Sarah Orne Jewett Letters of 1889
Sarah Orne Jewett to Thomas Wentworth Higginson
2 January 1889
[ Begin letterhead ]
148 Charles Street,
Boston.
[ End letterhead ]
My dear Colonel Higginson
Thank you very much for your kindness in sending me The Monarch of Dreams* which I have read with great pleasure. Oddly enough I have been at work lately upon a sketch that deals with
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a dream* and I figuratively laid down my pen with a sigh! At least when I go to my desk again it will be with a deepened sense of a dream's power. I am strangely reminded from time to time of George Sand's words "-- The sentiment of the ideal life, which is none other than man's normal life as we shall some day
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know it" -- What great words they are! and how one proves their truth in not only the great experiences of life but in curious minor experiences. It is no wonder that there has been so much superstition about our gift of dreams.
-- I cannot help telling you how much I have enjoyed the charming glimpses of child-
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life which I feel sure must have grown out of your companionship with your own dear little girl. Indeed I find the book full of interest and I find myself more eager and willing to read it again than to try to talk about its lessons and insights after such a short acquaintance.
Believe me with many thanks
Your sincerely
Sarah O. Jewett
Notes
Monarch of Dreams: Higginson's novel, The Monarch of Dreams, appeared in 1886.
dream: Jewett did not publish a story dealing in any central way with dreaming during 1889.
George Sand: French author Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin (1804-1876) published under her pen name, George Sand. The exact origin of Jewett's quotation has not yet been discovered, but it was quoted often in the 19th century, for one example, by the British poet, whom Jewett knew, Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), in his preface to Mixed Essays (1877).
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University. Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 1823-1911. MS Am 1162.10 (447-453). Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Louise Imogen Guiney to Annie Adams FieldsThe manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields collection Box 25: mss FI 1586. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
[ 2 January 1889 ]
[ Begin letterhead ]
Box No. 343
AUBURNDALE, MASS.
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Dear Mrs. Fields:
How good of you is this little letter! As it came, I was just about to write and thank you for your extreme kindness to Mr. Day.* Here is something to thank you for, too, and to add joyfully that I can be, and will be with you and Miss Jewett* on Friday. Cordial New Year's greeting to you both! And many friendly wishes else, from
Yours always gratefully,
Louise I. Guiney.
Jan. 2nd 1889.
Notes
Mr. Day: Probably Frederick Holland Day. See Key to Correspondents.
Miss Jewett: Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
Louise Imogen Guiney to Annie Adams Fields
[ 7 January 1889 ]
Dear Mrs. Fields:
This is to thank you "with the big heart"* for my Arcadian* visit, and for the shining sixty-hours' memory of it which I have kept since. I cannot begin to tell you (for it is quite unwordable to myself) how I enjoyed your gracious house, and your kindness and dear Miss Jewett's,* and "the sleep till break of day in the chamber whose name is Peace,"* and the long evening before it, which slipped away in a sort of enchantment, American and Breton, and left us stranded on midnight. Believe me very much your debtor for all, as I am truly.
I have written Mr. Aldrich,* to borrow my ragged little sketch sometime this month. How good of you, and how rash of you, too! to ask me to read it. I do hope you may like it, for I care for your approbation beyond most. I am going to push on my first person singular, and add that the Dr. Johnson*
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article in the Jan. Macmillan's is mine, but with no name attached (an inglorious rebuff which I can't quite explain, to me!) and with many a phrase carpentered and pullied, too. And lastly, that this is my birthday, and that I cherish smilingly Miss Jewett's gift of Saturday, and feel proud enough of it to be at quits with Time and his old [ scores ? ]. Fair befall you both! prays [ a dot ]
Your loyal friend,
Louise Imogen Guiney
Jan. 7th '89
Auburndale, Mass.
Notes
Arcadian: Derived from the Greek province of Arcadia, denoting a utopian ideal of a pastoral life in harmony with nature.
the big heart: This phrase is so common that Guiney's apparent allusion remains a mystery.
Jewett's: Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
name is Peace: See The Pilgrim's Progress (1678) by British author, John Bunyan (1628-1688), p. 16.
