Sarah Orne Jewett Letters of 1881
Sarah Orne Jewett -- Fragment of a Letter
[ c. early 1881 ]*
I amused myself when I was coming home in the train last night by watching, and wondering about two old ladies in black who sat before me. They were very interesting and I wished for you{.} They seemed to recognise 'the scenery' [ once corrected ] in a while, and I think they must have been going up in the countrywhereback to the place where theycame from^lived^ when they were children, & I imagined their only finding a few people whom they used to know & staying with some niece or distant cousin and thinking how different it used to be & having rather a disappointed lonely visit after all. I was prepared [ to be corrected ] very kind to them and help them with their bundles & shawls if they left the cars at Eliot, but they remained seated. They were not particularly well dressed & not at all used to travelling & looked as if they had
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"seen better days ^& much care & trouble^" but they chattered away energetically to each other & looked as if a great deal had happened to them & they could tell me surprising stories [ if they liked ? ]{.} Yet I dare say they were the most commonplace old persons in the world --
Notes
The manuscript of this sketch is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. bMS Am 1743 - II. Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, Unidentified, recipient. 21 letters and fragments. Box 7, item 279.
It is difficult not to associate this piece with "Miss Becky's Pilgrimage," for the language here so clearly echoes that of the 2nd paragraph of Jewett's story, which appeared in The Independent of 1 September 1881. If this is indeed a seed for that story, then she very likely composed this memory earlier that year.
While this reads a good deal like a reflection that led to a story, Jewett clearly had a reader in mind when she said "I wished for you." If written in 1881, before the Jewett-Fields friendship blossomed, this piece probably was not intended for Fields, and one is left to speculate about which of her correspondents she would have wished for.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Lilian May Munger
South Berwick
9 Jan 1881
My dear Lily
Thank you for your nice long letter and for the pretty Christmas card. I heard from Mrs. Rice,* who went to see you a day or two after you left -- that you had gone to Millbury* and I was sure you had some good reason for it, but I was glad to have you tell me yourself. I think you did just right but I can understand that
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it was in some ways a hard thing to do. I am sure you will be glad -- and that you will really gain more than you lost and that the rest of the Boston winter will come some other time -- But I am going to beg you again and again! not to do too much, and to put [ your corrected ] whole heart into the necessary things but not to feel that you must use all your spare time in studying. I think leisure is very necessary to growth. I have become more and more sure of it. Sometimes an
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hour of idleness is a very great help, not only because it is a rest, but because thoughts come to one -- that in intent and careful work are crowded out -- And a restless character is never restful, you know, and I think a quiet self-contained person in whom strength and repose ^of character^ are both marked traits, is a very helpful person. American life is such a hurry and drive that it {is} a blessed thing to find somebody once and awhile who rests in her work, and so very seldom has to take a rest from it! You asked me
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to speak to Mr. Hobbs* about the academy but I never have happened to see him -- In some ways I think very well of your coming here -- but in others I dont. I think there would be a good deal of [a risk?] about it -- the school is an uncertain one. And in the last few years it has been chiefly made up of boys. I dont doubt myself that you and your friend would make a success of it in two years perhaps, but it would be a great deal better to find a school that was ready to your hand and did not
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have to be 'built up' -- Still there is a fund, and it is a question I am not fit to decide or advise upon anyway. Mr. Lord* seems to have doneveryvery well. I dont know whether he will leave at the end of this year or not. I should like to have you here. -----
Miss Cushing* told me how much she enjoyed that morning with you. I think you gave as much pleasure as you had. I hope you will go to see her when you are in town again. She is quite troubled because she forgot to give you her card -- but she lives at
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No. 8 Walnut St. ----- I think it is very good {for} you to go to Mrs. Sargents* just to see the people and sometimes the lectures are charming -- -- I am pulling through the winter here as best I can, but I am not well at all. I dont dare to go South, for I seem to have had a touch of malaria these last two years, and I am as well off here as anywhere. I have a great deal else to say, my dear little girl, but I shall have to end this letter -- and I put in it the most loving good wishes for you and I hope and believe that this will be the happiest and best year of your life -- God bless you always --
Yours most affly
S. O. Jewett
[ Up the left margin of page 1 ]
Your sister Annie* sent me a lovely C-- card -- It was a branch of holly.
Notes
Mrs. Rice: Probably Cora Clark Rice. See Key to Correspondents.
Millbury: Munger taught for 3 years at the Millbury, MA High School, from about 1879 to 1882. An envelope associated with this letter is addressed to "Care Rev. C. Munger, Farmington, Maine."
Mr. Hobbs ... the academy: Hiram H. Hobbs was secretary of the trustees of the Berwick Academy from 1846-1883, and was succeeded by his son Charles C. Hobbs from 1893 to 1913 (Old Academy on the Hill, Marie Donahue). Hiram H. Hobbs (1802-1884, according to South Berwick Maine Record Book, the 1967 cemetery guide by John Eldridge Frost) married a descendant of Thomas and Elizabeth Wallingford, whose family are models for characters in The Tory Lover. In "The Old Town of Berwick," Jewett describes Hiram Hobbs as "a tall, fine figure of a man just in the prime of his activity, and one of the most useful and careful secretaries and trustees of the academy during many years."
Mr. Lord: It is very difficult to be certain which Mr. Lord Jewett would report upon among the many in the South Berwick area or associated with the academy. This Mr. Lord, it appears, held a position of responsibility at the Berwick Academy at the time of this letter.
Miss Cushing: While this could be Elizabeth Cushing (6 October 1797- 5 October 1889), Jewett's neighbor in South Berwick, the 8 Walnut Street address is in Boston, making this Miss Cushing a neighbor of Jewett correspondent Grace Gordon's family at 5 Walnut. Probably, then, this is Alice Kirke Cushing (1859-1918). She was the daughter of Henry Kirke Cushing and Elizabeth/Betsey Maria Williams. Her brother was the famous neurosurgeon, Harvey Williams Cushing (1869-1939). Alice Cushing never married and continued living with her parents. However, Alice Cushing's parents were living at 786 Prospect Street in 1903; whether they resided at the Walnut Street address earlier has not been confirmed. Miss Cushing is described as "Shy and somewhat austere, [with]... an active mind." She read widely in history and literature and became an authority on English church architecture. See also Harvey Cushing: A Biography (1946) by John F. Fulton.
Mrs. Sargent's: This may be Mary Elizabeth Fiske Sargent (1827-1904). She became the second wife of John Turner Sargent (1807-1877), a prominent Unitarian minister, remembered for his support of abolition and woman suffrage. Together they founded Boston's Radical Club (1867-1880). She edited Sketches of the Radical Club of Chestnut Street, Boston. See Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier v. 1, p. 194n.
sister Annie: Anna R. Munger was one of Lily's older sisters.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Small Library, University of Virginia, Special Collections MSS 6218, Sarah Orne Jewett Papers. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Adams Fields
South Berwick
12 January 1881
Dear Mrs. Fields
I hope you do not think that I am very rude for indeed I didn't mean to be! When I saw you I thought I should be in Boston again by the middle of this month, but I find I must put off my cruise until later. I think it is, to say the least, distressing to have a guest give warning of her coming from time to time!
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and I hope I am not a dead weight on your mind and that I shall not interfere with your plans --
I am looking forward with the greatest pleasure to being with you for a few days, and I hope you will let me come by and by and play that it is still January -- the time when you asked me to come.
We do not like to leave my mother alone in winter, it is so
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very lonely for her, and just now my sister Mary* is going to town for a little while -- first to Cora Rice's --* She is going to have a very good time I hope, for though I shall miss her dreadfully I cant help remembering how much oftener I give her a chance to miss me! And in one way, I think she minds being in Berwick in winter more than I do.
Your Under the Olive* is always more and more of a pleasure to me, and I read the notices
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of it as eagerly as possible. I wonder if you have seen one in the N.Y. Christian Union* which I saw by chance a day or two ago? I wish to thank you all over again for the pleasure the book has given me. Ellen ^Mason!!^* wrote me that you sent a copy to her ---
Will you believe that I do wish very much to see you and I am always yours affectionately.
S. O. J.
Notes
Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
Cora Rice: Cora Clark Rice. See Key to Correspondents.
Under the Olive: Fields's collection of poems, Under the Olive, appeared in 1881.
N. Y. Christian Union: An advertisement for Under the Olive in Christian Union 22, (24 November 1880, p. 460) said: "A beautiful volume of lyrical and dramatic poems mostly on noble or romantic subjects in Grecian history and legend. They show not only great familiarity with Greek literature, but a rare sympathy with the modes of Greek thought and expression which have made that literature the admiration of the world." A review in the same issue, (p. 449) said: "Mrs. Annie Fields, the author of the new Boston book of poetry, "Under the Olive," is the wife of Mr. James T. Fields, ex-publisher and now lecturer. Mrs. Fields has done something in verse in the past, but the coming of this book was a genuine surprise. It is a collection of Greek verses of a very difficult sort to write, and perhaps there is nothing in the collection better than the Apostrophe to Theocritus, which was printed in the "No Name" volume of poetry a year or two since."
Ellen Mason: Ellen Francis Mason. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter appears in Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. Annie Fields (Adams) 1834-1915, recipient. 194 letters; 1877-1909 & [n.d.] Sarah Orne Jewett correspondence, 1861-1930. MS Am 1743 (255). Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Lyman Abbott
[ 20 January 1881 ]
[ Stamped letterhead of initials SOJ superimposed ].*
Dear Mr. Abbott
I send you with this a sketch* which I hope you will like & can use. I tried to give a little lesson in it -- by making two girls very pleasant to their old schoolmate for one thing! In case you keep it, do you think I [ could corrected ] see the proofs? I know it is not always convenient in a weekly publication and so I will not insist, but
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I always like to look them over if I can -- If you mailed the proofs one afternoon I should get them next morning & you would have them back the next --
Yours sincerely
Sarah Orne Jewett
South-Berwick
20 Jan. 1881
Notes
superimposed: In the upper left corner of this page appears the numeral "3," presumably in another hand.
sketch: "A Quiet Scholar" appeared in The Christian Union on 17 August 1881. See Jewett to Abbott of 9 February 1881.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Hawthorne-Longfellow Library, Brunswick, ME. A photocopy is in the Sarah Orne Jewett Papers, Series 1 (M238.1): Correspondence, 1877-1905, n.d. The original is in the Lyman Abbott Autograph Collection (M1.8).
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Henry Oscar Houghton
South Berwick
2nd February.
[1881 ]
My dear Mr. Houghton
Thank you very much for you kindness and I beg first to apologize for not having written again to Mrs. Houghton, but there was really nothing to write! until I knew something about my plans. My sister has been in Boston for three weeks and I have to wait for her return to settle upon
[ Page 2 ]think it would be hardly possible -- but I have a friend in Providence* who will go at any time I do, so I should have company on the voyage. We planned when we talked it over that we were to be consigned to Mrs. Eames* who is an old friend of my friend's mother, and who has spent a great many springs in Bermuda. She goes down on the 10th* and I had already heard of Dr. Davidson though Mrs. Ellis* who
my time for going away -- As for Bermuda,* I am taking up that plan again with renewed interest and determination for I find the winter weather has told upon me a good deal already, and hard as it is to make up my mind to go away so far from home, I think it is the only thing that is right to do -- I do not wish to go quite so soon as the tenth* = indeed I
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promised to let my sister know as soon as she found out about his plans. I tell you all this since you are taking so kind an interest and it seems to me now that I probably shall start a fortnight from the 10th with Miss Chafee* and in the meantime I shall spend a few days in Boston. I wish you would thank [Dr. corrected] Davidson for his kind offer that I might join his party and, I shall hope to see him and his daughter there if I do not go down with them.
Yrs. sincerely Sarah O Jewett
Notes
1881: This date is speculative, based upon a letters to Mary Bucklin Davenport Claflin, dated from the autumn of 1880 and to Annie Adams Fields of 23 November 1880, in which Sarah Orne Jewett speaks of going to Bermuda.
Bermuda: Jewett is not known to have traveled to Bermuda, but she spoke of plans to make a stay in the fall of 1880.
tenth: This word may be underlined.
10th: Jewett has corrected the number. It probably reads as transcribed, but it could be 11th.
Mrs. Eames: The Eames name is prominent in Rhode Island, in business and in politics. Benjamin Tucker Eames (1818-1901) served several terms in Congress. His wife was Laura Southwick Chapin (1824-1872). Benjamin Tucker's son, Waldo Chapin Eames (1859-1894) married Laura A Hoppin in 1887. While it is possible that Jewett refers to Laura Eames, this would be possible only if the date of the letter is after 1887.
Dr. Davidson ... Mrs. Ellis: Emma Harding Claflin Ellis. See Key to Correspondents.
Dr. Davidson and his daughter have not been identified.
Miss Chafee: Assuming that this transcription is correct, Miss Chafee remains unidentified. Chafee is a well-known name in Rhode Island.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Small Library, University of Virginia, Special Collections MSS 6218, Sarah Orne Jewett Papers. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Anna Laurens Dawes
7 February 1881My dear Anna
If I had not wished to write to you so much I should have sent you a letter long ago -- every day I scurry off notes and letters -- but it seems to me I find less and less time for the letters I used to take such pleasure in. Dont you know too, that every day there are things that must be done at once -- and so one lets the dearest things be sometimes crowded out by the things one would not have missed. And then, this long last year I have been in such wretched health that only a person who has had the same experience will know how to pity me! There have been so many cares and responsibilities that it was hard to neglect and I do think the physical pain and suffering is really the least evil of a long illness. Yet I can truly say that this has been the happiest and most satisfactory year of my life -- and I thank God that I can say so. I shall have to go away this spring I am afraid. I am better than I was a few months ago, but by no means strong, and the severe weather has upset me a good deal. I dont dare risk being here through the spring which always tires me most -- and it would involve my dragging about all next summer as I did this last one -- more dead than alive! And I do wish to be well for the sake of my writing -- and I wish to be everything that is possible to my friends -- for I feel as if lately I had been a drag to them instead of the help and comfort and pleasure I always mean to be if I can. Dont you think it is a very great help to be obliged to stop in ones life for a while as I have? One sees everything so much more clearly, and I think I am going to write better and live better for this lesson. It has been like keeping a great Lent for ones next five years.
I thought when I knew of your father's re-election I would congratulate you at once -- (I mean your father & you for his sake) but though I am late about it I am none the less sincere. I think I can understand that you were very glad about it and in one way a little sorry too, for yourself. I think one is apt to plan ones life better than it turns out -- but when we look back we are pretty sure to [ aquiesce so spelled], and I know that your society life will count for a great deal more in your eyes one day than it does now. There seems to be a good deal that there is no use in, but perhaps we are carried through long roads that seem stupid so that we may reach one point we would not have missed for anything -- and if we are not looking forward to it, we always look back gladly.
I had a lesson that I shall never forget one day last summer -- I was mourning once my enforced idleness and somebody quietly told me that if I had not done anything else, I had been such a help to her and made her life seem different. It was half unconscious -- I thought she had helped me, but it flashed through my mind that if I had been well I should not have been with her then -- and I saw that God had been using me, and I was so rejoiced and glad that I would have given up a great deal more, rather than miss hearing her say what she did. We only know one side of our lives, do we? and it startles us to remember once in a while that God is doing his part for us and with us, beside our doing our own.
I should like so much to have you here this afternoon. Mother is going out to dine, and Mary is in Boston so I dine alone and how we would chatter if we were together, and perhaps you would like to have the wish on your dear little Christmas card "come true" as well as I should. I should like to hear what is going on in Washington and I have no doubt you are crazy to hear the Berwick news. Please remember me to your father and mother and dont forget that I am always your sincere and affectionate friend --
I heard in a round about way the other day that Ella and Mr. Little have gone to Cuba. Mary has been in Boston for a month and I feel as if I were an only child!
Notes
Ella ... Mr. Little ... Mary: Richard Cary says that "Mrs. Ella Walworth Little was "one of Miss Jewett's young coterie of Boston friends which included Cora Clark, Elizabeth Fairchild, Grace Gordon, the Horsford sisters, and the Mason sisters." For Mary Rice Jewett, see Correspondents.
This letter was transcribed by C. Carroll Hollis. It appeared in "Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett to Anna Laurens Dawes," Colby Library Quarterly No. 3 (1968): 97-138. It is in the Henry Laurens Dawes Papers in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. The notes are by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Lyman Abbott
South-Berwick Maine
9 February 1881
Dear Dr Abbott -
Thank you for your note just received and I am glad I may see the proofs -- Thank you also for the check. I always like best for the editor to settle the question of the worth of an article.
-- I believe that sketch* would make about seven magazine pages, and when
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I am asked I say ten dollars a page. I do not think that is out of reason, for one magazine always sends me twelve - [ deletion ] your check gives me less, -- about six dollars a page -- but if you do not give more than that usually of course I would not ask for an exception to be made for me.
