Frances (Appleton) Longfellow to Isaac Appleton Jewett, 15 November 1838 (372e24be-fcc5-4470-ba59-8cfaca0fbd93)

Manuscript letter
Archives Number: 1011/002.001-008#006
Boston, November 15, 1838.
I whistle off this epistle, dear Jewett, like the dove from the ark trusting to luck & the patron saint of wandering letters that it will find a better welcome than the fiery martyrdom of the General Post-Office. You are about buckling on, I suppose, your sandalled shoon & scalloped shell to migrate southward with the swallows, - who are, in that, the most sensible inhabitants of this shifting climate of ours. I wish with all my soul “la Sylphide” – had left me in her will those Psyche wings she abandoned – if only to escape the coffining, - pall-tapestried, - cold inflicts upon me. Thank heaven I shall have them some day – may they keep fresh from soil & rents in their present folding. I liked much your latest metaphysical cogitations. & shall disappoint your hopes of an argument by agreeing with them as well as two minds can of different texture – looking through differently tinted glasses – (don’t you believe the color of our eyes shadows our thoughts?) & handling everything so differently – I, - noticing the Caravaggio lights & shades - & broad, general effects, - you, analysing till woof & warp are both laid bare. As to my preaching content, I thought I told you in my last letter that I speedily resigned any such presumptuous notion, feeling that tho, “set a thief to catch a thief” may be a very true axiom it rather needs a decided conversion to honesty to become useful, & is, at best, an ungrateful office. Moreover when you spiritualize the idea so far, I yield, for I meant the word but in the every-day sense – but it is dangerous to use such homely weapons against you for you never keep your mind in an every-day mood but dress it (whenever it honors me with a bow) in its royal robes mi- [p. 2] croscope in hand. Western influences can not be so bad after all if you can keep your nature so free from being “subdued to [??] what it works in” – an enviable power I posses not utterly – hence prefer I, pure, holy, country atmospheres – where content even with this world & the people thereof has a chance to spring up, soon choked with thorns within Man’s boundaries. Nature’s influences have more magnetic ‘rapport’ with my best feelings, - sway, - create them – but then you mistake me that they are the sole impressing agents desirable – minds as June, as holy, as simple – as exalting should be their high priests – & vivify their passivity as you call it – these two combined surely should “express the soul into betterness” - Now I find more discontent in contact with mind (or what passes for such) in cities, where Nature has on a Cinderella disguise - & affects us little – for “society” is no Ferdinand & Isabella to give us means to explore the worlds hidden under each Macassar-oiled skull & taffeta waistcoat. The North-west passage will be an old story before we get as much satisfaction as sorrow & vexation from this pilgrimage. For we mould Nature to sympathy, Man we cannot. I have had strange doubts about Heaven tho’, on this score – we constantly fret içi bas for sympathy, but are not our vague notions of celestial tunings all-to-one-key insufferably insipid? What you say about discontent, if spoken truthfully – annihilates your previous argument - & all such others about the immortality of the soul – out of your own mouth are you judged – for what is this “restless longing” but a proof that we are worthy of another existence, which you once denied. Go straight to the glass – or feel if the top of your skull is flat & narrow – a deficiency of Veneration & Hope may explain this idea: no, it was but a hallucination, for your veneration I predict is large (what do you not venerate – but – the West & dueling? [p. 3] & your Hope was so in Europe; ever looking more forward than back, - but it seems to have sunk down of late, marvelously. Did the Teakle drop a tile on your head – when you absconded so ungallantly? or is there some density in American atmosphere that crushes these aspiring faculties, spreading out so frightfully below Acquisitiveness & Combativeness. This last has been raging under the Elections with a ‘fume’ worthy of the Middle Ages, in spite of Mr Combe's complacent theory – that the upper tier of the brain is expanding in every successive age, - so that future poets will think the ‘dome of reason’ pure prophecy on Byron's part. I am looking at everything just now Phrenologically, for 