File:Frances (Appleton) Longfellow to Mary (Appleton) Mackintosh, 3 July 1853 (fd6eaa96-b935-4399-a8a5-44c5325ed78d).jpg

Manuscript letter

Archives Number: 1011/002.001-023#012

Cambridge July 3d 1853.
Dear Mary
Your frequent letters are most pleasant giving us, as we wish such continuous news of you. I am very glad that you felt you went at the right time & had nothing to regret on that scene. It must have been very pleasant to you to see Mrs Follen tho’ I think you were magnanimous to resign Rachel for her. I hope you have succeeded in getting a good nurse, one capable of being useful to you as well as the children, & good natured, & willing to take all possible care of you in the way of rubbing & lifting, for you waste your strength sadly in doing things which should be done for you. But I believe one has a mania to be active when one should not, for I find myself at present constantly impelled to do more [p. 2] than I need – it is so tiresome to wait to summon some one. I find Ellen is quite resolved to go away in the autumn, whether to be married or not she wont [sic] say, & as Mary has already gone & thinks her mother wishes to keep her at home I have the pleasant prospect of looking out, at the worst season, for two girls to take their place. Ellen’s will be hard to fill to my satisfaction, for tho’ I shall send the children to school they need a firm & discreet hand to manage them & a proper companion besides. They have become quite unsettled since the other children left, for Ellen has been too busy to attend to them properly & Henry has undertaken to teach them but of course was often interrupted. I hope to find a good school at Nahant where we go on the 6th. I had a pleasant note from Miss Davie last week, the first I have had & just after I had written her of your arrival. She seems to be very happy where she is, & to think Andover very like Devonshire but as the 7 children there are all at home the older ones taught by Andover professors [p. 3] she says it requires a good deal of energy on her part, as they are amiable but lively children. She does not say how many she has the care of. The Lawrences are very kind taking her to Lowell Manchester &c & showing her the pleasing condition of the operatives &c. Mrs Robert Appleton & Mrs Pierce’s sister live opposite – a large family they see daily. Poor Professor Stowe she has only seen in the street, looking rather disconsolate, & his wife has no sympathy there in her opinions, so that she begins to value her still more as a martyr. She sees her house, beautifully situated but quaint eno’ looking & her little child playing with a dog, but I suppose she must keep her interest very much to herself. She is anxious about Mrs Smillie as she writes her she had not yet a place.
Mama greatly enjoyed her journey with the Hodkinsons & Gophers to Niagara & went besides down the rapids to Montreal & to Burlington where she saw Jewett’s grave. We dined at Aunt Sam’s yesterday, Papa having [p. 4] gone to Newport to bring back Harriet for Pittsfield, & Mr H. was there to meet us. They sail in this steamer as also Hawthorne with his family to take his post at Liverpool. We may go in again tomorrow night as the chicks are eager to see the fireworks which are always pretty. Tell Angus (as Erny is too lazy to write him about them) that the boys had a small display in the garden the other night John firing off the crackers & Roman candles & wheels & 2 or 3 rockets greatly to their delight & they wished Eva & Angus had been there to see how pretty they were.
Charley enjoys greatly his tool-box & is hard at work with it all day making boats &c They have quite forgotten Mr Bluff having no Eva to do the talking & seem in great want of companions. I forget if I told you that Sumner, in talking with me about it very much regretted his unlucky epithet about King Wm & would certainly have omitted it if he had thought about it, but he never dreamed such a speech would be read in England & was thinking only of Wilberforce triumph after so much censure. He is worn out with the Convention. I am sorry that disagreeable Henry Luke should represent Boston manners in London. We have had shoals of young Oxonians lately – some very nice ones. A young Baronet, Sir John Acton, also, a very plea [p. 5 marked 2 – B3-F14-I21] sing youth one of Lord Ellesmere’s suite. Poor Lord E. is, I hear, quite overcome already with the heat on his way to Niagara & it is a hard fate for them to have to be in N. York in the dog-days. There is no political news to send you at this quiet season tho’ the Gloucester fishermen seem to think the Government is not active eno’ about their rights, & if England sends so much naval force there may be trouble on the fishing grounds, tho’ I trust nothing very serious. Turkey & China seem the great points of interest just now & the Christian character of the Revolution in the latter makes it very curious to watch. Tom writes he has sent out furniture to complete his room so, as Harriet has taken entire possession, he must furnish one elsewhere & I wish he would, if he returns, make himself thoroughly comfortable. Baby is very full of chatter & runs everywhere following the boys to the very street. We have had abundance of strawberries & now begin to have cherries, but a great drought has injured the beauty of the roses. I hear Miss Sedgwick is at Roxbury but I do not know how to get at her we are so busy now packing up. We shall take down a carriage for at least a time. With love to all God bless & keep you all. Yr affte Fanny E.L.
[p. 6] Think of Clough dashing off at last so suddenly. He dined with us on Monday & came to borrow a book & the next we knew of him was his name in the paper for the Wednesday steamer. I suppose he got some letter which hurried him off as in fact he had been thinking of going for a time.
Sumner says there is no danger of the fishery business – the papers know nothing about it.
He also tells me that the unclaimed letters remain six months in the towns to which they are directed before being sent to Washington so if we can only find what town the precious letter of Mad Sismondi was sent to it ought to be found. He will enquire of the Boston Post Master – perhaps Miss S. has it by this time.

• Keywords: correspondence; long archives; frances e. a. longfellow papers (long 20257); frances elizabeth (appleton) longfellow; people; document; social life; family life; subject; Correspondence (1011/002); (LONG-SeriesName); Letters from Frances Longfellow (1011/002.001); (LONG-SubseriesName); 1853 (1011/002.001-023); (LONG-FileUnitName)