File:Frances (Appleton) Longfellow to Mary (Longfellow) Greenleaf, 5 January 1853 (d134da54-215f-4dbb-b396-791938e051d1).jpg

Manuscript letter

Archives Number: 1011/002.001-023#002

Cambridge Jan 5th 1853.
Dear Mary
I am quite ashamed to be so behind-hand in my New Year greetings, or rather I may say in any greetings at all, so remiss have I been in welcoming you to N. Orleans. But it was partly, perhaps, because I have had no visible token from your own hand that you were there, which has made it difficult to send my thoughts so far. ‘A merry Xmas’ & a ‘happy New Year’ we all however, hope you have had, & that your winter opens, or closes, as delightfully as ours has done, the marvelous mildness here making it hard to [p. 2] believe we are mid way through. After last year it is all the more striking, but I do not know that I feel any better for it. With our furnace-heated houses it is often, as today, rather enervating. My sister rather rejoices in it, however, fearing our extreme cold & also little Eva who suffers much from chilblains, but the boys long for a real good snow storm that they may display to Angus all the winter sports. He braves the cold well & is enchanted with a sled & has so changed the complexion of his cheeks since he came his papa would not know him. They are all very happy together, & go on most harmoniously under Miss Davies excellent care. Little Alice has grown far fatter & rosier too than when you saw her, & is wonderfully wise in her speech. [p. 3] She was the youngest & merriest at Mrs Appleton’s party on New Years Eve & came home the proud possessor of a huge bedstead well furnished, for her dolls. She talks to them very drolly & has already a mania to hear stories read out of books. Sam has been with us off & on, preaching nearly every Sunday somewhere in the neighborhood, but has now gone to Portland. His plans seem as yet unformed. My brother Tom writes pleasantly from Paris & will see the new Evangeline in all its fresh glorys.
You have no doubt heard of the death of my cousin Mrs Greene which took place very quietly but sadly for her mother just 3 days after she was obliged to go to Washington. Her long suffering & most Christian practice & resignation soften to them all this severe loss. It came as a melancholy climax to [p. 4] Hetty’s wedding & the christening of Harriets boy so the 3 great events of life were brought within their experience in one month.
We have been much entertained by Thackeray’s lectures, full of clever satire & lively sketches of character but rather too severe perhaps in the main. We are glad to have the Lowells back again, she looking rather better than I expected after the loss of her boy abroad. She sent here on New Year’s day the Craigie chair Aunt Sally had & for you Henry’s portrait which I cannot much congratulate you on possessing. I have wished to send you, as New Year’s gift, the “Houses of American Authors” with a fine sketch of our house in it but am not quite sure how to do it. Cambridge is indulging itself in Assemblies but I go not to them nor the Boston ones. Mr Amos Lawrence is a great loss – the best man probably among all the renowned that died this last year – he just crowned the harvest. My friend Emmeline Wadsworth is in B. for the winter & all future winters. Her [p. 1 cross] brothers have bought Mr Otis grand house in Beacon St. What a shocking accident the poor President elect has met with. It must kill his wife. I send you Henry’s poem on the Duke. Could you bring me, or send, a fine specimen of the cotton as growing in the pod for my sister? Poor Jewett has been very ill with fever & ague. Love to James & from Henry & my sister to you
Yr affte
Fanny E.L.
Remember us to the Genas.

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