With kindest regards
Yours sincerely
Sarah O. Jewett
Notes
sketch: "A Quiet Scholar" appeared in The Christian Union on 17 August 1881.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Hawthorne-Longfellow Library, Brunswick, ME. A photocopy is in the Sarah Orne Jewett Papers, Series 1 (M238.1): Correspondence, 1877-1905, n.d. The original is in the Lyman Abbott Autograph Collection (M1.8).
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
William Dean Howells to Sarah Orne Jewett
[ 25 February 1881 ]*
Dear Miss Jewett:
[ Unrecognized word Aldrich ? ] will be delighted of course to see your sketch. I have now no right to consider it, but there can be no question as to his wish.
Yours sincerely,
W. D. Howells.
28 [ Brimmer ? ] st.
Feb. 25, 1881.
Notes
1881: Howells's handwriting is uncertain when he dates this letter at the end. It could as easily be 1880 as 1881. However, in 1881, editorship of Atlantic Monthly changed from Howells to Thomas Bailey Aldrich. See Key to Correspondents. Though this also is unclear, it seems likely that Howells names Aldrich at the beginning of the letter, and his deferring to Aldrich regarding Jewett's MS would suggest that the editorial transition has just taken place.
The manuscript of the letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University. Howells, William Dean, 1837-1920. 16 letters to Sarah Orne Jewett; 1875-1908. Sarah Orne Jewett correspondence, 1861-1930. MS Am 1743 (105). Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Susan Hayes Ward
The Brunswick*
New York -- Friday
[February 1881]*
Dear Susy Ward
I am here for a very few days and I went to your friend Mrs. Watson's* this morning to see if you might chance to be in town, &
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I heard that you were planning to come in tomorrow -- If it is to be in the morning and you are anywhere in this neighbourhood I wish that you would be so kind as to come and see me -- ^ I shall be here between 10 & 10:30 or eleven o'clock certainly.^ Me and also Mrs. Fields!*
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I have not time to get out to see you and dear Hetta* and I hated to ask you to come in on purpose, but I make bold on the score of Mrs. Watson's knowing your plans.
With love to you both.
Yours ever affectionately,
S. O. Jewett
Notes
The Brunswick: There apparently were two possible hotels in which Jewett may have stayed, the Brunswick Hotel at 17 - 19 East 27th Street and the Hotel Brunswick at 1236 Madison Avenue. It is not yet known at which Jewett stayed.
1881: Cary's rationale for this date is not known. It may not be correct, for it seems unlikely that Jewett and Fields would be staying together in a New York Hotel in the winter before the death of James T. Fields.
Mrs. Watson: The identity of Mrs. Watson is as yet unknown.
Fields: Annie Adams Fields. Key to Correspondents.
Hetta: Hetta Lord Hayes Ward (1842-1921), sister of Susan and William. Cary says that Hetta Ward "reported on architecture, exhibitions of painting, the applied and domestic arts for the Independent, as well as publishing delightful stories and verses for children."
This letter is held by Colby College Special Collections, Waterville, Maine: JEWE.1. It was originally transcribed, edited and annotated by Richard Cary for Sarah Orne Jewett Letters. New transcription and revised notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
John Greenleaf Whittier to Annie Adams Fields
Danvers 3d Mo 7 1881
My dear friend
I am very sorry to hear that dear J.T.F.* is ill. I hope he is in the way of recovery, and if he is only comfortably sick he ought, as the country folks say, to {be ?} "crying poor health" with such a nurse as he has. Do let me know how he is getting on, when thee can find leisure to write a
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write[ a repeated ] line. I want to go to Boston but have not felt equal to it, as I am feeling the effects of the long winter's cold & confinement. We are just getting out from under snow-drifts 8 feet high, and the sight here & there of Mother Earth, is delightful. With a great deal of love to thy patient I am most truly thy friend
John G. Whittier
Notes
J.T.F.: Fields's husband, the publisher James T. Fields, died on 24 April 1881. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields collection: mss FI 70-4739. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Louise Chandler Moulton to Sarah Orne Jewett
28 Rutland Square
March 19 -- 1881 --*
My dear Miss Jewett ---
I can find no words with which fitly to thank you for your glorious roses. If I could but holler I would sing them and you into immortality. As it is, I can only hold you and them in my heart. I was saying to Professor Longfellow* this morning that you seemed to me like a deep-hearted flower --
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and now you have sent me your sisters, and I see again how much like you they are.
I looked out for you, before breakfast, the English edition of my verses,* -- and I send them to you with my love, because I know that there is so much of myself in them they may help us to that better acquaintance for which I long. I am -- if you will let me say so --
Yours affectionately --
Louise Chandler Moulton.
Notes
1881: At the bottom left of this page in pencil is a circled numeral: 1.
Longfellow: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Key to Correspondents.
verses: Moulton's Swallow-Flights was published in London in 1878.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Sarah Orne Jewett Correspondence, bMS Am 1743 Box 4, Item 162. I. Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Louise Chandler Moulton to Sarah Orne Jewett
Monday morning ---
[ About 21 March 1881 ]*
Thank-you for your lovely and loving note. It went straight to my heart, as you have done from the first, and as so few people do any more that I sometimes think the way must be choked. Thanks, too, for your sonnet,* which meant so much to me. It is strange that people call sonnets the most artificial forms of verse. To me they are the most natural expression of the most intimate feeling, and I see from your easy
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mastery of the form that you must feel about them as I do. I want to give you my address for the time to come -- because if it should ever happen that you felt like saying a word to me I should want you to know where to find me. I don't think letters that one undertakes to write are worth much, and perhaps neither your nor I are strong enough to do much letter writing -- but I want to feel that you know were I am -- It seems a kind of warrant that I shall find you again sometime, and I want to
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find you again. For one week from Wednesday next I shall be in Pomfret, Conn. -- Then, from March 31st until April 7th, at 36 East 39th Street, New York City -- and after April 7th letters sent to me Care of Brown, Shipley & Co. (Bankers) London, England, will be sure to [ deletion ] reach me. I have half a feeling that I could say good bye to you more contentedly if I could but have had a little more of you -- but I am not sure, after all,
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that it would not have made my adieu yet more regretful. I am sure that I shall come back to Boston far more willingly for the hope of finding you here some good day.
Yours Faithfully ---
L.C.M
Notes
1881: This date is speculative. I have associated this letter with two others from March 1881, in which Moulton and Jewett appear to be forging a new friendship, which proceeds in part by exchanging some of their recent writing, this letter referring to a Jewett sonnet.
There is some rationale for placing this letter with the others of March 1881. It was written in March. All of Jewett's published sonnets appeared between 1878 and 1881, three of them in January and February of 1881. It seems clear that most of her work with this form comes from this time in her career.
At the bottom left of page 1 in pencil is a circled numeral: 3.
sonnet: Jewett's published sonnets include: a pair published as "Verses" (1878), "A Day's Secret" (January 1881), and a pair published as "Two Musicians" (February 1881).
In the Louise Chandler Moulton papers of the Library of Congress is a manuscript sonnet: "Why do I love you?" This poem later appeared in John E. Frost's Sarah Orne Jewett (1960), p. 116.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Sarah Orne Jewett Correspondence, bMS Am 1743 Box 4, Item 162. I. Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Mary Rice Jewett to Sarah Orne Jewett
[ 26 March 1881* ]
Pincess* is well thank you – but lazy. We are well also. Mother sat up until late last night reading the Fair Barbarian.* Don’t you think it is a pretty book? I spent yesterday at Caddie’s.* Mrs. Doe* couldn’t come to dine. Neither could Annie Barker.* So I was the only guest Mother having declined. It is so windy & raw that we are better off in the house than out doors. So we do not go to dine at all hardly. There is not any news to tell this morning that I can think of. We will look out for the picture. I haven’t been horseback yet on account of the wind. Pincess & Kate had new shoes yesterday in preparation for that Event!
My love to all & yrs affly M. R. J.
Sat. a.m.
Notes
1881: This letter is written on a postal card, cancelled on 26 March 1881.
Pincess: Presumably a family pronunciation for Princess, one of their horses. Another horse, Kate, is named at the end of the note.
Fair Barbarian: A Fair Barbarian (1881) is a novel by British-American novelist and playwright, Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924). Burnett is best remembered for her children's novels, Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886) and The Secret Garden (1911).
Caddie's: Caroline Jewett Eastman. See Key to Correspondents.
Mrs. Doe: Edith Bell Haven Doe. See Key to Correspondents.
Annie Barker: Annie Barker is known to have been a Jewett neighbor. Whether she is connected with a South Berwick choir director, Elizabeth Ann Barker, born c. 1805, is not known.
The manuscript of the letter is held by the University of New England Maine Women Writers Collection MWWC0196_02_00_015_01. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Louise Chandler Moulton to Sarah Orne Jewett
Pomfret, Conn.
March 27 ---
[ 1881 ]*
Dear -- I have just finished the last line of "Deephaven,"* which reached me yesterday morning -- and for which many thanks. I am only melancholy because you did not, yourself, write my name in it with your own. But you will do that for me next winter. I had not read "Deephaven" since it first came out, and its deep, tranquil loveliness had the charm of novelty for me. I mean that I had forgotten just how* lovely it is. And
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now it seemed to me so like you, and it makes me want more than ever to talk with you. Your description of that sunset on the 39th page is a poem -- I remember one so like it, once, at Etretat* -- when sea and sky were all pale pearl, & yet you were conscious of flame behind them, passionate as the heart of a fire opal. -- ^But^ the Chapter entitled "In Shadow" is another poem -- the last three pages of it, especially -- so sadly, sympathetically beautiful that it made the tears come to my eyes.
I am intensely
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interested in your stories of visions and impressions -- and I want so much to know whether you really heard them -- whether they are literally true.
I am glad you liked my poor Elizabeth Fordyce -- * for there is more of myself in her than in any heroine I ever wrote about.
I wish we had known each other earlier, that our friendship might have had time to become a habit -- But I shall please myself by thinking it is a seed planted in spring which the summer winds and suns and rains
[ Page 4 ]
will foster, until in the autumn it will bear its fruit. I hope also to have the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Rice* in the autumn. You will find me, then and now, faithfully & affectionately, yours ----
Louise Chandler Moulton
Notes
1881: This date is uncertain, but fairly likely. The tone suggests that it comes from early in the Jewett-Moulton relationship. In Moulton to Jewett of 19 March, Moulton says she is sending a book of her poems to Jewett. It seems probable that Jewett, in response, has sent Moulton an autographed copy of Deephaven, leading to this letter from Moulton.
At the bottom left of page 1 in pencil is a circled numeral: 2.
"Deephaven": Deephaven was Jewett's 1877 novel. The sunset description that impressed Moulton is on p. 39 of this edition.
how: This word is underlined twice.
Etretat: Étretat is a French seaside town, northwest of Paris.
Elizabeth Fordyce: This character appears in Moulton's Some Women's Hearts (1874).
Mrs. Rice: Cora Lee Clark Rice. Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Sarah Orne Jewett Correspondence, bMS Am 1743 Box 4, Item 162. I. Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Mr. Merriman (fragment)
[ First half of 1881 ]*Dear Mr Merriman
I answered your letter some days ago by asking if you could use a sketch of about fifty written -- (or ten Atlantic) pages. It is to make part of a book called Country By ways which I am to publish early in the fall
[ Letter breaks off. No signature. ]
Notes
1881: Jewett's Country By-Ways appeared in the fall of 1881.
The identify of Mr. Merriman has not yet been discovered. Jewett's letter suggests he is connected with Atlantic Monthly, but that has not been confirmed.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. bMS Am 1743 Box 6, Item 266.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
April 24, 1881
Death of James T. Fields
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Fields, sometime after 24 April 1881*
Wednesday evening
My own dear darling
I don't believe you were half so sad when you wrote this little letter as I was when I read it. Dear Annie I know that life is very hard for you and that the love and help that used to make it so much easier seem to have gone out of it. But it is not all wrong, and it does not hold you back and crush you down unless you make it so, for we both believe that God sent this loneliness and pain
[2]
into your life only to bless you and bring you closer to Him and to the dear one whom you love best -- I can't bear to think of your sorrow. I can't bear to think that everything seems so blank and dreadful to you. I can't bear not to have you happy among the things that were so lovingly planned and brought together for your comfort and happiness. It ought not to be so dear love, and I do long to have you outgrow this kind of pain and misery that will not let you forget that you are hurt and lonely.
[3]
It seems to me that the only thing to do is to say I am hurt and my heart aches, but God keeps me here in the midst of the empty things that used to belong to my happiness, and I must live the old life alone, and put all my love and thoughtfulness and helpfulness into it, for the sake of whoever comes now; instead of for the sake of one only and for the sake of one only. I think nothing would please him more than to have you making other people happy just exactly as you have been doing since you came to Manchester. It is
[4]
not only Jesus Christ but your dear love beside who will think 'Ye have done it unto me.' His 'poor humanity'* whom he told you he was trying to helpareis not only the people who cannot buy bread and shoes, but the people who cannot buy content and happiness because their every day lives are half worthless. And whether you work by your fingers that do pretty things for people to see, or whether you work by your beautiful gift of poetry -- or by your own most lovely presence that keeps most people up {to} the
[5]
best level that is in them -- or by letting them come into the influence of the hospitality which delights every body who knows it -- you are going about doing good -- Don't think about next summer dear darling, dont think about tomorrow even, but make the days grow lovelier one by one because you do the tasks God sets you, as best you can -- Dont say my heart aches and I am wretched, but say I am going to be happy by and by and have my own again, and God
[6]
is teaching me as I wait. Dont say that the time is long and bitterly hard but only that this is a short night between two blessed days, and I will not be always awake to the thought of my own sorrow and get frightened in the dark of uncertainty -- Other people have sorrows that are full of shame and misery, and mine is a sorrow that is like a night full of stars and I see a great light in my darkness to lead me and show me
[7]
the way
Yes, dear love I know you were certain of all this before -- but I can't help saying it again. One kind of happiness is gone, but it is to make place for a better one -- "not as the world gives give I unto you"* -- And so my dear darling I pray God that you may find His peace wherever you are, and may not wish either for the old dear days that are past or for the Heaven that is to come because you hold both and they belong
[8]
to you always in this world as they will always in the next. -- And I love you and hold you close and cannot do without you. I will stay with [you] always when I can for it seems more and more lovely, and more strange, however dear other places and people may be, to be away from you. I think it is meant we should help each other and love each other more and more. Oh my dear dear darling, dont shut yourself out of the sunshine of life -- it was only the shut windows of the city at which the morning light could not go in -- [deleted word] --
[9]
I could not help saying all this, but after it is said I only stop to think, 'Oh if I could go to her and put my arms around her! {'} But it is something more than that which you want, something that no human love can give, but only God's love and goodness and your own faith and bravery -- When I see that you do not feel so lonely if I am there, and then it is all worse than ever and lonelier, when I am away I know that my love is not
[10]
enough for you after all, though I would do anything for you and I love you with all the love that I can give. It is my great sorrow too because it is yours -- but we will try to say: 'Yes I am not happy, but I can still make others happy and I must do my work lovingly whatever it is, and so I shall know what Heaven is better and better as the days go on. {'}
Good night dear and God bless you and comfort you -- Yours always and always
S.O.J.
Notes
1881: Someone has written "A selfish grief" at the top of the first manuscript page in pencil.
James T. Fields died on 24 April of 1881; Annie went through bouts of depression and despair over her loss.
'Ye have done it unto me': See Jesus' parable of the Sheep and the Goats, Matthew 25: 31-46: "Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."
"not as the world gives give I unto you": See John 14: 27: "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."
The manuscript of this letter is held in the Sarah Orne Jewett Collection, 1801-1997, of the University of New England's Maine Women Writers Collection: II. Correspondence, item 60. Transcription and annotation by Terry Heller, Coe College, assisted by Linda Heller.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich to Sarah Orne Jewett
[ Begin letterhead ]
EDITORIAL OFFICE OF
The Atlantic Monthly,
BOSTON.
[ End letterhead ]
[ Date added to the right of the letterhead ]
May 10 ' ' , 1881.
My dear Miss Jewett:
I think your story* is charming & I haven't the heart to leave out any of it -- even at your urging.
Yours very truly,
T. B Aldrich
Notes
story: Jewett published several items in Atlantic Monthly in 1881, but the only short story was "Andrew's Fortune" (July).
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University: Sarah Orne Jewett Correspondence I, Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett. bMS Am 1743 (4).
This transcription is from a photocopy held by the Maine Women Writer's Collection, University of New England, Box 2, Folder 99, Burton Trafton Jewett Research Collection.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
John Greenleaf Whittier to Celia Thaxter
AmesburyMrs. F: This transcription is uncertain; it could easily be Mrs. or Mr. H or A. However, Whittier did compose a poem in 1881, "In Memory of James T. Fields." This suggests that Whittier refers to that poem here as a tribute to their mutual friend after his recent death on 24 April 1881.
