Файл:Frances (Appleton) Longfellow to Thomas Gold Appleton, 31 July 1844 (14f9a7de-8a1f-4477-9c76-c89f63c46b00).jpg

Manuscript letter

Archives Number: 1011/002.001-014#018

Cambridge. July 31st 1844.
Dearest Tombo,
It seemeth strange to me to begin to scribble to thee upon a full-grown sheet betokening distance & space & all sorts of things that never should have been invented & yet so short a glimpse we had of thee that it already might seem stranger to grasp thee by the hand. Since you left us all has been going on well, & I am astonishing everybody by looking more robust & rosy than ever. The “little Philosopher” has also been making the best possible use of the time & has been practicing the “principles of growth” with a zeal which can leave you in no doubt as to his filling your beautiful gown or any thing else. He has been displayed already in it to some people & passed the day with me lately at Aunt Sam’s where he & it received due attention. We warmly hope your passage was short & agreeable, & that you are “moistening your clay” somewhere to your entire satisfaction. After the fearful drought here, to just as the men were beginning to unroof us for shingling, rain came on & everything has re- [p. 2] covered its original color and freshness.
I have enjoyed my drives greatly – exploring with Em many pretty roads which I had not before discovered. She is charmed with this neighborhood & repents more everyday Sam’s Brookline purchase. He continues to drive thro’ the dust in his white coat & hat to the hot town instead of enjoying the shade of the lindens – a piece of folly unpardonable in such a philosopher, but that name implies only, I believe, a lover of wisdom not a professor of it. Our minds & hearts are greatly relieved by Sumner’s convalescence, for though more sanguine than his other friends the common belief in his danger kept us very anxious & unhappy about him. The doctors frightened everybody without cause, apparently, for there have been no symptoms of consumption that I can discover – & he has had nothing worse than a slow fever. At least we hope this, but as he is not yet well will not say that they groped in the dark as they generally do. Yesterday he made a visit of an hour, - & looked very thin & pale, but thinks he has turned the corner - & is amused at the reports about him.
His many friends look upon his rare & energetic character, more earnest for doing good of all kinds than any persons I have ever known, as too great a gift to the world to be with [p. 4] drawn so early, & yet as those apparently more needed are constantly taken they dared not hope too much until now. Poor Hillard has met with a sad trouble – the eldest of those little girls you saw here on the 13th of July fell from the window of his house into the street & is much injured – but it is hoped may recover, childhood is so elastic as Mrs. Brooks would say. Mary Allen is married at last to O’Sullivan – [hole in paper] a Gretna Green of Lebanon. Father looked in upon us lately & has expanded in Berkshire air. He urges us to try it by & bye & perhaps we may – but first I go to Portland. Mary returned soon after you left, & Henry brought from P. whither he went for a night, my darling little Annie for a few days. I so wish you could have seen them. But I have not yet told you the great family news. Marianne Appleton is engaged to your old friend Copley Greene! Church sympathies have brought them together though he rides the high horse & she the low – or vice versa. I do not think she would have been the woman of his choice a few years ago, but his tastes have much changed & they seem to me to be very well mated now. Fanny Calderon took tea with us night before last & expressed her great regret that you did not join them in Spain. All the etiquette & starch of a Spanish court have had no effect upon her [crossed out: easy] free & easy manners – she is unaltered by her vast variety of experiences & ways of life, & is the [p. 4 bottom] same good natured, careless entertaining creature. I shall hope in a day or two for good news from you, dearest, & having no time for further scribbling must say good bye wishing you (with Henry’s love) every enjoyment for mind & body compatible with the health of both.
ever yr loving
Fannikin.
[p. 4 top, HWL hand] My Dear Tom, when you go over to France you may chance to find some traces of your ancestors in Bayeux, for I find that a certain Thomas Appleton received from Henry VI the “terre d’Asnières près Bayeux” for which he paid annually “une raire de flûtes”! of the kind called Recordeurs. He probably invented the French joke “Savez vous quelque chose de plus ennuyeux qu’une flûte? Oui, deux flûtes.” – I hope you had a good voyage out; and are hale and hearty. The shower bath is curing my eyes. Much love to Mary & MacKintosh.
H.W.L.
MANUSCRIPT: FRANCES ELIZABETH APPLETON LONGFELLOW PAPERS (FEAL-B2-F14-I18)
ADDRESSED: T. G. APPLETON / [CROSSED OUT: CARE OF BARING BROTHERS & C / LONDON] / 22 PALL MALL
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• Keywords: correspondence; long archives; frances e. a. longfellow papers (long 20257); frances elizabeth (appleton) longfellow; people; document; health and illness; subject; henry wadsworth longfellow; Correspondence (1011/002); (LONG-SeriesName); Letters from Frances Longfellow (1011/002.001); (LONG-SubseriesName); 1844 (1011/002.001-014); (LONG-FileUnitName)