A letter to Catherine Eliot Norton.
My dear Mrs Norton,
Last evening I had the extreme satisfaction of receiving your kind letter; —four days after its date; and I beg you not for one moment to wrap yourself in the illusion that any letters you receive can give you half the pleasure, that those you write give us. I should not have waited for yours in order to write you again; but for a day or two past I have been busy in writing to Europe, and making up some small packages for my German friends, having an opportunity direct from Cambridge to the Rhine. And now guess who is going! I give you three trials. No, it is not Peele Dabney;[1] it is not President Quincy; it is not Miss Lowell! It is the Reverend Mr. Muzzy of the Port, with his smiling moving face. And this is the most striking thing that has happened since I wrote you; and this has not happened yet.
For the last fortnight I have been in Boston but once. That was to dine with Mrs. Ticknor on Saturday. The guests were young Richard Dana and his wife; and Mr. and Mrs. Crafts.[2] Mrs. Ticknor was unusually well and cheerful. She recommended one of the dishes as a successful attempt of the cook—”quite a coup.” Mr. Crafts, who was eating thereof, assented, and said, “Yes, it is what the French call copper monkey.” All looked very wise, and no one comprehended. Mrs. T. contended herself with saying, she had never heard it called so. Now, what do you imagine he meant? By dint of hard study, I have made it out to be a “coup pas manqué [successful attempt]“! This is as good as Louisa Ward’s “donkey shot” (Don Quichotte) or wicked Julia’s insinuation that Hillard called Felton a “very good raccoon-ter” (raconteur).
Our friend Miss Lowell has had very sad times since you left us. During that short space of time she has discarded two servants in succession—each departing, like an evil spirit, with maledictions. They mocked her, bade her good bye with grotesque courtesies, —shook their fists in her face, called her “mad Sal—old, drunken, crazy Sal!” and have since gone about town spreading the report of her intemperance. Finally, to eject them from the house it was necessary to send for Mrs. Fay,[3] who “walked into the kitchen very dignified” and exorcised the fiends. Nothing for many a day has so strongly excited my indignation, and pity. To think of an old lady exposed to such indignities! What a lonely, what a desolate old age!
How different from this gossip is the Divine Dante with which I begin the morning! I write a few lines every day before breakfast. It is the first thing I do—the morning prayer—the key-note of the day. I am delighted to have you take an interest in it. But do not expect too much; —for I really have but a few moments to devote to it daily; yet daily a stone—small or great is laid on the pile.
The Liverpool steamer is in; and Felton has just come up with a letter from Forster and another from Dickens. The as-yet-unseen friend Forster has had a violent rheumatic fever, such as Felton had just a year ago. Sympathy. Dickens’s letter is very characteristic, but contains no particular news. I had nothing. Rather a disappointment; as I had made up my mind to several letters. But a letter I did receive two or three days ago from Cleveland, dated at Havana, Feb. 15. He says nothing about his health. He returns by the way of New Orleans. From a Cuban Review he quotes a paragraph about Nat. Willis, who is innocently, and yet comically enough, spoken of as “Don Juan Willis.”[4]
Hawthorne dined with me to-day. He has just published in the Pioneer a remarkable story called the Birth Mark. If it falls in your way, pray read it. It very beautifully portrays the madness of a man’s looking evermore at a slight defect in the bosom of his wife, till that one defect grows in his imagination so great as to eclipse all her beauty. It is a painful story, but striking.
I heartily wish that the next person you meet in Broad Way might be—myself. It may be Dr. Howe; as he is supposed to have gone in that direction drawn by the “religion of the place.” At all events, let me often meet you in thought. Late evening, after the Faculty Meeting I went up to Shady Hill with Felton. The Apthorps[5] were there. A. sang Spanish songs to his guitar. Jane was fascinated. She wants to learn the guitar. Mr. Norton, Felton, Louisa and I, joined in the consert, by playing a “Sonata, arranged for four hands, by Hoyle.”[6] A fine piece of music, with trump-it obbligato. Do you know it?
I left Jane writing to you, to go by to-day’s mail. I told her I should tell you everything, that she did not. Mrs. Cleveland is now with you. Much love to her and to Charles. We shall all be rejoiced to see you on Saturday—and no one more than
Yours very truly and affectionately
Henry W. Longfellow
Pray observe this letter; thin at the top, and thick at the bottom, as if it had settled.
From The Letters of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Volume 2: 1837–1843, edited by Andrew Hilen.
[1] Jonathan Peele Dabney (1793–1868), a member of the Harvard class of 1811, was an editor and compiler of hymnbooks and sermons.
[2] Richard Henry Dana had married Sarah Watson (1814–1907) after his return from the Pacific and was now practicing law in Boston. Royal Altamont Crafts (1800–1864), merchant and manufacturer, was married to Marianne Mason (b. 1815), whose brother, Alfred Mason, was Longfellow’s Bowdoin classmate.
[3] Harried Howard Fay (1782–1847), wife of Judge Fay.
[4] Longfellow altered Willis’ title for effect. Cleveland’s copy of the Spanish paragraph actually referred to “del joven Americano M. Juan Willis.”
[5] Robert East Apthorp (1811–1882) and his wife, Eliza Hunt Apthorp (b. 1817). Apthrop was a close friend of Fanny Appleton.
[6] Possibly John Hoyle (died c. 1797), English writer on music.