5 Mo. 25 1881
My dear friend
Celia Thaxter
I am glad thee are again with Annie Fields* for I think something of thy magnetic thought and sympathy, must be grateful to her in her great sorrow.
I wrote thee directing to the Shoals three or four days ago but I presume it has not reached thee.
Thee ask about my health. I cannot say
[ Page 2 ]
much of it. The winter & spring have borne hard upon me, but I am glad to feel somewhat stronger & able to enjoy this beautiful [ resurrection ? ] of Nature, and to feel that life is still sweet. I shall have to get away into the country I think ere long.
I [ included ? ] in my letter to thee a little tribute to our dear friend -- the same that I sent to [ Mrs
F. ? ]* & which, perhaps, [ she ? ] has [ deletion of one or two words ] shown thee {.}
I hope to be able to look in upon thee at the Shoals
[ Page 3 ]
this summer. In the mean time, God bless thee abundantly.
John G. Whittier
Notes
Fields: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. MS Am 1211, Box 1,Whittier, John Greenleaf, 1807-1892. A.L.s. to [Celia (Laighton) Thaxter]; Amesbury, 25 May 1881. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields
Shoals -- 2nd June. 1881.
My darling, my white Annie, standing so long at your beautiful door to say goodbye to me, with the great eyes so dark in the dear pale face! Alas, why did they make you wait so long! I was so sorry, but I could not help it. In the car I took off bonnet & shawl, bestowed myself in a corner & worked for dear life on Mr Reeds* cap & got it all done; did not know it took two hours & a half to Ports.! couldn't realise I had got there. Mr Jimmy Mills Pierce came into the [ car corrected from care ? ] going to Portland to his brothers wedding, with little [ wizzled-up ? ] potato Mrs Lodge:* he talked a long time to me & spoke beautifully of J.* -- was so full of triumph & pleasure too about the Greek play,* he made himself most agreeable. Found my brother waiting for me at the station & the Pinafore* puffing at the wharf, so I rushed down to the De.N.'s,* left your gift for Aunty, who was so
[ Page 2 ]
glad & grateful for it, & so disappointed to have me rush away! Out we came, my nice Norwegian Julia* was on board, who takes care of me at the cottage. It is so beautiful here, & such loving eager delightful service on all sides! But I am devoured with shame that I am not at the farm helping poor Mrs T. & Mr T.* I can't tell you how mortified I feel. If you were only here to tell me I am a fool &thatI am doing the right thing! Mina* & I are to be set across on Sunday, Oscar says. Meanwhile these two or 3 days that are so delightful or would be with a clear conscience, are made bitter with a sense of meanness -- I know they think I am mean to desert them -- .
[ Page 3 ]
Mina came over to see me last night. She looked like a sweet lady. We shall be set across Sunday -- The bride & groom are to return on Sat -- so I shall send Jessie's* things to Kentucky [ by ? corrected ] this boat. O Annie -- it is so beautiful every where, but I never get rid of this "want that [ that repeated ] hollows all the heart,"* & could cry for my sweet mother* every instant in the [ day corrected ], or gladly, how gladly! leave it all could I find & clasp her dear hand in the dark & go with her away from this resplendent, fragrant, singing, blooming world.
The boat goes -- no more now, my darling. I send you my grateful thanks -- goodbye
dear love
Your C.
Notes
Mr Reeds: Probably this is a relative of Aunty Reed, to whom Thaxter often refers in her letters. Neither person has yet been identified further.
Mr Jimmy Mills Pierce ... Mrs Lodge:
Thaxter appears to have written "Pierce," but this cannot really be clear. James Mills Pierce (1834-1906) was professor of Astronomy and Mathematics at Harvard University.
One of his surviving brothers was the American Philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914). His younger brother, diplomat Herbert Henry Peirce (1849-1916), married Helen Jose in 1881.
Mrs Lodge may be Mary Langdon Greenwood (Mrs. James) Lodge, though she was only about 6 years older than Thaxter. See Key to Correspondents.
J.: James T. Fields, who died on 24 April 1881.
the Greek play: Probably, Peirce refers to "the Greek play," Oedipus Tyrannus, by Sophocles, performed in Greek at Harvard University in May 1881. See The Harvard Register 3 (1881) p. 151. This issue of the Register contains a good deal of further information about the production. The cast list (p. 337) includes American author, Owen Wister.
my brother ... Pinafore: Thaxter's brothers were Cedric and Oscar Laighton; their tug boat for serving their hotel on Appledore was the Pinafore. See Thaxter in Key to Correspondents.
De.N.'s ...Aunty: Emily. F. de Normandie (1836-1916). Her husband was a Unitarian minister, James de Normandie (1836-1924). See Men of Progress p. 360.
Aunty Lunt -- often mentioned in Thaxter's letters -- probably is a relative of Mrs. De Normandie's grandmother, Ann Lunt Jones, but no more has yet been discovered about her identity.
Norwegian Julia: The identity of this Julia is uncertain. Norma Mandel, Beyond the Garden Gate, pp. 80-3, discusses Thaxter's associations with Norwegian immigrant families on the Isles of the Shoals.
Mrs T. & Mr T.: Mr. T almost certainly is Thaxter's husband, Levi Thaxter. Mrs. T, probably is his sister, Lucy White Titcomb (1818-1908).
Mina: Mina Berntsen, Edwin and Thora Ingebertsen are among several Norwegian immigrants who settled in the Isles of the Shoals. Mina, for a number of years, was employed by the Laightons. She is mentioned often in Letters of Celia Thaxter (1895). See Norma Mandel, Beyond the Garden Gate, pp. 80-3.
Jessie's: Almost certainly Jessie Cochrane. See Key to Correspondents.
The wedding to which Thaxter refers is not yet known, though possibly she refers again to the Peirce wedding mentioned near the beginning.
"hollows all the heart": The origin of this quotation is not known. Possibly, Thaxter refers to a poem by Merva (Mary Kilgallen), "The Song of the Maid of Saragosa," which appeared in Young Ireland 7 (1881) pp. 606-7, and which includes these lines:
The pang that hollows all the heart has shot into my brainFor Kilgallen, see The Poets of Ireland (1912), p. 235.
A fire that needs shall life consume if here I must remain.
my sweet mother: Thaxter's mother was Eliza Rymes Laighton (1804-1877).
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Boston Public Library, Rare Books Department, Celia Thaxter correspondence with Annie Fields, 1869-1893, MS C.1.38 Box 2 Folder 1 (148-173) https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/qb98p015h
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Mary Katherine Horsford*
Friday morning
Manchester by the Sea
[ 10 June 1881 ]*
Dear Kate
Mrs. Fields* wishes me to ask if you will not kindly give us thelilittle visit now? and stay over Monday and Tuesday -- especially Monday ^night^ for Mr. Dyer* is coming for a brief farewell visit -- Come tomorrow, Saturday, and stay over if you possibly
[ Page 2 ]
can -- or if you cannot be away so long, come Monday and stay until Tuesday or Wednesday -- or --just as long as you can -- I hope that you can take Sunday & Monday both -- It is perfectly quiet now and the coachmen and footmen have not taken possession but the air never was salter
[ Page 3 ]
and sweet and we think it is more lovely than ever before -- Dear Kate do come! You know that we have been looking forward to having you here for a long time.
With love to all
Yours ever
Sarah --
[ Page 4 ]
There is a nice train about 5 o'clock tomorrow afternoon and at 3:30 and indeed you can take your choice of any hour ---
Notes
10 June 1881: An envelope associated with this letter is postmarked with this date. However, this date is problematic, for there is as yet no other evidence that Jewett stayed with Fields at Manchester by the Sea at this time, so soon after the death of James T. Fields on 24 April. Further, Jewett's other letters from this time say nothing of her visiting Fields at Manchester.
Mary Katherine Horsford: Eben N. Horsford's daughter. See Key to Correspondents.
Mr. Dyer: This person has not yet been identified. Given Fields's circle of acquaintance, it is possible that this is Elisha Dyer (1811-1890), a businessman and Republican politician, who served as governor of Rhode Island (1857-1859). He was a descendant of the Quaker martyr, Mary Dyer, who sought refuge at Shelter Island, the Horsford estate, in the 17th century.
The manuscript of the letter is held by the Fales Library and Special Collections, Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, New York University. Sylvester Manor Archive 1649-1996, MSS.208, IV: Horsford Family, Box 100: Folder 7. Jewett, Sarah Orne: Maine & Massachusetts. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Theophilus Parsons
South Berwick
12 June 1881
Dear Prof. Parsons
I have been thinking of you a great deal lately. It seems so long since I saw you or heard from you by letter, but I suppose that is partly my fault, though when I tell you that I have been ill for a good deal more than a year -- you will be able to account for my silence. I was in Cambridge for a few days in March, and I meant to go to see you, but I was sorry to hear that you were quite sick just then and I was prevented from doing as I wished. I am very much better now, but I had a dismal long siege all last year. In the first place I got used up by writing too much and doing everything else beside! and I somehow could not grow strong again but went on month after month with a good-for-nothing head and a foot that acted as if it never meant to go of its own accord; I was really very much used up, and though I wrote a little once in a while because I couldn't help it, I had to stop all my plans and be as idle as possible. I think it has done me a great deal of good in many ways -- it was like keeping a long Lent -- and when I am quite well again I shall know even better than I do now "the gain of the loss". I wish so much to have a long talk with you that it is a little hard to write a letter. I wish I could talk with you about my stories. Just now I am making up a book which is to come out in the fall -- called Country By-Ways.* It is mostly sketches of country life -- and of my own country life. So far I have simply tried to write down pictures of what I see -- but by and by I am going to say some things I have thought about those pictures. I don't know whether the pictures or the meditations will seem truest, but I know that I have found out some bits of truth for myself -- and I know one other thing -- that nobody has helped me to think more than you have. I was thinking of you in church this morning while I tried to listen to a most (to me, at least) tiresome sermon. I believe there must soon be a new-unifying interpretation of the New Testament made public or preaching will lose its hold more and more. The explanation of its contradiction, and of the letter of it, is in most men's [mens] pulpits very trite and feeble. Thoughtful people are getting very tired of the sermons they hear, and of the imagery that is taken for reality and boldly explained by worn out phrases. It is only when clergymen get hold of the spiritual meaning of the Bible that they really teach or help us; I can see that plainly enough; and I grow so impatient of the other thing that sometimes I think going to church makes me wicked! It isn't that I hear things that I know and am tired of hearing, but it is so far-fetched and false and one has the feeling that so many ministers have got into the habit of preaching, and they are not teachers of good -- either by their lives or doctrines. I believe I hate sham more and more every year! I will not scold any more, or make you tired, because I was tired myself of that poor parson! When shall I see you again? and you do not forget me, do you? for I am always yours sincerely and affectionately
Sarah O. Jewett
Notes
Country By-Ways: Jewett's short story collection was published in 1881, the Library of Congress copy deposited in November.
The manuscript of this letter is held by Special Collections at Colby College. It was transcribed by the owner of the manuscripts before they were given to Colby College, Henry Ellicott Magill (b. 1902) of Pasadena, CA, who also may have made handwritten corrections to the transcriptions. Notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Annie Adams Fields to Thomas Bailey Aldrich
[ 19 June 1881 ]
Please forgive this blotted [ note or page ] but the morning is warm and damp & [ blotting ? ] paper treacherous.*
-----------------
Dear Mr. Aldrich:
By the time Mr. Whipple's* paper reaches me I shall be ready to put a portion of my little book into the hands of the printer because I wish to have the matter struck off and clearly arranged before I send it to you. I know this will be more expensive, (to make the changes in type,) but I cannot give you, under any [ consideration ? ],
----------------
Manchester by the Sea -- Sunday June 19th 1881.
[ Page 2 ]
the trouble to look over my manuscript in any other way.
I should like to have three copies struck off because I am going to ask Dr. Holmes* also to look at it.
I shall of course ask from you dear Mr. Aldrich the greatest frankness feeling sure that you would consider it an unkindness to him
[ Page 3 ]
rather than have to allow to me to print anything too much, anything in bad taste, or any slips of grammar and construction.
I believe the faults I fear, take rank ^in my mind^ as I have instinctive^ly^ placed them above --
First; I fearbecausetoo much material; to put in unnecessary matter. I should prefer to strike out whole pages to having redundancy anywhere, or repetition of his own work in less worthy form.
[ Page 4 ]
Second: bad taste in saying things which are either put in a bad manner or better not be put at all --
Third; slips of all kinds -- I am very careless --, not willingly but somehow putting off the evil day of corrections -- or much worse failing to see them altogether!!
As I have said, after receiving Mr. Whipple's paper I shall be quite ready to begin -- Will you kindly put me into relation with the right printer{?} As for the engraving may I also get you to [ set or get ]him^the engraver^ at work immediately --* I dread this -- The photograph is perfect. Can Closson* make a perfect copy think you?
I trust you are all well{.} My tender thought and memory go to you with this --
Ever yours most truly
Annie Fields.
Notes
treacherous: A few blots appear on page 1, but the letter as a whole has been revised at several points. One may speculate that much in the writing of this letter reflects Fields struggling with her grief over the death of her husband, James T. Fields, on 24 April 1881, less than 2 months before this letter.
Mr. Whipple's paper: American author and critic, Edwin Percy Whipple (1818-1886). His "Recollections of James T. Fields" appeared in Atlantic Monthly in August 1881. Fields quoted from it at length in her "little book," James T. Fields: Biographical Notes and Personal Sketches (1881).
Dr. Holmes: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. See Key to Correspondents.
immediately: Fields has used a dark wavy line for underlining.
Closson: Almost certainly, this is American artist William Baxter Palmer Closson (1848-1926), who worked as an engraver for several Boston publishers.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University: MS Am 1429, Box 6, Items 1446-1538. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields
Shoals -- 25th June --
[ 1881 ]*
Dearest Annie:
Thanks for your dear letter -- Indeed I shall be most glad to do what you wish about the MS.* according to my light, & long to see what you have done -- I imagine Mary* on your hill top now & a brighter & more natural atmosphere -- And the skies brighten & soften, the cold & damp have been so depressing! I am so glad for any approximation to warmth -- it seemed
[ Page 2 ]
as if our [ rock ? ] were encircled by ice-bergs just out of sight -- I am thankful for every moment of Aunty Reed's* fond, sympathetic pleasant & sensible company -- she is only to stay till next Friday-- I wish I could keep her all summer. I dont think of the farm any more than I can help & I work like a fiend every moment & so the days fly -- I am writing this on my back, resting, after the whole morning in my garden, transplanting, weeding watering, & training the vines -- it tires me [ almost corrected ] to death --
[ Page 3 ]
The rats eat all my sweet peas regularly, dig them up & devour as fast as I plant -- But the other things are truly splendid with vigorous growth, the only difficulty is in reducing their numbers so that the fittest to survive may get their full growth & perfection -- I wish I could see yours! Did the thyme come up? You never said if the olive jug* was a success -- I'm afraid it wasn't -- I told Cooley* not to send it to you if it wasnt -- I have painted three more. But they take time -- I have done Roman anemones on pure porcelain. They are lovely -- Annie, would it not be a divine thing if when we go
[ Page 4 ]away out of life, two could go together, hand in hand ---- Must we be alone I wonder, -- When in some great disaster so many go, at once, do they find comfort in each other's company, I wonder, & wonder -- But I wish I could go, alone or in company, no matter how -- I have had enough of this ---- All in good time!
I wish you could see the arch of Constantine my Schwesterlein* had sent her for a wedding present -- it is four feet square & beyond description imposing ours are like toys beside it. Hers is a photo -- Her room is so beautiful with lovely diaphanous [ draperies corrected ], bowery roses & heliotrope on the balcony, her rosewood piano & all her charming things -- Write, my sweet Annie, let me hear how all goes on -- pardon my scrawl & believe me your weary but loving
[ Initials C. and T. superimposed ]
Notes
1881: The Boston Public Library has assigned this year. Probably this is correct, as Thaxter refers to her new sister-in-law. See notes below.
MS.: Presumably, Fields has asked Thaxter to review her manuscript of James T. Fields, Biographical Notes and Personal Sketches (1881).
Mary: Which Mary this is from among their acquaintances is not yet known.
Aunty Reed: Aunty Reed has not yet been identified.
olive jug: Thaxter refers to her china painting. See example here.
Cooley: L. Cooley was the proprietor of the Boston China Decorating Works. See Leading Manufacturers and Merchants of the City of Boston (1885), p. 309.
arch of Constantine ... Schwesterlein: Thaxter refers to Julia Stowell, her new sister-in-law, as "little sister" (German). She and Cedric Laighton were married in 1881.
