File:Frances (Appleton) Longfellow to Mary (Appleton) Mackintosh, 1 December 1857 (5f5f2a3f-abf3-45a3-89eb-fb2f60e93cec).jpg

Manuscript letter

Archives Number: 1011/002.001-027#014

Cambridge. Dec 1st 1857.
Dear Mary,
Your faithful letters remind me of my delinquency too often, but tho’ I try to write, always by the Boston steamers, sometimes the day slips by unremembered.
This sad financial trouble seems to have shaken even the stout pillars of English capital, &, it at least teaches the lesson emphatically that the well being of one nation affects all the rest, a fraternal idea which should never be forgotten. Your Indian successes must be some consolation, though the loss of life must have caused much sorrow, and we hope the retaliation will be that of a Christian people & not barbarous like the heathen enemy. But it is hard to make war anything but heathen – the great Christian injunction “love your enemies,” can never be written on any of its banners.
We have greatly enjoyed welcoming Sumner back again, looking better tho [p. 2] thinner. He has dined twice with us & comes again today, for alas he must go tomorrow to Washington to commence the cares & labors of the long session. He came home against the urgent advice of the best physicians abroad – Sir James Clarke even declaring that, if he resumed mental labour, it was at the risk of his live, but no personal peril will deter him from his duty, & here he is.
He gives us most interesting accounts of his travels, & his glimpses of society which are certainly beyond any granted to any American before. The best in England have greeted him with such warmth & kindness that it makes us glad he is so worthy of the honors heaped upon him. The high civilization there especially charmed him, - the thorough culture I mean, rather than material luxury. Two days the Duchess of Southerland gave him at Clifton, opening this house only for him for these two days, & filling it with men most eminent in public life, but for that time not uttering a word on politics, but discoursing most ably on literary & artistic matters, im [p. 3] pressed & delighted him more, I think, than the splendors of Dunrobin, Inverary & Castle Howard. His visit to Haddo House was also very interesting, as to many, many others.
Did I write you of a singular coincidence he mentioned at Stirling's house (author of that delightful book the cloistered life of Charles 5th) which he says is crammed with rare treasures of art as his fields with rare cattle (he has a bull named Hiawatha & a cow Minnehaha).
He met there the still fair Mrs Norton, & she, speaking enthusiastically of Evangeline, said the two lovers passing each other on the Atchafalaya she considered so typical of life she had that word engraved on a seal, & afterwards having Leopold, king of Belgium, for a guest, he speaking of Evangeline in the same way, said he thought that word, in its connection, so suggestive of life experiences he intended to have it on a seal, whereupon she, amazed showed him hers! Singular, was it not? He brings many sugar plums to Henry, & tells him how warmly he would be welcomed at Dunrobin & Inverary. The Duchess, in driving him about, with four horses and outriders, put the book in the carriage for him to read aloud to her. [p. 4] I tell you all this because it may amuse you, & I love to think Henry is so well appreciated among strangers. How much more would they think of him if they knew him personally, for the best of him is not in his books as it is with many poets. The overflowing goodness of his heart, his tenderness towards every human creature, in fact to everything having life, is but faintly hinted at in them.
Fanny Kemble is at last gone, sadly returning Sally to her father for the winter. She herself will read in N. York this year. She, for charity, gave one reading here, the first Sally ever listened to, & it was a nervous thing for both. The latter could not get over her repugnance to see her mother in public. She is a most interesting girl, & I hope will have a happier fate. Tom gave them & Sumner a little dinner in his new house, & all went off better than I expected, tho’ the bouquets did not arrive in time. He is really at home there now, - & enjoys painting in his atelier very much. It looks very pretty with all his pictures on the walls. He has a small crimson-papered study opening into a drawing-room which again is only separated from his dining-room by curtain draperies, but Paul has shown much taste in it all, &, tho’ snug, it is very pleasing. He has a [p. 5 marked 2] quiet, good sort of woman for cook, a very nice-looking girl for maid & his coachman James, & I hope will get on comfortably. He is so near we see each other, of course, daily.
I went yesterday to make some calls in town – to pretty Mrs Bigelow Lawrences, who I found busy, with John Sturgis, in planning tableaux, for charity, to be performed by the ladies at Chickerings rooms to a selected audience. She gave Mrs Kemble lately a pleasant party, we were at, where I saw, for the first time, her husband’s armory, which is most remarkable for a private one. It is a large room filled with ancient arms & surrounded by twelve knights in complete steel. We then went to Mrs D.P. Parker’s who talked of you & the children, & how sorry she was not to have seen you again, then to Miss Timmins’ who has a new Italian sister-in-law, a handsome Contessa, Henry enchanted by speaking Italian with, & “so home.” We are looking now for Mrs Wedgwood. It is time she made her appearance, & we have not heard a word from her since she left us. The Eliots have left their home. Harriot has the Newton Don Quixote in keeping for them. Our friend Bennock of London I see has failed - & we feared the Bensons [p. 6] were invested with Naylor & Co.
Papa has reprinted his book on Banking which is in demand just now.
Annie Hodgkinson is looking better & quite handsome again. She & baby will pass the winter with Aunt Sam Louisa is very happy in Paris with Mrs Sedgwick. We all dined with Papa on Thanksgiving day, & I took the chicks to make their annual call on Aunts Sam & Wm. The latter was sad of course, on that day of family associations, & Charley, also ill with a typhoid fever, but lightly. Sam’s children we hoped to see at papa’s, but they did not come. I do not think he has been in any way embarrassed by these times, more than we all are in getting no factory dividends. We went in, on Sunday, to our dear old church to hear Scherb preach. It is many years since I have been there, and it seemed crowded with ghosts & memories, sitting as I was in mother’s place & looking at the pulpit sacred to the saintly Doctor. The congregation looks less & faded out.
I send you one of Charley’s school tickets for Angus. I hope you will get settled for the winter to please you & feel well eno’ to enjoy some society & pleasure. Love to R. & the chicks
Yr aff Fanny E.L.

• Keywords: correspondence; long archives; frances e. a. longfellow papers (long 20257); frances elizabeth (appleton) longfellow; people; document; subject; social life; longfellow works; evangeline; henry wadsworth longfellow; Correspondence (1011/002); (LONG-SeriesName); Letters from Frances Longfellow (1011/002.001); (LONG-SubseriesName); 1857 (1011/002.001-027); (LONG-FileUnitName)