Manuscript letter

Archives Number: 1011/002.001-010#004

I wish you a very happy New Year!
Boston Jan 3d 1840.
My dear Mr Franz! (A beautiful combination of the respectful & familiar that, Je me flatte!) I greet you at last from this region of thick-ribbed ice (where every thing freezes but hearts & ink) & thank you for the agreeable letter received from you a long time since. I intended answering it last year but for several weeks my time & thoughts have been so constantly & so painfully occupied, especially the latter, that I could not, in charity, send them all the way to Georgia, & to a lonesome, wife deserted man. Now, there is a simillarity [sic] in our situation which I am sure would secure your sympathy independently of our old friendship. Yes, Mary is actually married & certainly no union of life & soul, except the wedded one, has such one ness as that of two sisters of nearly the same age bound to each other from birth - & single through so many mature years – nor, but that, can any separation of [crossed out: such] two human creatures be so bitter & crushing. You can believe then what I suffer on my bereaved state – how undermined has been my peace of mind & hopes of the Future – for if it excites no little jealousy & loneliness to see a stranger claiming what was once all our own – this sorrow is doubly aggravated when he makes her also a stranger & steals her from her home & kindred. No one but Death & a lover can thus quietly bereave hearth-sides. I do not wish to make my letter a Jeremiad & these things are too sacred & heart-hid to be seen on paper even to a friend – and, thank God, my feelings have obtained a less selfish [p. 2] character. Now that it is over I actually feel relieved & live only on the consciousness of her supreme happiness which ought to hush all complaints. Yesterday week she was made a bride & the joy- & sorrow-fraught name of Mary Appleton ceased to be known on Earth! Neither she or Mackintosh wished any parade, any white satin or orange-buds or smirking brides-maids & men so she was married very quietly in the morning at home, with no one present but the family & E. Austin, - & our good Dr Channing was the important minister of their fate – his solemn prayers were echoed by more aching hearts & streaming eyes than often hallow this most awful ceremony. Mary was dressed simply in white muslin with no flowers in her hair but a bouquet next her heart (a sprig of myrtle fro which I send you) and, they say, never looked more charmingly; her face was radiant with a deep joy & trust which God grant may be eternal!
There was the usual cutting up of cake & spasmodic attempts at hilarity ending in sighs & after a lunch the two, by so few magic words made one, drove off – to Lexington where they still are. Dr & Mrs Follen being absent – they are very comfortably lodged in their house & yesterday I went out and dined with them. But so short had been the engagement & so sudden that even yet, at times, I think it all a dream on which some gracious dawn will arise. I have told you nothing about my new brother – Not many men could I have ever been induced to think worthy of such a sister so I can pay no higher compliment to this one than to say I am thoroughly satisfied he should be her husband. I am warmly attached [p. 3] to him for his genuine, upright, manly character had he no particular claims on my regard. He has all the soundness & purity of religious principle for which his Father was so distinguished with the same bonhomie toward mankind, with a true, noble heart & a clear, just head. He is very shy in his manners & keeps back his store of information & acquirement with the modesty of a true soul but it leaks out, malgré lui, on intimate acquaintance. He has an infinite fund of humour – but never jokes ill-naturedly & has a droll, dry way of telling a story which is irresistible. In fact the fond of his character is so admirable that I feel as confident (as any mortal can of the destinies of another) that he will secure a more durable & satisfactory happiness than she has ever yet been blessed with & I cannot but rejoice, with all my soul, that this change has come upon her. I think as little as possible of my Future – which now seems a dead blank, but such strange shiftings of our life’s kaleidoscope constantly occur that we know not, truly, what a year may bring forth. Lizzy