The Arch of Constantine was erected in Rome in AD 315.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Boston Public Library, Rare Books Department, Celia Thaxter correspondence with Annie Fields, 1869-1893, MS C.1.38 Box 2 Folder 1 (148-173), https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/qb98p0279.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Lilian Woodman Aldrich
[ 25 June, about 1881 ]*Dear Mrs Aldrich
Thank you for your note which came just before I left home for a few days. I have been in such a scurry that I have not had a chance to answer it, and even now I cannot be polite and definite! I shall be delighted to go to you early in July
[ Page 2 ]
but I cannot tell exactly the day for a little while, since I must wait to know about some other plans. I wish it could be the Fourth, for I should have a beautiful time with the boys!* but I do not think it will be a great while after that. Perhaps we shall
[ Page 3 ]
have a pinch of your powder left, among us all? --
Yours affectionately
Sarah O. Jewett
South Berwick
25 June
If you wish to make some other plans for three or four days about that time you will tell me so wont you? and I think I can go to youearly^late^ in August
[ Page 4 ]
instead.
Notes
July 1881: This date seems likely, based on Jewett to Lilian Aldrich of 8 July 1881.
the boys: The Aldriches had twins born in 1868: Charles and Talbot.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Thomas Baily Aldrich Papers, 119 letters of Thomas Bailey and Lilian Woodman Aldrich, 1837-1926. MS Am 1429 (117). Transcribed and annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.
At the bottom left of page one, in another hand, is a circled number: 2659.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Lilian Woodman Aldrich
[ 8 July 1881 ]Dear Mrs. Aldrich
I have been meaning to write to you every day, but I could not be quite sure about my leaving home. At this time of the year we have guests coming and going from the house very often -- and my sister* and I do not like to leave home together -- She has been delayed [ deleted word ] in carrying out a plan she made for
[ Page 2 ]
a short stay at [ deleted word ] York with some friends -- but now I am pretty sure I can go to you next Friday if that will suit you -- ? --
I will take the six o'clock from Boston and I can stay until Tuesday. I am looking forward with so much pleasure to being with you -- wont we have a good time? and will you send me one word so I shall know if it is all right with
[ Page 3 ]
you? for perhaps you would rather make some other plan for just that time.
-- I should be sorry I had to write this note in such a hurry ( [ deleted word ] I have so many things to say) -- but I shall see you before very long -- With kindest regards to Mr. Aldrich and many thanks for his letter & [ unrecognized word genes ? ] --
Yours most sincerely and affectionately
Sarah O. JewettSouth-Berwick
8 July 1881
Notes
sister: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Thomas Baily Aldrich Papers, 119 letters of Thomas Bailey and Lilian Woodman Aldrich, 1837-1926. MS Am 1429 (117). Transcribed and annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.
At the bottom left of page one, in another hand, is a circled number: 2697.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Mrs. Oliver*
Isles of Shoals
27 July 1881
Dear Mrs. Oliver
This is to say how much I thank you for giving ^me^ so much pleasure on Friday -- I wished to send it before, but somehow I was always in a desperate hurry until I reached this peaceful haven -- and now I am fast growing so sleepy that I think it would be wise
[ Page 2 ]
to make sure by sending the letter before I curl up for a forty years rest! The Shoals is a most quieting place and this year it is more so than usual. Mrs. Rice* is with me here and we are residing together until Friday when Mr. Rice is to come for a few days. I do not suppose I can stay longer than the middle
[ Page 3 ]
of next week -- for the finishing of my [ story-book* corrected ] is weighing on my mind a little. I look forward with great pleasure to (a bit of me!) having a permanent home in your dear and charming house -- unless you cast that fragment of my soul away as waste paper and that I hope you wont do! Mrs. Rice would send you a message if she were here but she
[ Page 4 ]
has gone prowling across the rocks with some friends -- When we met again yesterday we could hardly find words enough or talk fast enough about our pleasant day at Swampscott -- I hope Miss Oliver is well and happy and will you give her a kiss? and may I send my kindest remembrances to Mrs. Little* and I am always your sincere and affectionate friend
Sarah O. Jewett
Notes
Oliver: While this is not certain, it is possible that Mrs. Oliver is Susan Lawrence Mason Oliver, the wife of a Boston physician, hymnologist, author, and local historian, Fitch Edward Oliver (1819-1892). Their daughter was Susan Lawrence Oliver (1881-1969).
Mrs. Rice: Cora Clark Rice. See Key to Correspondents.
story-book: At this time, Jewett was working on her story collection, Country By-Ways (1881). The volume included two sketches that had not been published previously.
Mrs. Little: Ella Walworth Little. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections; Cairns Collection of American Women Writers, Comprehensive collection of works by Sarah Orne Jewett. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to William Dean Howells
Isles of Shoals,
Tuesday.
[ 26 July 1881 ]*
Dear Mr. HowellsI told Mrs. Thaxter* this morning that I had been poaching, but she didn't mind and I hope you will like these verses. She did, and I did too! and I request your pardon for saying so. I might have said that "some friends advised my sending them". My love to Mrs. Howells* and I am hoping to see you by and by. I am getting well again fast. -- I think I should have twenty-five dollars for "The Island". I must tell you some day about my tolling the bell (which was 'true').* Mrs. Fields was with me and we did not know what people would say, but I had to give that rope a pull!
Yours sincerely,
Sarah O. Jewett
I am going home soon so please direct to me there.
Notes
26 July 1881: That this apparently is the letter by which Jewett submitted her poem, "On Star Island," to Howells points to a July 1881 composition. Other letters place Jewett at Isles of the Shoals during the week of 24 July 1881. See, for example, her letter of 27 July to Lilian Woodman Aldrich.
Mrs. Thaxter: Celia Thaxter. See Correspondents. Thaxter resided on Appledore in the Isles of Shoals and published poems about the islands.
Mrs. Howells: See William Dean Howells in Correspondents.
"The Island". ...my tolling the bell: Jewett's poem "On Star Island" first appeared in Harper's Magazine (63:550-551), September 1881. Weber and Weber report that the poem was written at Isles of Shoals, July 26, 1880 (25). Rita Gollin says, in Annie Fields: Woman of Letters (2002), that the friendship of Jewett and Annie Fields began when they met on Star Island: The poem ends:
I saw the worn rope idle hang
Beside me in the belfry brown.
I gave the bell a solemn toll --
I rang the knell for Gosport town.
There are three typescripts of this letter. The transcription above is from one of the two held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. bMS Am 1743.1 Sarah Orne Jewett Additional Correspondence II. Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, Box 4 (120). Digitized with notes by Terry Heller, Coe College. It is virtually identical to that held in transcriptions from mixed repositories in the Maine Women Writer's Collection, University of New England, Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, 1875-1890, Folder 72, Burton Trafton Jewett Research Collection.
Below is the second typescript at the Houghton, which differs in several ways from the one above, e.g., the day of composition.
Transcription -- Version 2
Isles of Shoals
Wednesday
Dear Mr. Howells:
I told Mrs. Thaxter this morning that I had been poaching, but she didn't mind and I hope you will like these verses. She did, and I did too! and I request your pardon for saying so. I might have said that "some friends advised my sending them".
My love to Mrs. Howells and I am hoping to see you by and by. I am getting well again fast.
I think I should have Twenty-five Dollars for "Star Island". I must tell you some time about my tolling the bell (which was 'true'). Mrs. Fields was with me and we did not know what people would say, but I had to give that rope a pull!
Yours sincerely
Sarah O. Jewett
I am going home soon so please direct me there.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Lilian Woodman Aldrich
Isles of Shoals
27 July 1881
My dear Duchess*
I should have written you days ago, but I have been waiting for the photographs which have not made their appearance yet. I had a most charming little visit at Mrs. Fields's* and she was more delightful and dear than ever. I think the book* is going to be wonderfully interesting and she has succeeded in making one of the very best
[ Page 2 ]
books of that kind, that I ever knew -- at any rate! Mrs. Lodge* did not come until after I left -- (though I met her in a train) -- so Mrs. Fields and I were all alone.
-- I spent a day in Swampscott* and then went to Gloucester and I had a very pleasant day or two with Miss Phelps* though I must confess to you that her real talent and fine gifts are very much spoiled to me by that streak of morbid silliness which is tangled though and through her writing and her talking.
[ Page 3 ]
There is so much that I respect and honour in her that I hate to say this -- but you and I have talked about her before and I am sure I am only saying it to you. To tell you the truth, I am in a great hurry to see you again dearest Duchess! I am always thinking of things to ask you and to tell you and I feel very rich when I think of you and remember that you are my friend -- I think as one grows older one gives and takes friendship
[ Page 4 ]with greater care -- and deeper satisfaction! [ deleted word ] I did have a lovely little visit and I think of all your household very often, and wonder if the cherries are gone and if Billy* is properly attended and served, and if anybody has been fishing.
The day I left Gloucester, I found I had to wait some where on the road before I could catch a train for Berwick, and I thought I should get a better lunch and have a better time in
[ Page 5 ]
Boston, so I went there for two hours. I went to Park St.* to see if my proofs were ready and then I went to Bradford & Anthony's* and bought a fishing rod -- I should like to show it to you for I think it is a pretty good one, but it doesn't hold a candle to your best one, you know!
-- Please tell Mrs. Goodman* that I find the little hood very useful, and it will march up and down the piazzas this very night.
[ Page 6 ]
I displayed Bopeep* with triumph to my sister, and left her at home because I was afraid the sea air might fade her! I was only at home over night -- to get a bigger trunk and some more clothes, and tell my family I was still very much attached to them!
-- Now I must say good by, for I am going over to Appledore -- Some people are waiting for me, and I am going to spend the
[ Page 7 ]
rest of the morning with Mrs. Thaxter* -- She came down to the wharf when we got in yesterday, so I saw her for a minute. Mrs. Rice* sends you her kindest remembrances. I am hoping to see you while I am here, which will be until next Wednesday -- I'll finish this very scratchy letter when the photograph comes. Please give my love to all.
Yours most affly
S. O. J.
Notes
Duchess: Among their close friends, the Aldriches were nicknamed the Duke and Duchess of Ponkapog. See Key to Correspondents.
A. F.: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
the book: At this time, Fields was working on her memoir of her husband, James T. Fields, which appeared late in 1881.
Mrs. Lodge: Mary Langdon Greenwood Lodge. See Key to Correspondents.
Miss Phelps: Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward. See Key to Correspondents.
Billy: This person or pet known to the Aldriches has not been identified.
Park St.: Address of the offices of Atlantic Monthly and the publisher, Houghton, Mifflin.
Bradford & Anthony's: "Samuel Bradford was a Boston hardware & sporting goods retailer and wholesaler established in the 1800s. Martin Bradford started handling fishing tackle in the middle of the 1800s after taking over the company reins from his father. In 1867 Bradford took on Nathan Anthony as a partner to form the company whose reels we sometimes encounter. Bradford & Anthony retailed many New York style reels and brass fly reels produced by Brooklyn reelmakers. B&A was sold to Dame, Stoddard & Kendall in 1883." Old Reel Collectors Association, "Reel Distributors."
Mrs. Goodman: This person has not yet been identified.
Bopeep: Bo Peep costumes traditionally include a bonnet; perhaps Jewett has left a new bonnet at home. Or perhaps she refers to a doll. Little Bo-Peep was a familiar, unfortunate young shepherdess in an English nursery rhyme with a number of variants. Perhaps most familiar is:
Little Bo-Peep has lost her sheep,In this version, the sheep lose their tails, and Bo Peep must find and restore them.
And doesn't know where to find them;
Leave them alone, and they'll come home,
Wagging their tails behind them.
Mrs. Thaxter: Celia Thaxter. See Key to Correspondents.
Mrs. Rice: Cora Clark Rice. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Thomas Baily Aldrich Papers, 119 letters of Thomas Bailey and Lilian Woodman Aldrich, 1837-1926. MS Am 1429 (117). Transcribed and annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.
At the bottom left of page one, in another hand, is a circled number: 2698. It appears again at the bottom left of p. 5.
Celia Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields
Sunday
[ 31 July 1881 ]*
You dearest, your sweet note came & one for Sarah,* which I [ despatched so spelled ] to Star* -- It is so dear to have her here! She comes over in the little Pinafore* ever & anon & sits by my chair while I paint, & wanders in & out about the piazza & garden, & is sweet & comforting & captivating -- Last night she came over & spent part of evening with Mr & Mrs Rice* -- Albert & Paine* played -- There was a German at the house & the maidens & younger married women were all in wondrous array. Mrs Brown* lovely in soft white stuff with a waterlily in her hair, Mrs Williams* in dark with red silk kerchief Greek wise over her hair & red wood-lilies in her dress -- Mr Thaxter* came in night boat & brought us all some. The room
[ Page 2 ]
looked absolutely resplendent with the flowers & the beautiful women. I never saw so many handsome women together as there are here this summer --
Annie -- my garden is something beyond words! Its beauty isn't to be told{.} I wish you could see it! It is a great [ mosaic corrected ] of the most brilliant orange, yellow, flame, scarlet, crimson, purple pink & blue in every shade of these colors -- There's a black poppy with crimson centre that's enough to kill you -- And my vines hop, scarlet bean, cucumber, honey suckle, nasturtium, [ wistaria so it appears ], cobea, why you never saw the like! They make a lovely green & flowery screen from piazza eaves to floor -- And I've had damask & blush roses, & my hollyhocks are out in rose & straw color & deep crimson & maroon & that dear Michaelmas daisy you gave me, blows & blows in
[ Page 3 ]
the middle of the garden & never stops, as big as a bushel basket! And the sunflowers are bursting out. [ Its so spelled ] a sight!
Mr Thaxter is going to read -- Riddle* read 3 times, did very well -- went away yesterday -- At last I did sell an olive pitcher!* O Annie, I work every instant -- I did go over to Star to tea with Sarah Jewett because she wasn't well, other wise I [ havn't so it appears ] stirred from my [ course ? ].
All this while Lucy* went for my breakfast!
Dear Annie, I'm tired before the day begins -- If it [ werent so spelled ] for the music I should give up the ship. It is all that holds my head above water -- You darling! I hope I shall hear from you tonight{.}
Here comes my breakfast & I am late --
Your loving
[ Initials C. and T. superimposed ]
Notes
31 July 1881: The Boston Public Library dates the letter to 1881. This seems likely. Thaxter speaks of Sarah Orne Jewett as a new acquaintance, as would have been the case in 1881. Jewett writes a letter to Lilian Woodman Aldrich from Isles of Shoals on 27 July 1881, in which she reports plans to spend time with Thaxter. It is possible that Thaxter wrote this letter on the previous Sunday, 24 July.
Sarah: Sarah Orne Jewett.
Star: Star Island, one of the Shoals islands.
Pinafore: Thaxter's brothers, the Laighton brothers, operated this tug to serve their hotel on Appledore.
Mr & Mrs Rice: Alexander and Cora Clark Rice. See Key to Correspondents.
Albert & Paine: Albert may be Albert Joseph Van Raalte (1859-1919), a business-man and musician in Boston, the son of Dutch (possibly Jewish) immigrants, Joël Joseph van Raalte (1832-1885) and Frances/Fanny Abrahams (1834-1902). See his obituary in Billboard (Cincinnati) 31:16 (April 19, 1919) pp. 82-3.
John Knowles Paine (1839-1906) was an American composer who also served as professor of music at Harvard University. His wife was Mary Elizabeth Greeley (1836-1920).
Mrs Brown: This is merely a guess. Thaxter was acquainted with John Appleton Brown and his wife, Agnes Augusta Bartlett. See Key to Correspondents.
Mrs Williams: This person has not yet been identified.
Mr Thaxter: Thaxter's husband, who performed readings of British poet, Robert Browning.
Riddle: George Riddle (1851-1910), author and Harvard instructor of elocution, achieved fame as a solo performer, particularly of Shakespeare, but of other authors as well, including especially Robert Browning. See his obituary in the Cambridge Chronicle of 3 December 1910, p. 13.
olive pitcher: Thaxter painted and sold china.
Lucy: This may be a household helper, or perhaps Thaxter's sister-in-law, Lucy Thaxter Titcomb (1818-1908), sister of Levi Thaxter. Usually, Thaxter refers to Mrs Titcomb more formally.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Boston Public Library, Rare Books Department, Celia Thaxter correspondence with Annie Fields, 1869-1893, MS C.1.38 Box 1 Folder 1 (i-xviii), https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/qb98nn115.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to William Hayes Ward
[ 14 August 1881 ]*
Dear Dr. Ward
I send you the story, registered, by this post. If you cannot publish it by the 10th or 12th of September please return it to me.
-- I have been away from home and forgot it, so I had not done any thing with it -- I think it isbestone of the best things I have done and if I did not want it for my book I should keep it for a magazine -- That's frank -- isn't it?
