File:Frances (Appleton) Longfellow to Robert East Apthorp, 3 December 1835 (17311229-3489-4e2f-8987-9202464a664f).jpg

Manuscript letter

Archives Number: 1011/002.001-005#010

[addressed:] R. E. Apthorp Esq. / Northampton. / Massachusetts. - / U.S.A. –
[postmarked:] NEW-YORK / SHIP / JAN 15
  [endorsed:] Havre Decr 9th 1835 / F.E.A. / Boston
 [endorsed:] Lost Feby. 1st / 1836
  [pencil endorsed:] Dec. 9 /35 [various penciled sums]
   Atlantic Ocean.  On board ship Francis de Pau, Dec 3d 1835.
  16 days out.  Lat 47. Lon 15. ---
  My dear Robert,  Here we are, dashing, bravely, along at 10 knots or thereabouts, with a fine northwester roaring behind us & an enormous “head sea” breaking from our bows in silvery showers & casting its spray far over our deck!  And now for a sketch of our progress, thus far, which I know will be more interesting, to you than the “land-yarns” the Future will unfold if that Eternal One who has guided us in safety over the Mighty Deep, till now, destines us to greet another shore.  After a day’s anchorage in NY. harbor, on account of adverse winds, we set sail with a gentle breeze a calm sea & mild weather which lasted us nearly a week which we passed delightfully, amusing ourselves on the sunny deck with all the strange sights & sounds about us getting accustomed to our Lilliputian accomodations [sic] & concluding the sea was a very nice, quiet place after all.  But since then for nearly 10 days, we have had nothing but a succession of hailly, squally tempestuous weather, the wind blowing most strongly from the N.W. & a very heavy sea bearing down upon us from the N.E, which has amazed our good Captain considerably, but which he thinks propitious for our speedy arrival, as the wind which has made such a sea must have blown itself out by this time, & our present favorable one seems likely to continue.  This weather was sufficiently disagreeable for we could not stand upon deck & the constant rolling & pitching of the ship made it a matter of long deliberation to move from any position, at the risk of our [p. 2] limbs, not to speak of the utter exhaustion of mind & body which this Purgatory of noise & motion produces.  Truly a humiliating life!  Little better than potatoes in a wheel barrow!  But we proved most excellent sailors for we had no experience of the “mal de mer” or mal du Coeur as the French call it! when all the rest of the passengers were [crossed out: very] invisible: poor Jewett has, indeed, only emerged for a few minutes for a week & says the Cholera, which he has had twice, is nothing to this!  We have, moreover (c’est à dire Marie et moi) taken immense interest in navigation & nauticalities & I am now quite ready to offer myself as midshipman, having weathered the nautical vocabulary, boxed the compass à ravir, & stood a northwester without being “taken aback!” [crossed out: The] Everything about the ship has amused & interested me, from the yawling of the sailors, the feeding of the chickens & the reefing of the sails, to the grand diapason of the sounds & the wondrous mystery of this mighty “thing of life” that bears us so gallantly over the great waters.  I have longed very much for a genuine storm, but some of these squalls have been terribly heavy, carrying away our ‘main-topsail’ & ‘jib’ & washing completely over both decks.  We have been sailing, today, under double-reefed mainsail & topsail, fore & aft, which the Captain thinks a very charming style, as far as appearance goes but I like to see those winged beautiful “studding sails” out, so delicately poised in the air – as if by invisible cords.  The waves have been truly “mountain high” & crested with foamy “white caps,” flashing with rainbows when breaking – but I will not rhapsodize about the sea for it is beyond words.  Our passengers are rather quiet, well-meaning sort of folks, but on the whole quite agreeable & we have conjured up a vast deal of fun on divers occasions.  The two dames have served for companions very well, & la Thuncaise [p. 3] we make useful to practise our French upon.  Her husband is a very nice youth, full of genuine French enthusiasm pour la France, la musique et la Gloire, & sings for us, with much taste, spirited national chansons &c.  Then we have a Mr Purdy whose droll manners & French put us into fits of laughter & what with Tom’s puns & the Captains amusing stories & laugh which gurgles forth as freely as his Champagne we are merry enough.  But you have no idea how agreeably disappointed we are in the Captain.  He is, to be sure, sufficiently severe with the sailors (but so stupid as they are! & gives them threats of the rope’s end now & then but with us he is gentlemanly, full of fun, & well-informed on every subject you can propose.  