last epistle was vastly in the Morgue ‘nuance’, you were becoming as grave a man as Graves not to mention Cilley, (!) a passing bell or ‘dead march in Saul’ your only music & “folded arms” (à la Napoleon) your only attitude. Well, you will be literally at home on the Ohio, but I beg you will not write me from the tombs – for I have an horror of spectral visitations. No more trifling, ‘serieusement’ are there not times when we see all the world skeletonized – when our eyes pierce through the clothes-screen, as Carlyle has it, & the skin- & -flesh-screen & decay & decaying machinery is all betrayed. I was haunted painfully by this ‘diable-boiteux’-gift after inspecting the wax anatomical establishment in Florence & needed many bright “skyey influences” to exorcise it from my brain. This is not the season for such depressing visions, when the sweet Spring time is ripening daily so rapidly we can almost hear & see it grow. The country is in its full, Longchamp ‘robe de fête’ & the green by-ways where we daily drive with our new vehicle [p. 3] & graceful horses, - a luxury specie-payments. hinted to Father!) are lined with blossoming fruit-trees like a procession of white-robed choristers flinging incense sweeter than myrrh before God’s high altar. I pass these warm days in as luxurious idlesse as any Turkish woman in her harem. (Miss Pardoe is no bad conjuror of gorgeous, oriental pageants. have you read her?) reclining on cushions on a twilight atmosphere, reading harmonizing, refrigerating poesie. chequered with day-dreams many, bird-warblings without as if this were no city neighbourhood. & harp-warblings within from Miss Cobb’s fair fingers. I am purifying my mind on Wordsworth for he has simplicity as of children & I have a faith that man, every Spring, when the whole Earth is young & fresh as Paradise newly-born should endeavor to regain Adams first child-like purity & simplicity. & the high priest of Cumberland is a fit inspirer. Carlyle is [cut off] the shelf “with his martial cloak around him” for his blood & thunder tramping energy wild jar with this opiate-dream-land.
The weather is too warm for much walking. I emerge at the cooler gloaming & saunter, haunted by not a few ambulating clothes-pins, round the Common, enjoying the cloud-shadows which I fancy angel wings flitting by; we have no gorgeous kaleidescopes [sic] in the West as on those exhilarating winter evenings. but the warm mists & golden lights sun-spots & shades are equivalent ministries of beauty to the heart. Caroline has not yet returned with Sam from Baltimore where the warmest welcomes greeted them from their future connections. Aunt & Uncle Sam jog along at the same easy pace as does their bar- [p. 4 bottom] ouche oer the mill-dam he wondering his nephews hold him in such awe! & she adapting herself to all ages. Mrs Commodore Hull & sister elicit a few shadowy parties -: we undertake to be ‘chez nous’ every Monday to see how many friends are sociably enough inclined to bear light & heat for our sakes. Mrs Brooks we expect daily & Miss Austin & Grant from Washington following our foot-prints. Does this sweet May-time recall a sweeter May, or are your “impressions” written in the sand?” We have to fight our battles oer” (b.o.r.e-fights!) to these inquisitive people till I regret not concocting something worth the telling. Write me, je vous prie, [p. 4 top] just what sifts thro’ your brain-pan, any thing, just as we chatted together o’er the Parisian embers or Washington candle-ends. I shall be always happy to greet & reply to whatever your spirit (blue, black or grey) “moves” you to send me. My sympathies are as elastic as India-rubber – can stretch to any philosophy or contract to any common-place. So think no more your music. & prose. deserve not better thank than this salmagundi – hint that I am ready. to say (more than once) yours in all cousinly
regard & sympathy Fanny E.A.
ADDRESSED: I. APPLETON JEWETT ESQ. / CINCINNATI. / OHIO. –
POSTMARK: BOSTO/ MAY 20 / MSS.
ENDORSED, PENCIL: ANSD / JULY 15 / 1838

• Keywords: correspondence; frances elizabeth (appleton) longfellow; isaac appleton jewett; Correspondence (1011/002); (LONG-SeriesName); Letters from Frances Longfellow (1011/002.001); (LONG-SubseriesName); 1838 (1011/002.001-008); (LONG-FileUnitName)