-- I saw Mr. Gladden* the other day -- by the sea -- and I was very glad of it --thewill none of your house hold come this way this summer?
Yours sincerely
Sarah O. Jewett
South Berwick Maine
14 Aug -- [1881]
Notes
1881: Green has determined the date of this letter by speculating persuasively that if Ward published the story in The Independent, and it was a story for adult readers that she soon collected, then the story most likely was "Miss Becky's Pilgrimage," which appeared on 1 September 1881 and was collected that year in Country By-Ways.
See also Jewett to Ward of 19 August 1881.
Mr. Gladden: Wikipedia says: "Washington Gladden (February 11, 1836 - July 2, 1918) was a leading American Congregational pastor and early leader in the Social Gospel movement. He was a leading member of the Progressive Movement, serving for two years as a member of the Columbus, Ohio city council and campaigning against Boss Tweed as religious editor of the New York Independent. Gladden was probably the first leading U.S. religious figure to support unionization of the workforce; he also opposed racial segregation. He was a prolific writer who wrote hundreds of poems, hymns, articles, editorials, and books.... In 1875, Gladden became pastor of the North Congregational Church in Springfield, MA for seven years. During this pastorate, Gladden also worked as editor of Sunday Afternoon (1878-1880). Sunday Afternoon described itself as “A Monthly Magazine for the Household.”
Jewett published a number of poems and stories in Sunday Afternoon during 1878-1879.
This transcription by David Bonnell Green appears in "Two Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett." Notes and Queries 5 (1958): 361-362. He says the manuscript is held by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to William Hayes Ward
Fragment
[ 19 August 1881 ]
an advance copy or your proof perhaps, in case the story went over two weeks, for I believe that could give me time enough. You see I have no copy oftheMiss Becky* -- not any sort of likeness at all!
Yours sincerely
Sarah Jewett.
South-Berwick
19 August -- 1881*
Would you send me a line if you can tell when it will be in print?
Notes
Miss Becky: Jewett's "Miss Becky's Pilgrimage" appeared in The Independent in a single issue, 1 September 1881. See also Jewett to Ward of 14 August 1881. While it is not certain that this letter was addressed to Ward, that seems probable.
It would appear that Jewett is concerned to obtain a copy of her story for inclusion in Country By-Ways, to be published before the Christmas holidays in 1881.
1881: The year has been added by another hand, apparently in blue colored pencil. This date almost certainly is correctly inferred from Jewett mentioning her story.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Francis Jackson GarrisonThe manuscript of this letter is held by Smith College Special Collections, Northampton, MA, Letters -- Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1890-96, undated. New England Hospital for Women and Children records, Sophia
[ 19 Aug. 1881 ]*
Dear Mr. Garrison
I suppose I shall be at Rangeley* from the middle to the last of September -- Shall I be ready for my proofs* between the tenth & twentieth, say -- or after the first of October? I should rather get them off my mind! but
[ Page 2 ]
you will know when it will be most convenient for the Riverside Press! -- I could begin within a week but there is one story that is unpublished which I have to wait a little while for -- but I mean to find out ^within a day or two^ exactly when I can have the ms. again --
Yours sincerely
S. O. Jewett
South Berwick
19 Aug -- [ in another hand 1890 ]
Notes
1881: At the end of the letter is the date 1890, but this appears to have been added later, in pencil, by another hand. In fact, Jewett was not at Rangeley during the second half of September 1890; she was, instead, at Manchester by the Sea. As the notes below indicate, she planned to go to Rangeley in September of 1881.
Penciled lightly above the salutation is "Frank J." Also the date "19 August 1890" is penciled lightly in the upper right corner of page 1. Penciled in the lower right of page 2, "F.J.G."
Rangeley: Rangeley Lake was a resort area north of Augusta, ME.
In a letter to Alexander Wilson Drake of 2 October 1880, Jewett says she is planning to go to Rangeley in September of 1881.
proofs: See Jewett to William Hayes Ward of 14 August and also the fragment of 19 August. David Bonnell Green has determined the date of the 14 August letter by speculating persuasively that if Ward published the story in The Independent, and it was a story for adult readers that she soon collected, then the story most likely was "Miss Becky's Pilgrimage," which appeared on 1 September 1881 and was collected that year in Country By-Ways.
Assuming that Green is correct, then it seems probable that she writes this letter to Garrison regarding proofs for Country By-Ways (1881).
Smith Collection, SSC-MS-00339.
Celia Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields
Kittery Point. Sept 14th (81
My dearest: I am so glad of your letter received yesterday -- Is [ deleted name ]* uneasy, unsatisfied, in that beautiful house & that beautiful place, with beautiful you? I cannot possibly imagine it! It must be so lovely there now -- how I wish I could go to you, dear Annie -- But tomorrow is this dear & charming Mina's* last limit of stay, & I am shrinking before that hydra headed monster of general house ^-work^ which is soon going to make one large ache of me. I have busied myself every where to try & find some one, & a woman
[ Page 2 ]
was to have come over from Ports. last Monday, to try, but sent word she was ill & so I am waiting to hear from her again -- Meanwhile Mina slips from my grasp. She is such a comfort, this child, so intelligent, so interested in everything, so interesting herself, such a dear little ladylike companion, such a beautiful cook & laundress & scrubber & general "setter-to-rights"! Truly, her price is far above rubies* & I am in despair to think she must go at all. I do not see my way clear to getting off from here, -- heaven only knows
[ Page 3 ]
when I shall! I cannot leave the boys & all in such a heap. The house has got some order & regularity in it at last, & that is one comfort, but it is full of work as it can hold, for every minute.
I send you my dearest love, ever & always. I am so glad to hear your voice -- If you do not hear from me as often as before, you know the remoteness, the infrequency of mails &
the continual puttering about housework -- reasons enough & bad manners to them all!
[ Page 4 ]
The Palmyra* got in on Sunday I hear, with Mr Eichberg* -- He made a short stay.
Goodbye, dear love -- Dont ever think your book* isn't going to be a success -- nobody will find it "'trivial", every body will recognise it, dont fear.* I wish I could see the rest of it! But patience! O lots of patience one must have in this world!
Your ever loving.
C.
Notes
deleted name: It seems clear that someone has heavily deleted the name Thaxter wrote. What remains visible makes it likely that the name is Jessie, referring to Jessie Cochrane, a frequent guest of Annie Fields. Cochrane is mentioned in Thaxter to Jewett of 17 September 1881. See Key to Correspondents.
Mina's: Mina Berntsen, Edwin and Thora Ingebertsen are among several Norwegian immigrants who settled in the Isles of the Shoals. Mina, for a number of years, was employed by the Laightons. She is mentioned often in Letters of Celia Thaxter (1895). See Norma Mandel, Beyond the Garden Gate, pp. 80-3.
above rubies: Thaxter alludes to the Bible, Proverbs 31:10: "Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies."
Palmyra: The Cunard Line steamship Palmyra served between Liverpool, UK and New York City and Boston during most years between its launch in 1865 and being scrapped in 1896.
Mr. Eichberg: Julius Eichberg (1824-1893) was a German-born composer, musical director and educator in Boston. His wife was author, Sophie Mertens (d. 1927).
your book: Annie Fields's memorial biography of her husband appeared in November 1881: James T. Fields, Biographical Notes and Personal Sketches (1881). Thaxter had read part of the manuscript. At least one reviewer thought parts of the book trivial. See Annie Adams Fields by Judith Roman, pp. 101-3.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Boston Public Library, Rare Books Department, Celia Thaxter correspondence with Annie Fields, 1869-1893, MS C.1.38 Box 2 Folder 1 (148-173), https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/qb98p037j.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields
Kittery Point.
Sept 17th (81
My dearest:
Thousand thanks for last night's dear note. I have got a pair of legs & arms as long as the Moral Law,* entitled Marcella McDonald,* for which I am devoutly thankful, tho' how long they will remain or how they will "do", I'm ignorant as yet -- My dear little Mina* went yesterday, -- the day before I went over to Ports. to look after the aforesaid legs & arms, & her willingness &
[ Page 2 ]
indeed anxiety to come to this lonely place astonished me. She has a husband at work in the "Marine Barracks" (so I saw a note which she had addressed to him) she comes from Dublin, she is seventeen feet high, more or less, & very clean in her appearance & unmistakably anxious to please. That is all I know, except that I am humbly grateful for her existence & her presence here. She said to me yesterday, "Do you know why I wanted so much to come here?" "No," I answered. "Because I liked the looks of you" (!) she replied, "I seed you often
[ Page 3 ]
going to Mrs De .Normandie's,* & I liked you so, I was glad when you asked me to come with you" -- I never was more astonished -- I dare say all kinds of impossibilities may & will turn up with the woman, but she saves my life just now. I am expecting the Princess of Berwick* every day -- she said she was going to drive down here before Sunday -- it is 16 miles from Berwick here. And I am expecting Annie Eichberg,* whom the boys are very anxious to have for a little visit, she plays so well & is so generally bright & jolly -- And also Mrs De Normandie for the day, they have never been here all this time! The De N's{.}
[ Page 4 ]
I am so thankful to you for your thought of me, you beautiful, dear darling. And I'm so glad to be able to tell you that I've somebody, if only for a brief space of.time. Of course I have a great deal more to do than when Mina was here, but I can get along quite well. I am counting the days of my dear Roland's* stay -- he will be off in about a week, I think. There is an endless, deal of sewing, mending & patching to be done & I am busy every minute -- My love to Jessie* -- a thousand thousand loves to you, you best & dearest, from your grateful
C.
Notes
Moral Law: Thaxter may allude to the proverbial "long arm of the law," that legal authority reaches to all parts of society and cannot easily be evaded. "The moral law" differs in meaning depending upon context. It seems likely that Thaxter refers to a concept of universal law -- valid in all places and times -- as different from written law, for example, which may vary between cultures.
Marcella McDonald: No further information about her has yet been discovered.
Mina: Mina Berntsen, Edwin and Thora Ingebertsen are among several Norwegian immigrants who settled in the Isles of the Shoals. Mina, for a number of years, was employed by the Laightons. She is mentioned often in Letters of Celia Thaxter (1895). See Norma Mandel, Beyond the Garden Gate, pp. 80-3.
"Marine Barracks": Presumably, Mr. McDonald works and resides at the Marine barracks at the Portsmouth, NH, Naval Shipyard.
Mrs De Normandie's: Emily. F. de Normandie (1836-1916). Her husband was a Unitarian minister, James de Normandie (1836-1924). See Men of Progress p. 360.
Princess of Berwick: Especially among her family, Sarah Orne Jewett was spoken of as the Queen of Sheba, or just the Queen. See Key to Correspondents.
Annie Eichberg: Author Annie Eichberg Lane (d. 1927), was the daughter of Julius Eichberg (1824-1893), a German-born composer, musical director and educator in Boston. His wife was author, Sophie Mertens (1828-1921).
Roland's: Thaxter's youngest son.
Jessie: Jessie Cochrane. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Boston Public Library, Rare Books Department, Celia Thaxter correspondence with Annie Fields, 1869-1893, MS C.1.38 Box 2 Folder 1 (148-173), https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/qb98p043p.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
John Greenleaf Whittier to Annie Adams Fields
Danvers 9th Mo 26 1881
My dear Friend
Long before this I had hoped to call on thee at Manchester by the Sea but for the last weeks of summer & during the present month, I have suffered from a severe cold from the effects of which I am slowly recovering -- so slowly however that I sometimes doubt whether there is really any gain.* I am very glad to hear of thy memorial volume of our dear friend.* It is eminently fitting that thee should prepare it.
[ Page 2 ]
But thee [ remembers ? ] Richard Baxter's* words in his memoir of his wife -- what he calls "a paper monument erected by me who is following even at the door in some passion of love & grief." -- He says: -- "God having taken away the dear companion of my life my grief and the sense of former things have prevailed upon me to be passionate in the sight of all."
[ To day so it appears ] our noble President* is to be laid at rest{.} What words can portray the scene! The world seems gathered around his grave. History records nothing like it. The moral influence of his life
[ Page 3 ]
and death must long be felt for good.
I was at the Shoals for two days just before my illness, and saw Celia Thaxter,* & her new sister, Cedric's wife, who seems a pleasant, likeable young woman.
With much love and sympathy I am always, thy friend
John G. Whittier
Notes
gain: A penciled X appears after this sentence.
friend: Whittier speaks of James T. Fields, Fields's memoir of her late husband, who died on 24 April 1881. See Key to Correspondents.
Richard Baxter's: English Puritan leader and author, Richard Baxter (1615-1691) wrote A Breviate of the Life of Mrs Margaret Baxter (1681), published in the year of her death.
Whittier's memory is not exact. Baxter wrote at the end of Chapter 9, "... and I hope this Paper-Monument, erected by one that is following, even at the door, in some passion indeed of love, and grief, but in sincerity of truth, will be more publickly useful and durable than that Marble-stone was" (p. 99).
The second quotation does not appear in A Breviate, but in a footnote to the 1826 edition, where it is quoted from the preface to Baxter's Poetical Fragments (1689): "God having taken away the dear companion of the last nineteen years of my life ..., so my grief for her removal, and the revived sense of former things, have prevailed with me to publish them."
Whittier seems to have altered the final part, changing the wording from "publish them" to "be passionate in the sight of all." The reason for this change is not yet known, but Whittier had published this version of the quotation, where he identifies the preface as his source, in his sketch, "Richard Baxter." The sketch seems to have appeared first in The Friends' Intelligencer 25 (1869, p. 306).
President: American President James A. Garfield (1831 - 9 September, 1881) was assassinated, dying of a gunshot wound received on 2 July 1881. Sarah Orne Jewett published an essay on the trial of his assassin, Charles Guiteau, in 1882: "The Plea of Insanity."
Celia Thaxter: See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields collection: mss FI 70-4747. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
John Greenleaf Whittier to Annie Adams Fields
Danvers 9th mo 27 1881My dear Friend
I do not doubt the book* will be one of interest to the public generally; but if there is any hesitation in thy mind respecting it, it would be safest to print a limited number of copies for private circulation at first. I, for my part, should unhesitatingly trust the matter to thy own judgment. I know of no one who could better decide what
[ Page 2 ]
should be published & what omitted.
Our friends Aldrich and Whipple* would be safe counsellors if thee see fit to consult them. But, I do not see why thy own sense of propriety & fitness is not better than theirs.
I wish I [ were or was ] well enough to leave home and look over thy manuscript but, I am quite unable to do it at this time. I feel so sure that it is as it should be, that I cannot entertain a single fear about it.
[ Page 3 ]
I return [ the ? ] Holmes* letter. It strikes me as judicious. He evidently finds nothing to except to in the book, but to relieve thee of any anxiety his suggestion of a small private edition, is worth considering.
Ever & faithfully
thy friend
John G. Whittier
Notes
the book: Whittier speaks of Fields's work on her memoir of her late husband, the publisher James T. Fields, who died on 24 April 1881. See Key to Correspondents.
Aldrich and Whipple: For Thomas Bailey Aldrich, see Key to Correspondents. Almost certainly, Whipple is the American author and critic, Edwin Percy Whipple (1819-1886).
Holmes: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields collection: mss FI 70-4743. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Laighton Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields
Monday A. M. on train. [1881 ]
I am so struck with the flowers along our way, though we rush so fast! Just now we passed a brook edged with golden senecio, do you know it? growing just like purple asters, only bright gold, in cluster; blue iris grows with it. The meadow-rue is in lovely mist all over the low places. We pass so many kinds of loosestrife, I'm going to set them down, "for fun," as Sarah Jewett would say, as I see them: daisies, St. John's wort (blooming), toad-flax, white spiræa, princes' feather, roses, buttercups, white early aster, mustard, tansy, milkweed, yarrow, clover, fireweed (rosy purple), arethusa, rudbeckia, wild parsley, scarlet wood lilies, oh, so superb! arrow-head (white) cymbidium, morning-glory, and golden gorse (only a rare glimpse of this), white elder clusters, pink meadow-sweet, gold mullein spikes, pale primrose, blue-eyed grass (now we run into the rain! Oh, I hope your hillside has it!), water lilies (white and yellow), laurel, thistle, blackberry (still blooming), Gill-go-over-the-ground, and crowfoot; going through a wood, a glimpse of white azalea. What a wilderness of bloom! And now we near Greenland, and it doesn't seem five minutes since we ran out of the dark station at Beverly.* And here is pink germander! Dear, let me hear from you soon. I had such a happy time with you!
Notes
Greenland ... Beverly: Thaxter is traveling toward Portsmouth, NH. Beverly, MA and Greenland, NH are along the route between Boston and Portsmouth.