Mason was with us at Christmas last year, & how incredulous would she & Mary have been if some soothsayer had announced to them that in 12 months they would both be married & one to reside in Pottsdam & one in Washington nearly antipodes! She “thanks her stars” (in a letter to Mary) that “Pottsdam is very different from Bremen” but I fear (poor girl) she will find that a ‘distinction without a difference’ from all accounts; however, as Sophia says “she is confoundedly in love” it matters little in what orbit she revolves. the ‘purple atmosphere’ will veil all common-places – if it does not grow thread-bare. Your pretty simile of the snow-flower was very à propos for Nature arrayed herself, out of compliment to Mary, in bridal gear tho’ you South [p. 4 bottom] ern people would probably call it a winding-sheet. And as to sentiment freezing here, you know the heart ‘has its own atmosphere’ - & if chilled abroad thaws out before a cheerful fire-side – with a thousand mingling, delicious tones like the ainsin Baron Munchausen’s bugle.
By way of antidote to the weather I have been revelling [sic] in this new Translation of the Arabian nights by Lane which, compared with our child-hood’s friend, is like Aladdin’s magic garden & a N. England one. It is so ‘interpenetrated’ with Orientalism. & orange-perfumed poetic & Ecclesiastes wisdom & ravishing description & exquisite illustration that it is enough (as their phrase is) “to make the soul quit the body.” Par [p. 4 top] exemple, how ashamed Moore must be not to have said this “I am wounded with the arrows shot from the bows of her eye-lids”! The wood-cuts are most beautiful & the poetry constantly introduced full of eastern philosophy & luxury. It is not a child’s book –t ho there are the same stories – but like finished pictures to which the other is a mere crayon outline. I have also been reading some of Tieck’s stories (translated) & like them much. The dead-alive woman in Pietro d’Albans is a most awful creation [p. 4 cross] & there are some fine thoughts in the “Old Man of the Mountain.” I heard Mrs Butler tell the “Love Charm” once & it was like a nightmare in her forcible language. I doubt if we go to visit her this winter for Mr Mackintosh has been so long away from W> that probably his duties will return him there. I go on with [p. 1 cross] them in about a week & hope to get some amusement out of the strange elements that compose Washington society, mustached diplomates from polished Courts & shaggy back-woodsmen from Nature’s high places. What a pity Fanny Calderon is not there for M’s sake – She has been loaded with presents & attention at Havana & is now in Mexico. I long to hear her picturesque accounts of her adventures. They must be (the Inglises) related to the wandering Jew & inherit his doom. It is very quiet here – in-doors tho the shipping has been waltzing & gallopading in terrific style during the late gales & our shores have been strewn with miserable victims. One vessell [sic] elbowed its way through a bridge & a house full of persons! Mary wrote Matilda just before her marriage – Mrs Oelricks said she had seen her in Hamburg. I hope you get good accounts of their well-being. The boys are skating like winged Mercuries down the pond – Dont you envy them? My cousin Sam Appleton & his wife (Miss Webster) have just arrived after a very tedious passage & enliven Aunt Sam’s dwelling. Miss Austin is my chief comfort here – Sally Newton is as blooming & fascinating as ever [p. 2 cross] Your friend Hillard has got into a comfortable house & his Spenser has been puffed by all our knowing-ones. It was my Christmas present from Father & a choice one. The Lowell-lectures soon begin Think of a man’s leaving so much money for lectures in Boston like sending coals to Newcastle. I have made this sufficiently illegible so wishing success to your labors - & salt to your porridge & plenty of both I remain, with regard & sympathy,
Yrs truly
Fanny E. A.
ADDRESSED: FRANCIS LIEBER ESQ. / COLUMBIA. / S. CAROLINA.
POSTMARK: BOSTON / JAN 5 / MS.

• Keywords: correspondence; long archives; frances e. a. longfellow papers (long 20257); frances elizabeth (appleton) longfellow; document; people; wedding; family life; Correspondence (1011/002); (LONG-SeriesName); Letters from Frances Longfellow (1011/002.001); (LONG-SubseriesName); 1840 (1011/002.001-010); (LONG-FileUnitName)