Mr. Aldrich: Thomas Bailey Aldrich. See Key to Correspondents.
As Aldrich, then editor at Atlantic Monthly, had possession of Guiney's manuscript, he presumably had accepted it for publication. Guiney's next piece in Atlantic appeared in April 1889: "An Outline Portrait" (pp. 549-555), concerning Magdalen, Lady Danvers, friend of British poet John Donne (1572-1631) and mother of the poet George Herbert (1593-1633).
Dr. Johnson: "Dr. Johnson's Favourites" appears with no by-line in Macmillan's Magazine 59 (January 1889) pp. 185-193, discussing two close friends of British author, Samuel Johnson (1709-1784).
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields collection Box 25: mss FI 1587 . Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Nora Perry to Sarah Orne Jewett
38 Hancock St.
Jan 11 '89
Dear Miss Jewett:
I shall be most happy to accept Mrs. Fields kind invitation.
Cordially yrs.
Nora Perry
Notes
Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Miller Library, Special Collections, Colby College, Waterville, ME: JEWE.1.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields
47. State St. Portsmouth N.H.
Jan 13th (89
My dearest Annie:
It is an age since I heard from you & Pinny* & the world is spinning round & turning ui more & more toward the spring, the days quarter of an hour longer already! O my plants! I wish you could see my clouds of pink & white blossoms & all the bowery greenery of my sunny parlor! It is lovely -- But I miss you & Pinny & my delightful
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Wednesday evenings ever & ever so much, & really pine for a sight of you two dear friends -- I wish you would come down! When the sun slopes to its setting, I think how beautiful it is on your Venetian water view, & how the sweet room looks in the low & lovely light. Are you stronger & better, dear Annie? I am so much better! & every day growing stronger, so that I can work as much as ever, & am busy from morning till night with pen & brush & typewriter
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& profoundly grateful to have the power to work returned to me. Miss Howes* has given me most welcome orders for China. I have sent her of late two bowls one of which with lilacs I wish she would show you she liked them very much.
I have lost fifteen pounds, which is the greatest gain to me possible. I expect to be a sylph before I stop losing pounds.
Do send me a word. Tell Pinny with my love I send with this one of the photos she ordered of Karl,* the only one ready -- Will forward the others as soon as he finishes them. He
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is working busily all the time trying to perfect his machine for copying & enlarging. I am so grateful to heaven for anything that keeps him busy, no matter what it is, that employs his mind. Tell her with lots of love I hope soon to send the rest -- I'm so much obliged to her for giving him the order { -- } it is a little encouragement. Much love to you dear, & do write soon to your most affectionate
C.T.
Notes
Pinny: Thaxter is using intimate nicknames shared among Jewett, Fields and herself. Pinny is Jewett; Flower is Fields; Sandpiper is Thaxter. See Key to Correspondents.
Miss Howes: Probably this is Elizabeth Howes, sister of Susan Burley Cabot. See Mrs. Cabot in Key to Correspondents.
Karl: Thaxter's disabled adult son. Karl Thaxter gave a good deal of his time and effort to inventing a machine for enlarging photographic prints.
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 6 (250-269) https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/qb98p580v
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
John Greenleaf Whittier to Annie Adams Fields
Amesbury
Jany 15 1889
My dear Annie Fields
I am afraid this work {is} too hard and, that unless our beloved Sarah* takes upon herself the duty { of } restraining thee from such over work thee will be ill before the Spring opens. I know how much thee are needed to do what nobody
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else can do so well but I wish thee would heed the Apostle's injunction;* "Do thyself no harm."
I am glad thee liked the Brook picture. I thank thee for sending me the slip from the Post.
Do thee & Sarah remember what a lovely day last Christ-mas was? I enclose some verses
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about it.
Give my love to Sarah and kiss the dear Child for me. The Lord be with you both!
Affectionately
John G. Whittier
Notes
Sarah: Sarah Orne Jewett.
Apostle's injunction: See the Bible, Acts 16:28.