This extract from a letter appears in Letters of Celia Thaxter Edited by her friends, A. F. [Annie Fields] and R. L. [Rose Lamb], The Riverside Press, H. O. Houghton, & Co, Cambridge, Mass. 1895. Annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Georgina Halliburton to Sarah Orne Jewett
Friday morning
Oct. 8th 1881*
My own darling little gell
I hope you did not feel very tired after the pleasant little lunch of Wednesday and it wont be very long now darling before you come to me. I hope it will be by Wednesday. By the way when you were in at Proctors* the other day [ did'nt so spelled ] you forget to say anything about those pens. I think he must have them as I sent the sample to him last
[ Page 2 ]
Saturday. I never thought of them until yesterday. If you want me to do anything about them I shall be in town Monday afternoon and could see about them. If you are going to be in town any day and want to see me, all you have to do is to send me word and I shall be there.
My own dear darling I do love you so much and I think that no one would wonder at my affection for you if it was known what a constant source of comfort
[ Page 3 ]
and delight you have always been to me, a great deal of real strength comes from a faith in a friendship that has never faltered, and darling when I think of the depth and meaning of our love for one another it makes all life a very different thing -- the tragic side of loneliness and worry will never be wholly known to us as long as we have each other.
Our quadruped is quite ill so I am afraid that John* and I will
[ Page 4 ]
have to forego the pleasure of driving over to see you -- After we go in town Mrs. Atkinson and Mary Clark* are coming to spend the winter with mother and I think she will find it very pleasant.
Good bye my own dear darling for the present and you know that I love you more and more and am always your own
Wags*
This card came for you yesterday -- I had a nice letter from Mary* on Wednesday afternoon and the [ walk ? ] was most satisfactory.
[ Included in this letter is a page with a fair copy of this poem, presumably sent by "Mary." ]
A Sonnet------ 1881.
I saw at even mid the starry train
One that made brighter the celestial main.
So gloriously fair it was to me,
So full of light, and love, and mystery.
Beloved, fancy said, the star was thee.
Ah me! to look upon yet ne'er attain
Mingled my rapture with increase of pain:
But as entranced I softly breathed thy name
It cleft the dazzling firmament: it came
As if at my fond call across the night,
Gleamed, and was lost, this meteor bright.
So did'st thou come to me and so depart:
Yet love whate’er betide, where'er Thou art
Thy light enshrined is within my heart.
Sam’l Adams Drake*
Notes
1881: Halliburton's date is difficult to read. The first transcriber for the Maine Women's Writers Collection reads it as 1880, but also reads the date of the Drake poem copy as 1881. As the Drake poem date is clearly written, it seems likely that the letter, too, is dated 1881.
Proctors: Presumably, this was a Boston area business, but no information about it has yet been discovered.
John: The identity of this person is not yet known.
Mrs. Atkinson and Mary Clark: These persons have not yet been identified.
Wags: Elizabeth Silverthorne, in Sarah Orne Jewett, notes that "Wags" was a nickname for Halliburton (p. 107).
Mary: The identity of this Mary is difficult to determine.
Drake: Samuel Adams Drake (1833-1905) was an American journalist and author.
The manuscript of the letter is held by the University of New England Maine Women Writers Collection MWWC0196_02_00_019_01. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Nancy Manning (Mrs. Henry Oscar) Houghton
[ Letterhead constructed of SOJ initials superimposed on each other; the town and date appear to the right of the letterhead ]
South - Berwick
October 21st 1881
Dear Mrs. Houghton
If these verses will serve your purpose, I shall be very glad for you to use them -- but if there are too many or you find fault [ deleted word ] do not hesitate to return "Miss Polly"* to her author
[ Page 2 ]
and friend -- I have a great interest in the Fair and thank you for asking me to do something for it.
Yours sincerely
Sarah O. Jewett
Notes
Miss Polly: Which poem Jewett refers to is not yet known. The most likely candidate from among her published poems is "Only a Doll" (1878).
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Small Library, University of Virginia, Special Collections MSS 6218, Sarah Orne Jewett Papers. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Thaxter to Sarah Orne Jewett
Kittery Point. Oct 23rd
(81
My darling owlet:*
Your dear book* came last night -- I put ^it^ into Mr Thaxter's hands to read straight off -- I know how I shall love it & I thank you thousand, thousand times!
How do you do? Are you better dear? I hope & trust so! That woman I enjoyed the day you were at 148,* (never appeared) on the [ ocean again ? ]! Last Wednesday I brought down a woman from Prince Edward's island, & her child, a boy of six, -- I think they'll stay put. Heavens! I hope so!
[ Page 2 ]
I have had enough of general house work all alone -- the gods preserve me!
Shall you not come down again? I hope so with all my heart. Do send me a word & tell me how you are -- This is only a word to take my love to you, you dearest.
Your Sandpiper
Notes
owlet: Owlet and Sandpiper are nicknames for Jewett and Thaxter used also with Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
book: In 1881, Jewett probably has sent Thaxter a copy of her story and sketch collection, Country By-Ways.
148: The Boston address on Charles Street of Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
At this time in 1881, Thaxter was having difficulty finding a household helper. The woman from Prince Edward's Island probably is Annie Colman, mentioned in other letters to Jewett and Fields around this time.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. MS Am 1743, Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. Additional Correspondence Series: IV. 2 letters to Sarah Orne Jewett from various correspondents, (102) Box 2. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields
Kittery Point. Oct 23rd (81
Annie dearest: your letter came last night -- you must not be so wretched, sweet, dear love -- Do not, do not! You quote, "all my friends" -- darling. Set down something to my strong way of putting things, it is one of my many faults -- I do not know all your friends -- But you, yourself, are you not conscious of putting your nearest somehow away from you? And those I know, who all love you truly & dearly do feel it too, sometimes. But it is not such a hopeless, miserable, despairing state of things, oh my dear, my dear! Do not go through the desert, turn your steps to the green palms, there is nothing
[ Page 2 ]
but love can save us & love waits for you every where -- Dont shut it out because you have lost the greatest love on [ earth corrected ], poor child, poor darling -- Of all things on earth don't shut yourself away, throw bridges over your moat & let love come to you or you will die a thousand deaths of silence & sorrow & despair. The darkest hour comes just before the day.* Do not give up your work -- what will become of you without it? O I wish I could get to you & put my arms round you & comfort you & save you from the silence & the emptiness & try at least to cheer you. Sometimes when I have suffered
[ Page 3 ]
utter misery I have said as you say here, "God deals with me, I must bear it -- He knows --" I know what heroism it takes -- how sad in heart, how broken in spirit, how humble & like a sorrowful child one becomes whenthey^one^ can recognise this -- "God deals with me" -- God will bless you, my sweet Annie, & lift you up & comfort you -- That you have had all this to bear through me is a dreadful thought to me, & how it all came about I hardly know. I am infinitely sad to think of it, I can only blame myself bitterly -- but after all, if I had behaved differently I should have hidden in my heart a reluctance to go back to you, & now I cannot wait, I so deeply desire to be near you, & I love you better than ever before, my precious one, my darling.
[ No signature ]
Notes
before the day: This idea is attributed to Thomas Fuller (1608-1661), A Pisgah-Sight of Palestine (1650), p. 206.
deals with me: This phrase appears often in theological and devotional writing, with varying meanings in different contexts. Though it appears in quotation marks, it appears not to be part of a proverbial quotation that would specify its meaning here.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Boston Public Library, Rare Books Department, Celia Thaxter correspondence with Annie Fields, 1869-1893, MS C.1.38 Box 2 Folder 1 (148-173). https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/qb98p061m.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields
25th Oct. (81
Dear heart, dear heart! I stop in the midst of my early morning rush, to say one word, hoping there may be a chance to send toward the Post office some time today -- Did you think anything more of the seamstress of whom I spoke to you, that young Mrs Edward Osgood* (377 Marlboro St)* had had to work for her, who was willing to go anywhere & do anything, so I understood, to get work? And Mrs O. liked her, & was trying to find some body's need that might meet hers. How are you, precious darling, I wonder, this dark chill morning? The surf tumbles here on the beach -- it seems a senseless clamor -- "the moaning of the mindless wind" as Mr Whittier* has it, is loud in the ponderous old elm{.}
[ Page 2 ]
-----
So many things to do! -- I write 3 minutes & have to rush for some thing or some body the livelong time. The woman* I brought I hardly dare to say seems better than I dared to expect -- She is certainly what we Yankees call "smart", very willing & anxious to do every thing, engages to stay all winter, at least, & is very thankful for a home for herself & her boy -- "Put not your trust in appearances" I say to myself all the time, & "blessed are they that expect nothing," but still hope does revive a little in my breast.
[ Page 3 ]
Roland* is still at home with his wounded leg & will not get away the Dr says till next Saturday, at least. Mr Casean* came here last week -- he said Ellie Hunt* was to be married & go & live in Hungary -- Doesn't it seem strange? And Mina* is really going to live with Miss Howes & Mrs Cabot* -- I had a letter from her yesterday to say so -- I am glad forboththem & ^for^ her. Her sister Annie, of whom I told you, ill of nervous prostration, this strong, active, tranquil-minded Norwegian girl, gets worse & worse & they dont know
[ Page 4 ]
what to do with her, nor does she with herself know what to do. She sits for hours weeping bitterly for nothing, or vacantly staring on the floor with her [ chin corrected ] in her hand & her elbow on her knee.
My dearest one, I hope to hear from you today, & that you are better & brighter -- every moment I think of you: time will soon glide away & I ^shall^ see your dear beautiful face again, & be in your lovely presence, I hope & trust -- Mrs T. & L. L.* have not yet engaged any rooms -- I hope [ deleted letters ] that some will be found soon.
Heaven bless you, darling. Do let me have a word every day -- Tell me how you are
Your loving C
Notes
Mrs Edward Osgood: Edward Louis Osgood (1843-1911) married Hannah Thwing Draper (1853-1929) in January 1881 and moved into their home at 377 Marlborough Street in Boston. Edward Osgood was the brother of the publisher James R. Osgood. See Key to Correspondents.
Marlboro St: In the left margin next to this address, Thaxter has written: "Truly I cant remember if the No. is 377 or 237! but I think 377."
"mindless wind" ... Mr Whittier: For John Greeenleaf Whittier, see Key to Correspondents.
Thaxter seems to misremember his famous poem, "Snowbound," in which these lines appear:
A solitude made more intensethe woman: In her letter to Fields of 17 September 1881.Thaxter describes Marcella McDonald, the Irish-born helper who seems very promising. However, she seems later to have hired a replacement, Annie Colman, whom she praises in a letter to Fields of 22 November. To which she refers here is uncertain.
By dreary-voicëd elements,
The shrieking of the mindless wind,
The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind,
And on the glass the unmeaning beat
Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet.
Roland: Thaxter youngest son. His leg remains a problem until he has surgery in November 1882.
Mr Casean: This transcription is uncertain. It may read "Caseau," for example. In any case, this person has not yet been identified.
Ellie Hunt: Elinor Hunt (1858-1941) was a daughter of Thaxter's mentor, American artist William Morris Hunt (1824-1879). She married the Hungarian-born Kurt Diederich.
Mina: Mina Berntsen is mentioned often in Letters of Celia Thaxter (1895). See also Norma Mandel, Beyond the Garden Gate pp. 80-3. Mandel says that Mina Berntsen was the daughter of Ben Berntsen. She explains that several members of this family suffered from mental illness.
Miss Howes & Mrs Cabot: Susan Burley Howes Cabot was the widow of a former mayor of Salem, MA. Her sister was Elizabeth Howes (1827-1893). See Key to Correspondents.
Mrs T. & L. L.: Mrs. T is Lucy Thaxter Titcomb (1818-1908), Thaxter's sister-in-law.
While the second pair of initials appears to be "L.L.," it is possible and seems more likely that Thaxter intended "L.T." for her husband, Levi Thaxter. He and his sister at this time usually rented rooms in Boston during the winter.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Boston Public Library, Rare Books Department, Celia Thaxter correspondence with Annie Fields, 1869-1893, MS C.1.38 Box 2 Folder 1 (148-173), https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/qb98p0678.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Eben Norton Horsford
South-Berwick
27 October 1881
Dear Prof. Horsford
Thank you very much for your kind letter and for the little book which I shall enjoy reading very much, also. It is odd that only two or three days ago I was wishing that I knew something more than I do about that good queen.*
-- I think we are much more surprised by the
[ Page 2 ]
little things that 'happen' to us at just the right time than at the great things!
-- I thought of you at the time I heard of Mr. Durant's death, for I knew you were very fond of him. It is very hard to get on without the people whom one has learned to depend upon -- and I think one feels such a loss more and more. You get used to doing without a person
[ Page 3 ]in the old ways, perhaps, after a while -- but there are always new questions coming up when [ you corrected ] are sure that the friend who is gone could have given the best and wisest help -- I did not know Mr. Durant except in the most casual way ----
I am rejoiced to hear something of your household. I was lucky enough to meet Mrs. Wyman* at the mountains and we
[ Page 4 ]talked a great deal about you all. I am in a great hurry to see her again -- it was a great pleasure to me, to meet her.
My love to dear Sam and to Trofart, and the two new dogs Brownie and Roger* send their compliments. Brownie has been one of us for some months and Mrs. Dr. Oliver is 'fetching me up' a collie puppy whose name is Sandy: but one day I saw this red setter whose eyes
[ Page 5 ]
are enough to win any heart and I bought him and named him Roger, and I love him already almost as much as I did old Joe. My mother is not over-fond of bow-wows, and I dont know whether she will like to have three in the house of an evening for these two big fellows seem to cover half the parlour floor already!
I am glad that you
[ Page 6 ]
like Country By-ways.* I think in some ways it is far better than any thing I have done, but I never shall really be so fond of any thing as of Deephaven. I have associations with that that I couldn't have with another book --
I have been very busy all summer though I have been off several
[ Page 7 ]
times for a week or so. -- Yes -- I hope to be in Boston later in the season -- and don't I know where the door-key is hidden at 27 Craigie St? ----
With much love to you and to Mrs. Horsford and the 'little gells' as Mrs. Poyser* would call them
Yours always sincerely
Sarah O. Jewett
Notes
John W. Willoughby's note: This letter refers to several mutual acquaintances. Henry Fowle Durant [1822-1881] was the first President of Wellesley College; he died on October 3, 1881. Horsford knew Durant well, was one of Wellesley's founders, and served on the college's governing board. Elizabeth Aspinwall Pulsifer Wyman, the wife of the Horsford family physician, was the daughter of a shipmaster, an occupation of Sarah Orne Jewett's ancestors. Sam and Trofart were the Horsford dogs, the latter receiving his Norse name as a result of Horsford's involvement in the excavation of the Viking Godstow ship. See Captain Magnus Anderson, "Norway and the Vikings," National Geographic 5 (1894) 132-6. [ See also Horsford's The Discovery of America by Northmen (1888).]
Susan Lawrence Mason Oliver was the wife of a Boston physician, hymnologist, author, and local historian.
good queen: Which little book on a good queen Professor Horsford sent to Jewett is not known.
Brownie ... Roger: Both were Jewett family dogs, following the death of Old Joe, and it appears that Sandy the collie soon will join the family. See "Sarah Orne Jewett's Dog" (1889).
Country By-Ways: Sarah Orne Jewett's second book was published in October, 1881. Her first novel was Deephaven (1877).
27 Craigie St.: Willoughby says that "the Horsfords lived at 27 Craigie Street [in Cambridge, MA], a few doors from the Longfellows." See Mary Melvin Petronella, Victorian Boston Today: Twelve Walking Tours (225).
Mrs, Poyser: Mrs. Poyser is a character in George Eliot's Adam Bede (1859).
The manuscript of the letter is held by the Fales Library and Special Collections, Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, New York University. Sylvester Manor Archive 1649-1996, MSS.208, IV: Horsford Family, Box 63: Folder 41. Jewett, Sarah Orne: Maine & Massachusetts.
This letter was published in John W. Willoughby, "Sarah Orne Jewett and Her Shelter Island: Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett and Annie Fields to Eben Norton Horsford," Confrontation (Long Island University) 8 (1974): 72-86. New transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields
Friday -My poor, sweet dear, your letter breaks my heart. Do not, do not be so sad -- alas, you
[ 28 October 1881 ]*
were sad enough before -- Do not sink this moat between yourself & all the world, -- it is the worst thing you can do, -- be not so proud, -- nothing of mortal world can exist without human warmth & sympathy. Stupid I was & blind, to have hurt you so, but I could not see it was a mere surface ripple & not a growth out of dislike to me, that so hurt me. My poor darling! why could I not have said, "Something troubles my friend, something has disturbed her, -- let me have faith to believe it is not I & wait till she is her sweet self once more". Heavens!
[ Page 2 ]
Something is the matter with us all -- is any body perfect? If we cant bear with each other there's no use in living. O dont, dont grieve so bitterly! O my sweet, I shall call you beautiful till my life's end, for you are, in body & in soul.
