File:Frances (Appleton) Longfellow to Mary (Appleton) Mackintosh, 3 January 1859 (13697e2b-af29-4ee6-9460-4bc547592fcf).jpg

Manuscript letter

Archives Number: 1011/002.001-029#001

Cambridge. Jan 3d 1859.
Dear Mary,
Happy New Year to you all! I hope you have been much enjoying the children’s holy days, and the warm stream of life which, like the Gulf-stream, they pour thro’ our colder currents. That must be the one bright spot in having them away at public schools – the joy & fresh affection of the return at holy days, which ours, so constantly with us, do not concentrate into such intensity. Christmas, however, is warmly enough anticipated & welcomed & Santa Claus still holds his reign over the younger ones. The boys no longer hang up their stockings, but the little girls do with all faith.
This year Harriet took his night instead of Xmas’, as it came on Saturday, [p. 2] & little Annie made her first appearance at the yearly merry-making, when Naty, dressed as Santa Claus, brought the basket of presents on his back, & looked & performed his part admirably. Sam’s children & ours & Emmeline’s three are all that are now left in the family, so the merriment was chiefly with the young girls of Hatty’s age – the Rogers’ Peabody’s &c. Mrs Winthrop was not there, nor her sisters, as old Mrs Derby is failing very rapidly. Mrs George Gardner appeared with her four daughters, none so pretty as the mother, but very grand in find French gowns, having lately returned from abroad.
Sam’s oldest boy has a heavy look, but gains prizes at his school, & was invited to a formal dinner into the other medal scholars at the Tremont House, to his father’s great amusement. Cary is regaining her health, under a new doctor, so Sam keeps her very quiet, & would not allow her this excitement. [p. 3] Louisa Bangs I had a pleasant talk with of Europe & its wonders of art which she has enjoyed intensely. Tom gave her & her sister a dinner the other day. Poor Alice I did not venture to take in, after her illness, but she bore the disappointment very amiably, & was consoled by seeing her presents at her bedside next morning. Charley Norton sent her a duck with a whole dinner set inside him, - a real Giroux toy, which, of course, was highly admired. We have had such very dull weather I have not sent her to school again yet, as she is doubly sensitive to the cold, & has lost so much flesh.
On New Year’s Eve she had some little girls for a frolic, & we got up some tableaux & charades quite successfully.
Hatty was to have made me a visit this week of vacation, but is so absorbed with skating on Jamaica Pond, & with the Opera, that I let her off. Willy is quiet a graceful, elegant looking youth now, with his moustache, & [p. 4] quiet ways. We dined in town on N. Year’s day, & I found Harriot receiving visits, with Hatty, of young beaux. It seemed a strange repetition of the olden time to see young Wm Amory walk in, just as his father used to, & to think that Hatty was 17, the age we entered society. He seemed rather a favorite, I thought, & they say is an excellent youth, - a good deal like his father, tho’ not so clever or good-looking. Next year, she will be launched. She is a very sensible, unaffected girl, with none of the excitement of manner she had as a child. Her friend Annie Grant (Lizzie Bryant’s girl) is very like her mother, very piquante & pretty - & strangely confused the past & present as I looked at her. Willy is now Junior, & his studies are Greek (Sophocles, Aristophanes Latin (Quintilian) Mathematics, Physics, Rhetoric, Lectures on Greek Literature (Felton) Chemistry, Botany, & French, German & Spanish according to choice, with lectures on the same by Lowell (Henry’s successor.) I think he stands about 15 in his class, which, as it is of more than a hundred, is very well. Erny brought home a prize the other day from Mr Bradford. He begins to like Latin better & Charley too. They are now going to dancing school at the ever-young Papantis.
[p. 1 cross] I see Lord Napier’s pro-slavery leanings are given as the reason of his dismissal. I have heard from English travellers some indignation at his views, & if so, it is a good lesson to us. She declared herself sympathetic with Sumner once to me, but he never.
Our Chapel looks very prettily in its Xmas wreaths. Mr Huntington had service Xmas eve. We have in the afternoon no sermon, but a service like yours, which is much liked, & the singing has greatly improved. Mr Palfrey has written a good history of N. England. How well Punch hits off the French fashion of bracelets. Love to all. Yr aff
Fanny E.L.
[p. 2 cross] Yesterday we sung a hymn in church Mr H. said was to be sung that day all over Christendom.
[p. 3 cross] Tell Robert Henry is too shy of speculations to venture into any. He prefers the solid certainty of regular dividends.

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