Page 3: At the top center of this page is penciled the number: 13.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields collection: mss FI 72-4853. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Louise Imogen Guiney to Annie Adams Fields
[ 26 January 1889 ]
Dear Mrs. Fields:
I would be only too glad to fall in with your thoughtful invitation, and dine with you Monday evening; but I am afraid the only (and earliest) train I can take is the 6.40 P.M. from here, which will set me down at your door at a few minutes after eight, -- which I hope is an acceptable hour to you and the others. I shall be ready to begin with my share of the proceedings, without any preliminaries! But may I not read a little less, and play, perhaps, a little more? You see I want to deserve your pretty compliment, as far as I can; and I am such a shabby reader!*
Here are my best thanks for the delightful little note. I only wish I could play trumps to your Eights of Clubs! But if they have six smiles more like yours and Miss Jewett's,* I will forget how to be shy, and read away as if I were De Quincey or Mr. Ruskin.*
Your devoted friend,
Louise I. Guiney.
Auburndale, Mass.
Jan. 26th '89.
Notes
reader: See Guiney to Fields of 7 January 1889. It appears that Fields has invited Guiney to read for eight members of a club her essay, recently accepted for the April 1889 Atlantic Monthly, "An Outline Portrait" (pp. 549-555), concerning Magdalen, Lady Danvers, friend of British poet John Donne (1572-1631) and mother of the poet George Herbert (1593-1633).
Jewett's: Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
De Quincey or Mr. Ruskin: British prose authors Thomas Penson De Quincey (1785-1859) and John Ruskin (1819-1900).
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields collection Box 25: mss FI 1588. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields
Portsmouth. 47 State StBeloved Annie:
Feb 5th (89*
How glad I was to have your dear letter I cannot tell you! Often & often I think of you & Pinny,* & how all things go on in that sweet, well-ordered house wherein you twain abide, all its elegance & beauty & grace & charm & comfort, & you & Pinny "kind of" glorifying it all, & wish I could happen in from the friendly horse car as of old. I know how busy you are with all the good work, & dear Pin with her writing -- oh, do tell her that I ever, "in all my born days" read any thing of the kind so good as her "Winter
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Courtship,"* it is simply perfect, & I for one can't praise it enough. Every body is so
entertained & delighted with it! I did hope she would have been here again before now: when she goes to South Berwick next time, ask her please to come down! I am so well I am going to return all my calls soon, & shall go to see her little cousin in Islington St. It is so splendid to be well! I never can be thankful enough that I found the way.
O Annie,* I must tell you something. Just now I was lying in my comfortable sofa corner after
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dinner, having a small nap -- Suddenly I felt and heard a queer fluttering at my ear which waked me so that I sprang up, putting my hand to my head, wide awake, & lo! away fluttered a lovely pale-gold-colored butterfly with dark spots on his wings, & alighted on a basket of envelopes on my writing desk! I told Karl to slip out the envelope on which he stood, a large one, and hold him near a spike of pale blue hyacinth flowers which have just blossomed for me in a glass. The pretty creature left the paper for the flowers & there he stands, opening and shutting his beautiful yellow fans, as if it were August & he in the middle of my garden! What do you think of that for a wonder? Did Pinny send him? Where did he
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come from? I call it a marvel, dont you?
Karl has managed after long long work to get what I think a fine plate of a breaking wave which I hope to forward to Pinny soon -- He has been working like a coolie ever since he came here, getting his room & his magnifying camera ready, & has only just got fixed. He enlarged Pinny's lovely little photo you sent me, & I thought it was beautiful, but it wasn't in the centre of the space, & so he is going to try another soon as we get some more paper. Something is always happening to his things -- if he makes a good plate he breaks it, or mars it in some ^way^ with his poor awkward,clumsyhandling, [ moment or movement ] is disastrous, he is always breaking glass, smashing, [ failing ? ], mussing & missing{.}
[ Up the left margin and across the top margin of page 1 ]
The ceiling under his photo room is continually being baptised with [ nameless ? ] chemicals, the bath room is just under him, & deary me, such a [ unrecognized word weariful ? ] series of disasters that I must accept [ them ? ] & be truly thankful he is busy, no matter what, [ even ? ] if nothing but these disasters comes of it -- for then his mind is even & content. But my pretty, tidy comforts{,} my dear arrangements! Alack!