Ah, what can I say or do to comfort you! You stripped & bare like these autumn-stricken trees? O no, my darling, you are clothed with loveliness, & love waits everywhere for you, -- only don't put it away -- don't harden yourself with pride -- It is a bitter storm, but it will pass & be all
[ Page 3 ]forgotten in peaceful summer warmth to come. You don't believe me -- but it is true. I kiss your dear hands in deep, deep sorrow that I brought the storm. Have courage, you who have been so brave -- nothing is so bad as it seems, not half the time.
No living creature dreams of all this pain -- how astonished it would make any one who knows you -- All so look up to you, you are such a power of good, of help, of cheer to so many needy souls, you yourself needing cheer most of all! Dear heart, sweet dear, sad heart, be comforted, -- your own good deeds should have power to
[ Page 4 ]bless you & lift you into Gods peace, you precious one, you dearest & best -- don't grieve, -- be comforted!
[ no signature ]
Notes
28 October 1881: The Boston Public Library has assigned this date to this letter. This almost certainly is correct. The letter is one of several in which Thaxter holds herself responsible for deeply hurting Fields. See especially Thaxter to Fields of 23 October 1881. 28 October fell on a Friday in 1881.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Boston Public Library, Rare Books Department, Celia Thaxter correspondence with Annie Fields, 1869-1893, MS C.1.38 Box 2 Folder 1 (148-173), https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/qb98p073d.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields
Farm -- Oct. 30 (81Your letter came this morning, my dear darling Annie -- I cannot bear to think of you there alone --, it was too pathetic, Aldrich* coming in & giving you that little ray of light -- -- alas -- that life should be so hard -- I am dark enough this [ morng meaning morning ] -- O, I wonder I wonder why, what for -- What is it all -- this maze of things -- So hard I strive to do the things that seem right & necessary, -- so hard fate strikes & strikes me till I am blind with tears. How [ much corrected ] harder does poverty make every thing --
-- Heigho -- well, [ its so spelled ] of no use to fret. I suppose we are each born to see how large a heartache we can carry & stand upright.
My woman* proves a most excellent, capable servant as far as I can judge from ten days experience -- that is lifted off my shoulders at least, for the present --
2
O my dear, what have you this dark dark Sunday -- is Mary there, or Ida, or Jessie* -- who makes any sound of cheer for you within those four beautiful sad walls? O Who! Pray heaven some sweet soul is there beside yourself ----
You make me ache to the very center of my being when you say my words left you quite bare of any [ comfort corrected ]. My dear, you took them all [ too corrected ] gravely, you gave [ too corrected ] much weight to the whole matter -- [ Each corrected from each ] of us has something our friends would like otherwise -- least of all are the faults of disposition, little petulancies or sharp [ words or moods ? ] are of so little consequence = [ Why corrected from why ], what would you do if somebody told you you had been "printed* in the paper as an atheist?! Oh, so many times my friends have, some of them, told me things about myself so much worse than having a cross mood now & then! And I have been told that my habit of exaggeration is such that the world in general could put very little dependence on what I said! Heaven grant it may be so & that I have exaggerated what I felt to exist among your
3
friends -- That I have made you sadder is too much to think of -- You were sad enough before, poor sweet child, poor lovely darling, dear white dove.
--------------------Surely there must be a great light coming to you soon. People cannot be so dark, so [ heavy-hearted corrected ] without a corresponding joy not far away -- I am sure of it -- in some way it will come to you & lift you up, my poor darling --
Take courage, sweet -- It is dreadful to think of you so sad. You say "looking the same to others I look to myself full of blackness & distrust," but why should you look so? Heavens & earth, Annie, why? Dont see any thing of the kind when you look at yourself, but a dear, beautiful, much-tried & heroic soul, brush the cobwebs out of your sweet eyes & see what is there, in truth -- & dont fancy such things about yourself, dear love -- Ah I know what twenty six years were yours! Indeed they were enough to unfit any one to live in this rough world at all -- a bit of heaven come down to earth -- Few women ever had the like -- what shelter! That was
[ Up the left margin of page 3 ]
ones idea of Divine Providence indeed! = O Annie write to me every day -- Would I could see you -- I am your loving
C.
Notes
Aldrich: Thomas Bailey Aldrich. See Key to Correspondents.
woman: Probably this is Annie Colman. No further information about her has yet been discovered.
Mary ... Ida ... Jessie: Mary may be Mary Greenwood Lodge. Jessie is Jessie Cochrane. For them, see Key to Correspondents. Ida's identity is uncertain. Perhaps most likely is Ida Agassiz Higginson. Fields also was acquainted with the sisters, Ellen and Ida Mason. And Fields had a step-niece, Ida Gertrude Beal. See Higginson, Ellen Mason and Fields in Key to Correspondents.
"printed: It is not clear where Thaxter intended to close this quotation.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Boston Public Library, Rare Books Department, Celia Thaxter correspondence with Annie Fields, 1869-1893, MS C.1.38 Box 2 Folder 1 (148-173), https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/qb98p0792.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Mary Rice Jewett
Friday evening
[ 19 November 1881 ]*
Dear Mary
I was glad to get your letter tonight and ^to^ make sure you are going to stay -- but I am sorry you have taken such a cold -- I wish you would take some quinine when you find one coming on -- that is my remedy in such a case! I was sorry to write you such a letter this morning, but Carrie and Lizzie were standing waiting for it, and it was getting late. Ann* and I had a great dusting out of the parlour this morning -- She gave it
[ Page 2 ]
a great sweeping but I sadly fear that between the bowwows' muddy footsteps and the dust out of the furnace we shall gain no credit for it -- Uncle William* was in [ tonight corrected ] and gave his unqualified approval of your staying over until the first of the week -- so I suppose nobody can cast a shadow on it now! He makes long calls and is very [ plisant so spelled ] --
Mrs. Clark* sent mother a beautiful bunch of Chrysanthemums by John* yesterday and I put them
[ Page 3 ]
in a ginger pot and take great pleasure in them -- I have been busy writing all the afternoon but I went out just before tea, and Annie Barker was just going in to Lizzie Parks's* and hailed me so I went in too and had a very pleasant little call. Sarah Lord* has been quite sick for a day or two with threatenings of pneumonia, so I went to inquire and found her better -- I do hope that you and mother found Mrs. Claflin
[ Page 4 ]
at home -- Cora's* driving is to be thought of with anxiety but she is a much better whip than she used to be. [ Ill meaning I'll] say that for her. If tomorrow is a day that dawns in golden splendor, I may go somewhere -- The bowwows are a great deal of company. And I have been laughing at the good sense of "my beauty" -- who seemed to understand that her arch-enemy was away and promptly stowed herself away for a little rest on the end of the back parlour sofa. That cat is too much for anything! Dont
[ Up the left margin and across the top margin of page 1 ]
bring home any candy, for there is some of that pink and white left now -- and I really dont care about any more -- and Carrie dont eat it -- If you can without a great deal of trouble I wish you
[ Up the left margin of page 2 ]
would bring me a pot of yellow Chrysanthemums to put in the window -- or white ones either --
[ Up the left margin of page 3 ]
I wish you had seen Mrs. Oliver*. She is so nice{.}
[ Up the left margin of page 4 ]
Saturday -- All right this morning, but no news!
Notes
19 November 1881: An envelope associated with this letter in the MWWC folder was cancelled in South Berwick on this date and addressed to "Miss Jewett at 11 Lambert Ave, Roxbury, MA.
It is not yet known whom Mary Jewett and her mother would visit in Roxbury.
The dogs (bowwows) mentioned in this letter probably are named Brownie and Roger, who are mentioned in other letters of 1881. Mrs. Dr. Oliver is mentioned in a letter of 27 October 1881, as helping Jewett obtain a dog, though not either of these.
About Jewett's cats, see "Some Literary Cats" by Helen M. Winslow.
Carrie ... Lizzie ... Ann: Carrie Jewett Eastman.
Lizzie and Ann apparently are Jewett household helpers. Typically, when Jewett refers to Lizzie, she means a frequent Jewett employee in South Berwick, Lizzie Pray. See Key to Correspondents.
Uncle William: Probably this is William Durham Jewett, then residing next door to the Jewett sisters. But she could be referring to William Perry of Exeter, NH, her maternal uncle. See Key to Correspondents.
Mrs. Clark: Presumably this is a South Berwick neighbor, not yet fully identified. A Mrs. Clark appears in an 1895 letter as a local purveyor of ducks.
John: John Tucker. See Key to Correspondents.
Annie Barker ...Lizzie Parks's: Annie Barker is known to have been a Jewett neighbor. Whether she is connected with a South Berwick choir director, Elizabeth Ann Barker, born c. 1805, is not known.
Lizzie Parks probably is Elizabeth Cutts Parks (1831-1918), mentioned in The Placenames of South Berwick, pp. 72, 82, a near Jewett neighbor. According to this account, her family helped to found the First Baptist Church of South Berwick in the early 19th century.
Sarah Lord: In Sarah Orne Jewett (1994) Paula Blanchard identifies Sarah Lord as a South Berwick neighbor (p. 45). The number of women named Sarah Lord who lived in or near South Berwick, ME during Jewett's lifetime is intimidating. Perhaps most likely are Sarah Noble Lord (1804-1897) or her daughter, Sarah M. Lord (1842-1884), both of whom are buried in South Berwick, ME.
Mrs. Claflin: Mary Bucklin Davenport Claflin. See Key to Correspondents.
Cora's: Cora Clark Rice. See Key to Correspondents.
Mrs. Oliver: Possibly this is diarist Susan Lawrence Mason Oliver (1839-1926). She was the wife of a Boston physician, hymnologist, author, and local historian, Fitch Edward Oliver (1819-1892).
The manuscript of this letter is held by the University of New England Maine Women Writers Collection: Jewett Correspondence MWWC0196_02_00_077_01.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
John Greenleaf Whittier to Annie Adams Fields
Danvers
11. Mo 20. 1881
Dear Mrs Fields
I have never read a more entirely satisfactory memoir* than that which has been kindly sent to me. The only book of the kind which approaches it is "Charles Kingsley's Letters & Memories{.}"* The beautiful story of our dear friend's life is told just as he would wish it to be, delicately, tenderly, and yet
[ Page 2 ]
with a fullness which satisfies. All his friends will thank thee; and the public at large will surely appreciate a book so crowded with great memories, in which all the rare and gifted of the last half century pass before the eyes of the reader.
The volume closes in language clothed in "the beauty of holiness."* The hope and trust without which life and its losses would be unbearable shines through the
[ Page 3 ]
tears of a [ great ? ] sorrow.
I am glad to think of thee in Charles Street* again, and engaged in thy old labor of love for the poor & suffering: and that I shall see some time when my health is strong enough to make a visit to our friends the Claflins.*
Always & gratefully thy friend
John G. Whittier
Notes
memoir: Whittier speaks of James T. Fields, Fields's memoir of her late husband, who died on 24 April 1881. See Key to Correspondents.
"Charles Kingsley's Letters & Memories": Charles Kingsley: His Letters and Memories of his Life (1877) by Frances Eliza Grenfell Kingsley. Kinglsey (1819-1875) was an author and clergyman in the Church of England.
"the beauty of holiness": See the Bible, Psalms 96.
Charles Street: Fields's Boston address. Whittier refers to her work with the Associated Charities of Boston.
Claflins: See Mary Bucklin Davenport Claflin in Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields collection: mss FI 70-4818. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Emma Harding Claflin Ellis
Saturday Morning
[ November 1881 ]
[ Letterhead design of SOJ initials superimposed over each other. ]Notes
Dear Mrs. Ellis
I wish to tell you that Mary* is here safe and sound and we are enjoying "the company" very much. I was very much provoked because I missed you yesterday
[ Page 2 ]
for I came along just after Mrs. Rice had left you -- I went over to Mrs. Fields's after breakfast, and the time went very fast, so I didn't get started from the Aldriches* until sometime after I planned and consequently I
[ Page 3 ]
was a little late all the way through the morning! I just ran up to town to have a frock fitted, and so see about Country By-ways* for the last time -- I wish I could have seen you and Mrs. Claflin --*
Mary* sends love and likewise Mary Ellis
[ Page 4 ]
and I am your very affectionate
S. O. J.
Tell Mrs. Claflin there will be particulars next week! With covers on.
Mary is here safe: Emma Ellis's daughter, Mary. See Key to Correspondents.
Mrs. Rice ... Mrs. Fields ... Aldriches: Cora Clark Rice, Annie Adams Fields, Thomas Bailey and Lilian Aldrich. See Key to Correspondents.
Country By-ways: Jewett's collection of stories was deposited in the Library of Congress on 21 November 1881. Jewett probably refers to this book in the postscript as "particulars."
Mrs. Claflin. Mary Bucklin Davenport Claflin. See Key to Correspondents.
Mary: In this sentence, the first Mary is Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center in the Governor William and Mary Claflin Papers, GA-9, Box 4, Miscellaneous Folder J. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Elizabeth Cabot Cary Agassiz to Annie Adams Fields
[ 21 November 1881 ]*
My dear Mrs Fields
I would not answer your note till your book was in my hands, -- it has this moment come and a mere glance at it tells me it will lead many of us back and make the past live again. As I take it in my hand I almost [ envy you ? ] -- it seems to me this book must bring a kind of peace & calmness to you
[ Page 2 ]
as a last loving act accomplished{.} I hope it is so and I venture to tell you with what affectionate sympathy I have thought of you through all this sad & [ changed ? ] darkness in your Manchester home.
With warm friendship
yours
E. C. Agassiz
Mondy
Nov 21st
Cambridge
Notes
1881: Fields has sent Agassiz a copy of her 1881 memoir of her husband, James T. Fields, who died 24 April 1881.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, James Thomas Fields papers and addenda mssFI 1-5637, Box 1. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields
Sunrise, Tuesday [ morng meaning morning]
[ 22 November 1881 ]*
Last night your two letters, dear Annie, they gave me the greatest joy -- Oh, I am so
happy & glad about the book, & Dr. Holmes,* -- may he be blessed to all time & eternity,
who brought you comfort & joy, you sweetest -- I long for the book & I long to see the letter & to see you still more -- The time rushes away -- a week will be gone so soon! I was so glad for every word in your letters -- this morng I have only a moment, while breakfast is going on, to scribble one word for Karl to take to the Point,* two miles & a half's trudge! soon as he finishes his breakfast.
I am expecting the boys tomorrow, -- who dares say they "expect" any thing in this world!
[ Page 2 ]
I fear, while I write the word -- I dare not plan or "expect" any thing, but hope that all will be well & they will appear. -- I think I shall have to run back for Xmas, to make cheer for them -- 'tis a fearful loneliness & mother love is good & warm & comforting. I think Annie Colman* will keep up a good heart, hope so at least.
Do you remember Tennyson's*
"The deathless splendor of the morning star
Shook in the steadfast blue"?
It shines over the sea before me -- Good day, you beautiful one! -- I am your most most loving
C.
Aunty Lunt at the De Normandies* is just wild to see your book -- you know she was so fond of J. -- she keeps his picture on the bureau close by her side all the time -- I promised her as soon as I got to town I would send her one --
I am very anxious about Mrs De N.
Notes
22 November 1881: The Boston Public Library has assigned this date. Thaxter's reference to the appearance of Fields's biography of her husband places the letter with some certainty in November of 1881, when the book first appeared. 22 November fell on a Tuesday in 1881, but the letter seems to offer no clear evidence for which Tuesday is the right choice, though it seems likely that Thaxter refers to a family gathering for Thanksgiving, which fell on 24 November in 1881.
For other letters from Thaxter to Fields from this period, see Letters of Celia Thaxter. Those letters do not yet appear here because they seem marginally relevant to the relationship between Thaxter, Fields, and Sarah Orne Jewett, which is central to this collection. The letters I have chosen to place here help to reveal Fields's state of mind in the period between her husband's death and the establishment of her intimate friendship with Jewett.
the book, & Dr. Holmes: Annie Fields's memorial biography of her husband appeared in November 1881: James T. Fields, Biographical Notes and Personal Sketches (1881). Thaxter had read part of the manuscript.
In the course of her work on the book, Fields consulted Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. See Key to Correspondents. Presumably, Whittier refers to Holmes's letter to Fields of 16 November 1881, which appears in Memories of a Hostess (1922), pp. 50-1.
Karl ... the Point: Karl is Thaxter's oldest son, who usually resides with her.
Kittery Point, ME.
Later she mentions "the boys"; usually this would mean her brothers, Cedric and Oscar Laighton, who reside on Appledore in the Isles of the Shoals during the winter. Thaxter believes she will have to go to them at Christmas (Xmas) time.
Annie Colman: Colman began working for Thaxter in October 1881. No further information about her has yet been discovered.