6 hours every week for a month have we been floating in Golgothian theories under Mr. Combe's dry, logical, Scotch teaching. Very entertaining I have found these lectures; nay much more more [sic] exciting & marvelous thoughts do I owe them about the mental, moral &physical structure than ever before made my acquaintance. Tom & I have been much more struck with this beautiful & curious scien[ce] than the rest & have discussed of little else. Mr C- has now finished his course & goes to the other cities. Having no Ideality himself he stuns opposition with a perfect Niagara of facts & experiences & all the skull believers here Spurzheim-raised, have held jubilee & are going to hive him & Madame (Mrs Siddons daughter & a nice body) a “social entertainment” tonight & present him with some plate – so their Veneration & Benevolence he makes conquer the all-conquerable Acquisitiveness. His last lecture about mental education, betraying the abominable way children are abused & misunderstood should be thundered thro’ New England and written on the wall of every schoolhouse therein. If he comes in your way conquer your lecture-repugnance & hear him. It is refreshing to swallow new ideas – when coming in so sensible a shape & I should like to see what cakes you will bake from [p. 4 bottom] his mill… ‘La Sonnambula’ is being quite well sung here by Miss Sheriff & Leguin whose has a fine, mellow base [sic] but the lectures are more powerful magnets to the mass. Now these Combings of our brain are over – I shall let my ears rest. last night till this morning! the insipid ghosts of talk – ball-talk were hailed into them. The Cabots have returned & all other European wanderers. The winter opens gloomily most coquettishly bad weather, with now & then an Indian summer day like a “swan trooping with crows” – or like Grisi’s smile in ‘I Puritani.’ I dread immensely the cold & envy even the mole in his snug subterranean idlesse. I have just laid on the shelf Prescott’s most interesting history; what a woman and what days! am now in Bishop or Cardinal de Cheverus saint-like life & looking askance at Franklin's. Shall resume Carlyle now the weather admits of jostling, without suffocation, the [p. 4 top] greasy multitude” & an atmosphere of blood & powder. Washington-associated-Blake was here the other day. Slocum’s sister is engaged, unfortunately not himself as was reported. How many Parisian elements you will find in N. Orleans to refresh you By all means – write me the effect thereof. Mr Cabot finds better coffee in his boarding house here than in Paris! think of that Master Brooks! Who can stand aloof enough from his own tastes to judge what is best in such matters? The archangel Gabriel if he has a palate. The fine arts flourish à ravir. Mr Gray (the strap-less) has a fine array of ‘belle cose,’ Bartolinis sweet ‘nymph of the Anno’ &c & Mr Oxnard, but yesterday a sailor before the mast, has ½ a hundred very good copies of the world’s treasures [p. 1 cross] Tom assisting at the hanging. Mr Cabot also no less a person than the Venus to shiver under our sky & a lovely Ganymede of Thorane sent for Uncle Wm. Uncle Sam’s bust frowns in Cato-like majesty & all the other grave & reverend Signors are immortalized likewise, or undergoing the operation, what Sam Hick would call “going the whole chisel” Dr Warren will goes down to posterity in super human grandeur, - smiling colossally side by side with a veritable antique Minerva & Trajan he picked up in Rome – as a link between – an Etruscan vase & Greenough. Think of 3 such representatives of ancient & modern art, in one Boston drawing-room. One of your western geniuses, I believe, is now turning to stone the great Daniel & family – excellently well too, Tom says. Phrenology is no joke in these times. Every bust will be a visible character – as in Paris’ collection of murderer’s skulls theirs is written, like Cain’s, on their brow. I know you can’t decipher cross-grained letters so I desist –
Many pleasures may you reap on your Southern tour – to garner up for the dark days under whose shadow we all walk stumbling – but hoping –
Yrs truly Fanny E.A.
ADDRESSED: I. A. JEWETT ESQ. / [CROSSED OUT: COLUMBUS.] / OHIO. / CINCINNATI / O.
POSTMARK: BOSTON/ NOV 16
POSTMARK: COLUMBUS / NOV 23
ENDORSED: ANRD / NOV 30 1838
Keywords: correspondence; frances elizabeth (appleton) longfellow; isaac appleton jewett; Correspondence (1011/002); (LONG-SeriesName); Letters from Frances Longfellow (1011/002.001); (LONG-SubseriesName); 1838 (1011/002.001-008); (LONG-FileUnitName)