He has been most zealous for our accomadation [sic], & is more active & beauish than any of the juveniles aboard, - sings us sailor songs & seems to take real pleasure in giving us information about the ship & explaining all the sea-phrases, in which he thinks us wondrous apt pupils..  Many thanks for your chart, dear Robert!  It has been a great pleasure to me to trace our progress upon it, which I have done, daily, when the Captain took his observation, marking each day’s work.  We have got up a lottery for the day of arrival which is a very great source of interest & amusement & bets innumerable are afloat.  Today we surmise is Thanksgiving in N. England & we are going to celebrate it on venison & plum-pudding!  I wonder what the folks are about in old Boston? drinking the health perhaps of the absent ones & or doubtless, shuddering in an east wind & pitying the poor wanderers on the cold stern Ocean, who are comfortably sunning themselves in the mild sea breeze & are actually without a fire in the cabin this 3d of Dec!!
 [p. 4] Friday evg.  I have just come down from a very interesting scene – the first sounding!  90 fathoms brought us up sand.  French earth!  One of the shells attached I preserve as a relic of a world seldom visited – the bottom of the sea!  We expect to arrive now in 3 or 4 days & I shall finish my letter in Havre perhaps to go by the packet of the 8th for thereby hangs a bet of the Captain’s – This has been a delicious mild sunny day & the light breeze keeping the ship as still as if anchored.  We have had immense schools of porpoises dashing round their b[??]s flashing like emeralds thro’ the transparent blue.  It seems incredible we have come such a distance so safely over this treacherous world of waters.  It has been a good nurse to me – lulling all the selfish heaviness of spirit which the Past’s shadows had infused & making me more fully sensible of my own dwarfishness compared with the Ruler of this wondrous element.  Good night.  I must put a “lazy [??]” on this for the present.
 Dec. 7th  I had hoped to finish this, dear Robert on “terra firma” but here we are provokingly becalmed in la Manche about 40 miles from Havre & with little prospect of reaching our port till tomorrow night!  And the packet of the 8th will pass us tomorrow so we dispatch all our letters by it.  You must imagine us arrived!  But as we took our Pilot yesterday we call our passage 19 days.  This is doing so well we cant [sic] complain much of present delay --  Our condition now is so like the day we left N York that the intervening passage seems a dream.  What is it after all? --  How does the farm at home flourish?  It has my most hearty approval but still methinks travelling is so much more congenial to all your tastes that I doubt if the monotony of that would satisfy long.  Nothing but a strong literary feeling would enliven it & you [p. 4 cross] have lived such a migratory life that it would take long to acquire it.  If you could only enjoy poetry now as I do & allow yourself to be carried aloft by “thoughts that breathe & words that brim, above this tread-mill world, instead of counting its dullness & bearing patiently its dust what a new universe would dawn upon you, converting the dross of this into gold & the glory of Heaven into an atmosphere around you here!  That I have enjoyed this exaltation at times must excuse these strong words which possibly you may yet think the ravings of a young enthusiast.  That you may find life sunny is, you know, my earnest prayer & this means next to Heavenly inspiration, has secured me the purest & sincerest delight; so I preach.  Good bye.  Remember me affectionately to your Parents & believe me as ever yr true sister
 Fanny.
  [p. 1 cross] Havre!  Dec 9th  This letter seems destined never to end but I only open it to say we are arrived at last, have eaten & enjoyed fully a French dinner & are ½ bewildered with the variety of novelties in every direction!  We came up the harbor today in a freezing rain which, successfully rivals even Boston east winds & have been shuddering ever since over the stone floors, enormous fire-places with their bits of wood which disappear like magic before our Yankee idea of warmth.  The picturesqueness of the entrance, houses, men, women, everything is so strange that it seemed like a panorama on a picture. – Bright-heartily rejoiced are we to welcome Mother Earth once more tho old Neptune has ben tolerably civil too!  Day after tomorrow we go to Rouen thence, Paris!  How much I have scribbled!  Addio –

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