Tennyson's: British poet Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) first published "A Dream of Fair Women" in 1833. Thaxter miss-remembers the lines:
The maiden splendors of the morning star
Shook in the steadfast blue.
Aunty Lunt ...De Normandies: Emily. F. de Normandie (1836-1916), and her husband, Unitarian minister James de Normandie (1836-1924). See Men of Progress p. 360.
Aunty Lunt probably is a relative of Mrs. De Normandie's grandmother, Ann Lunt Jones, but no more has yet been discovered about her identity.
J. is James T. Fields, deceased husband of Annie Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Boston Public Library, Rare Books Department, Celia Thaxter correspondence with Annie Fields, 1869-1893, MS C.1.38 Box 2 Folder 1 (148-173), https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/qb98p111m.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Laighton Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields
Kittery, November 25, 1881.
Yesterday, while I was writing the last words of the letter I sent to you, I perceived smoke in the air, and looking up, Annie, the smoke was pouring up the whole length of the crack in the floor next the fireplace behind me!!! I ran upstairs to John's room;* he rushed down half dressed: the cellar was full of smoke! In a moment all the half-dressed men were on the scene. Wentworth fortunately had not yet finished his work at the barn and gone home, and with lightning speed every bit of fire was carried out into the snow, and he was dislodging the bricks in the hearth, and the smoke followed. Then it was water, water, and finally, after working about an hour, they thought it was out, and we sat down to breakfast. But I wasn't satisfied and I kept saying, "I expect every minute we shall break out into a light blaze." But they laughed at my fears. Suddenly we all became conscious of more smoke. They ran to the top of the house; the smoke was coming out in the attic!!! When I heard that I thought we were gone, and went quickly into my room and put my mother's little jewel treasures in my pocket, tried to think what I would like to save most, and swiftly rushed back. They had torn the whole brickwork out by that time, and what do you think! they found the bricks had been laid on wooden beams!!! and the beams cut down like bread before the axe, a mass of soft, hot charcoal! Just think of the man that built that chimney! Well, we got it out at last, and, thank God, it was only smoke, not yet flame, that had gone up through the partition to the attic. But it was the narrowest kind of an escape. All day long they were at work taking out the whole of the hearth, so that the cellar was laid bare to view, and it is to be laid, as it should have been at first, in solid stone. The mason who built it had the pleasure of spending his Thanksgiving digging out his wicked, shiftless work. It is the greatest wonder on earth that we are not in ashes this moment.
Notes
John: Thaxter's son, John, was born 1854; he married Mary Stoddard in 1887.
This extract from a letter appears in Letters of Celia Thaxter Edited by her friends, A. F. [Annie Fields] and R. L. [Rose Lamb], The Riverside Press, H. O. Houghton, & Co, Cambridge, Mass. 1895. Annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Wednesday
South - Berwick
[ November-December 1881 ]*
Dear Mr. Aldrich
[ Deleted word ] Here is the little paper on Good Society which I hope will suit you. I like it myself and it was very good fun to write it.
-- I send too, something I am pretty sure you will not want* for I am afraid I have notdone^said^ well enough a thing that is very clear to me -- that "a drifting ship is sure to*
[ Page 2 ]
come to harm" -- It is badly copied too -- but I am tired and if I dont send it with the other (which you ought to have as soon as possible) I shall not send it at all --
Yours sincerely
S. O. Jewett.
(It was delightful to see you and the Duchess* -- and my sister* writes me what a good time she had with you yesterday -- )
Notes
1881: Probably, Jewett refers to her essay, "Good Society Novels," which appeared anonymously in the Atlantic's "Contributors' Club" column in January 1882. If this is correct, then she almost certainly sent the piece to Aldrich late in 1881.
will not want: Jewett's lack of confidence in this second piece she sends Aldrich would seem to make it unlikely that it was published. However, Jewett did publish "The Plea of Insanity" in The Congregationalist in January of 1882. There she argues that Charles Guiteau, the assassin of President James Garfield in 1881, suffered from moral insanity brought on by a life "adrift" from moral rectitude. In that piece, she says: "A drifting ship must come to harm, and, as old Thomas Fuller says: 'The house of correction is the fittest place for those who are lame through their own laziness'."
sure to: Like most Jewett letters, this letter was written either on two folded sheets or on two sides of a single folded sheet. Normally, such a letter would begin on the right side of the first fold, continue on the left and right sides of the next folded page, and -- if only 4 pages -- end on the left fold of the first page.
In this letter, the left side of the 2nd page is blank. On the left side of the first page appear two items.
C. C.
Euni T. Fillie [So lightly written as to be almost unreadable. The transcription is very uncertain, and possibly not in Jewett's hand.]
Mr Aldrich [possibly in Jewett's hand ]
At the bottom left of page one, in another hand, is a circled number: 2682.
Duchess: Among their close friends, the Aldriches were nicknamed the Duke and Duchess of Ponkapog. See Key to Correspondents.
sister: Almost certainly Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Thomas Baily Aldrich Papers, 119 letters of Thomas Bailey and Lilian Woodman Aldrich, 1837-1926. MS Am 1429 (117). Transcribed and annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to possibly to Harriet Waters Preston (fragment)
[ Autumn 1881 ]*
[ Page A ]
breakfasting alone and one was so apt to be sleepy too --
I have had a very great pleasure lately in knowing an old friend of father's -- Mrs. Leland --* who has come to town to board for a while for the sake of old times -- she used to be here when she was young. I think she is a very charming person and I have been often to see her -- The other day she said 'my dear little girl' to me and it seemed funny enough, and very [ sweet corrected ] too -- You need not doubt that my mind dwelt upon you! I must say good bye for I have been stealing time from writing
[ Page B ]
and afternoons are short enough at best -- Besides I have stop by and by to go down to the church to the sewing-society [ 1/3 of a wavy line to margin. ]
Did you think it was fast ^work^ to write that story in ten days? I was hardly ten hours in the first writing -- and I am ashamed of it -- I think it is a great deal better to write more slowly -- only I cannot -- such a thing as that, at any rate -- for I am always thinking it out two or three pages ahead of where I am writing, and trying to catch up with myself -- I think it tires anybody awfully too though it is fun at the time. I'll tell you one thing about "landlocked pools"{;}* you can look into them and see the world overhead and around -- they're much more reliable! Ah! Let us think
[ Up the left margin and across the top margin of this A ]
well of ourselves and not give in to [ Mr. ? ] F. Sanborne* -- This may be the one thing he doesn't know -- We will hold our heads as high as we can. Do you remember what Mrs Poyser* says? "If you make yourself dirt you must expect folks to walk over you." So lets be ambitious! Goodbye and God keep you
Yours always sincerely"landlocked pools": In a letter to William Dean Howells of 1 December 1893, Jewett wrote:
S.O.J.
Notes
Autumn 1881: It is not certain that this letter was addressed to Preston, nor is there any strong foundation for this date. See notes below for the scant evidence supporting these guesses.
Leland: This person has not yet been identified.
I remember years ago that Miss Preston read me something from a letter that spoke of some writers as being connected with thoughts of the sea and others as but land-locked pools and it often falls to my sad lot to remember it! but never to my envious lot. I am more proud every year of what you have done because I see every year more clearly how difficult it was and is.Jewett's meditation, "River Driftwood," appeared in Atlantic Monthly in October 1881. At the end, she wrote:
A harbor, even if it is a little harbor, is a good thing, since adventurers come into it as well as go out, and the life in it grows strong, because it takes something from the world, and has something to give in return. Not the sheltering shores of England, but the inhospitable low coasts of Africa and the dangerous islands of the southern seas, are left unvisited. One sees the likeness between a harborless heart and a harborless country, where no ships go and come; and since no treasure is carried away no treasure is brought in.Sanborne: This person has not been identified, but the hint that he holds authority over writers suggests that he was a publisher, editor or reviewer.
Poyser: Mrs. Poyser is a character in British novelist George Eliot's (Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880) Adam Bede (1859). Jewett quotes her in a letter of 27 October 1881 to Eben Norton Horsford.
The manuscript of this fragment is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. bMS Am 1743 Box 7, Item 279.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Lilian Woodman Aldrich
Wednesday morning
[ 1880-1882 ]*
[ Letterhead, formed with the letters SOJ superimposed on each other ]
Dear Duchess*
Thank you for your letter, and I think I will choose next week instead of the December week, so I accept your invitation to the dinner with pleasure -- I am
[ Page 2 ]
always in a hurry to see you -- and then I am a little tired just now and I feel like having a good time!
My mother and Mary* have just come home from Boston -- Mother was away for a week and I have
[ Page 3 ]
done so much housekeeping and writing together that you would be astonished if I had time to give you the details!
Dear Duchess if it happens you would like the room you would give me for somebody else the night of the feast you can
[ Page 4 ]
tell me, for you know I could easily dwell with another friend. I am always scuttling about for little visits you know.
Mr. Aldrich is the first poet who ever wrote a poem to me* and I treasure it accordingly. I am tempted to make sponge cakes without stopping the rest of the week and make him eat the driest first -- I shall say nothing about the other sort
[ Cross written up the left margin and across the top half of page 1 ]
of sponge cake yet, to him but I have some things I wish to read to you. May I send my trunk to 131 on Saturday to wait for me as I am going to stop on my way to you?
Mary sends you love.
Yours always
Sarah
[ Up the left margin of page 4 ]
Thank you for sending Mr. James's* note --
Notes
1880-1882: These tentative dates are suggested by the beginning of Jewett's acquaintance with the Aldriches and the date of the first known poem to her, "Godspeed," written to her and Annie Adams Fields by John Greenleaf Whittier, to mark their first tour in Europe, in 1882. Of course, Jewett may mean that Aldrich's poem is the first addressed to her alone.
I have arbitrarily split the difference, and placed this with the letters of 1881.
Duchess: The Aldriches were affectionately known among their friends as the Duke and Duchess of Ponkapog. See Key to Correspondents.
Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
poem to me: This poem has not yet been identified.
Jewett may allude to Aldrich's The Story of a Bad Boy (1869) in which he writes humorously of a seller of dry sponge cake (pp. 207-11).
Mr. James's note: Though this is is not certain, this is likely to Henry James. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Thomas Baily Aldrich Papers, 119 letters of Thomas Bailey and Lilian Woodman Aldrich, 1837-1926. MS Am 1429 (117). Transcribed and annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.
At the bottom left of page one, in another hand, is a circled number: 2671.
John Greenleaf Whittier to Annie Adams Fields
[ Begin letterhead ]
Danvers, Mass.
[ End letterhead ]
12th Mo 18. 1881
Dear Mrs Fields
The telegram* so kindly sent, and signed by Celia Thaxter{,} Sarah Jewett & thyself reached me yesterday p.m. & made me glad. And later came thy flowers fresh & beautiful. Two dear old friends, [ Dear. Fowler so it appears] of Danvers and Col. Browne* of Salem dined with me, and the pleasant day passed quietly and not unhappily.
[ Page 2 ]
Tell Sarah Jewett that we shall look for her and Mr Drake* on Tuesday. With love to her & Mrs. Thaxter, I am always thy grateful friend.
John G. Whittier
It was most kind in thee to send the flowers, & my heart thanks thee more than my pen can.* These milestones at my age are rather serious things, and happy is he, who, in passing them ^sees them^ as I havesee^done^ ^them^ [associated ? ] with flowers, -- symbols & prophecies of the immortality of love & friendship.
Notes
telegram: Whittier's birthday was 17 December.
Like many letters in this collection, this was composed on a single sheet, folded top to bottom and turned left 90 degrees. The text appears on the right half of side 1 and on the left half of side 2. In this letter, the other two half-sides are blank, except that on the left half of side 1 the numeral 7 appears as in the illustration below:
7
Left half of side 1, before the page is rotated 90 degrees to compose the text.
The folded sheet appears to have been folded again in thirds, as represented by the inner vertical lines, and the numeral appears in the top center of the middle fold.
Celia Thaxter ... Sarah Jewett: See Key to Correspondents.
Fowler ... Danvers and Col. Browne ... Salem: Fowler is very likely, Whittier's correspondent, the author, Harriet Putnam Fowler (1842-1901), a temperance, health and diet reformer.
The identity of Colonel Browne of Salem is not yet known.
Sarah Jewett ... Mr. Drake: For Sarah Orne Jewett and Alexander Wilson Drake, see Key to Correspondents. While it is not certain that A. W. Drake is the person to whom Whittier refers, this seems likely.
pen can: At the beginning of this postscript is a penciled X.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields collection: mss FI 70-4815. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields
K. P. Dec. 27th (81*Notes
How kind you are, dear Annie, to keep forwarding all these things to me, which I am so glad to get! I am delighted you had a happy xmas making light in dark places & so lightening your own heavy heart.* I had a very sorrowful xmas, for there came again another bill that had been [ turning ? ] up all summer which my poor daft boy* had contracted & a kind of despair came over me, a hopelessness of any end of it all. And when I spoke to him about it he fell into such a dreadful mood of wrath & despair
[ Page 2 ]
that I knew not what to do.
Alas -- I dare not think of what may, what must be the end of all this.
I am glad the dear owl* is with you & I wish she would stay forever -- happy is the creature who has her near --
It is a terrible night -- we sit by the fire of wreck-wood & fear for disasters upon this roaring sea -- such a tumult of winds & waters. ----- it is awful to listen to --
Sometimes I am half inclined to stay here the rest of the winter & wish I had not left my tools behind me -- -- You do not say anything of Lisa's Sister,* so I hope she is better -- I want to send a word to the dear owl so good night, Annie dearest, from your loving
[ Initials CT superimposed].
81: Thaxter writes from Kittery Point, ME.
heavy heart: Fields continues in mourning after the death of her husband, James T. Fields, the previous April.
daft boy: Thaxter refers to her disabled eldest son, Karl, who lived with her throughout her life..
dear owl: One of Thaxter's nicknames for Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
Lisa's Sister: Presumably, Thaxter refers to Field's Irish-born servant, Lisa or Liza.
sister, Elizabeth (called Lissie), but Thaxter's language is odd if that was her intent. Field's second sisters were Sarah and Louisa. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino California: James Thomas Fields Papers and Addenda (1767-1914), mss FI 1-5637, Box 62 FI 4213. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Annie Adams Fields to Eben Norton Horsford
148 Charles St. Boston.
Dec. 30th 1881
Dear Professor Horsford:
Both Mifs Jewett* and* I were sorry you should have come in vain to find us. She sends you her love and when she returnsto* ^from^ Newport where she is passing a few days she will herself write you.
Meantime let me thank you for the beautiful little book you left for me and especially for your constant remembrance.
Believe me, most gratefully and faithfully yours
Annie Fields.
Notes
Mifs Jewett: Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
and: Fields often writes "a" for "and." I have rendered all of these as "and."
She also presents superscript with dots beneath, as if a quotation mark were written under the letters. I have chosen to render this as underlining.
to: It is not perfectly clear that Fields has deleted this word, but that would seem to have been her intention.
The manuscript of the letter is held by the Fales Library and Special Collections, Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, New York University. Sylvester Manor Archive 1649-1996, MSS.208, IV: Horsford Family, Box 59: Folder 35. Fields, Annie Adams: Connecticut, Maine & Massachusetts. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Lilian Woodman Aldrich
[ Boston -- 1881 ]*
Dearest dear Duchess*
You are kinder and thoughtfuller than ever but I have sent a note already to Miss Booth* to say that we thank her so much, but that I am afraid I shall [ deleted word ] be too tired -- So I think it had better be [ decided corrected ] in that way. Cora* sends her love and thanks you
[ Page 2 ]
and so do I. I hope you have not been thinking about it -- my dear Lily!
Yours always
Sarah --
Notes
1881: This bracketed note is in another hand, presumably that of a Houghton archivist. There is no rationale for this information. One reason for skepticism is that Jewett speaks of "we," suggesting that she includes Annie Adams Fields in the invitation she declines; this would make it likely the letter comes from 1883 or later. However her mentioning Cora Lee Clark Rice (See Key to Correspondents) suggests that Jewett is staying with Cora in Boston, and that Cora was included in the invitation. Then 1881 would seem a reasonable possibility.
In any case, if Miss Booth is correctly identified, the letter must have been composed before May 1885.
Duchess: Among their close friends, the Aldriches were nicknamed the Duke and Duchess of Ponkapog. See Key to Correspondents.
Miss Booth: It is likely that this is Edwina Booth (1861-1938), daughter of the American actor, Edwin Booth (1833-1893) and niece of the presidential assassin, John Wilkes Booth (1838-1865). Edwina Booth married Ignatius Grossman in May 1885.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Thomas Baily Aldrich Papers, 119 letters of Thomas Bailey and Lilian Woodman Aldrich, 1837-1926. MS Am 1429 (117). Transcribed and annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.
At the bottom left of page one, in another hand, is a circled number: 2696.
Edited by Terry Heller, Coe College.
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