Write when you can. My dear love to you both. Your C
Our streets are full of snow but it rains today{.}
Notes
89: This manuscript has several lines drawn through pages 1 - 3. Page 1 has two X lines through the main text, and another across "postscript" text in the top margin. Page 2 has a line from the top left to the bottom right of the first paragraph; a similar line spans the whole of page 3.
Pinny: Thaxter is using intimate nicknames shared among Jewett, Fields and herself. Pinny is Jewett; Flower is Fields; Sandpiper is Thaxter. See Key to Correspondents.
"Winter Courtship": Jewett's "A Winter Courtship" appeared in Atlantic Monthly in February 1889. Penciled in above the word "her" in this sentence is "S O J's".
O Annie: It appears that an editor has deleted these words and inserted above them "to Mrs. Fields". As this passage appears in Jewett and Rose Lamb's edition of Letters of Celia Thaxter, these and other marks probably are either Jewett's or Lamb's. Following is the text that appears in this volume:
I must tell you something. Just now I was lying in my comfortable sofa corner after dinner, having a small nap. Suddenly I felt and heard a queer fluttering at my ear which waked me so that I sprang up, putting my hand to my head, wide awake, and, lo! away fluttered a lovely pale-gold-colored butterfly with dark spots on his wings, and alighted on a basket of envelopes on my writing desk. I told Karl to slip out the envelope on which he stood, a large one, and hold him near a spike of pale-blue hyacinth flowers which have just blossomed for me in a glass. The pretty creature left the paper for the flowers and there he stands, opening and shutting his beautiful yellow fans, as if it were August and he in the middle of my garden. Where did he come from? I call it a marvel.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 5 (230-249) https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/qb98p586h249).
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford
148 Charles Street
Boston 17 February [ 1889 ]*Dear Mrs. Spofford
This morning I had an unexpected delight in a first reading of two new poems of yours! I was soberly reading some St. Nicholas proofs* when I saw at the bottom of one of the slips the impression of uninked type, and I began to puzzle it out and found your most beautiful The King's Dust and "A Worm,"*
[ Page 2 ]and by getting a very good light I managed to read them to Mrs. Fields.* I cannot tell you how exquisite we both thought them or how we enjoyed finding them in such curious fashion -- I had to send them back but we shall be looking for them again in print presently -- I suppose this slip lay under another
[ Page 3 ]on which your proof was printed ----- I wish that I could tell you what A. F. said while she was praising them, but indeed she thought them most exquisite and full of truth -- They were somehow a true joy this rainy day, your great little poems; and I could not help sending a line to say so --
Yours most sincerely
Sarah O. Jewett.
Notes1889: See notes below
Fields: Annie Adams Fields. Key to Correspondents.
St. Nicholas proofs: Presumably Jewett was inspecting proofs of the final installment of "A Bit of Color," which appeared in St. Nicholas in June 1889 and was later incorporated into Betty Leicester (1890).
King's Dust: Richard Cary notes that "The King's Dust" also appeared in St. Nicholas 16 (June 1889), 585. He says that "A Worm" appeared the next year, July 1890 (p. 748), with a new title: "Wings."
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. This new transcription with revised notes is by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Francis Hopkinson Smith
148 Charles Street
Sunday 24 February 1889
Dear Mr. Smith
The little book is here and I thank you for so delightful and unexpected a gift! and for the kindness of some words written on the flyleaf. When I go down to Berwick to see the large paper illustrated edition, it will look surprisingly small to my eyes [ fresh corrected ] from a sight of this -- Mrs. Fields's* copy
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of the same edition is quite an everyday sort of book -- and my own stories are strangers and foreigners compared to this particular copy of Well-Worn Roads.* Well-worn leaves are these to be where you have put your story-pictures and they will lop open always to the story of the nun and the hint of rose-madder.
The river is frozen over today and the gulls, all breakfastless; are flying about to keep themselves
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warm -- and flapping their wings like coachmen there is such icy air a-blowing -- -- I must thank you again for the pleasure you gave us the other evening -- I hope that you can manage to come on again for the Authors' Reading?*
Yours ever sincerely (with best regards to Mrs. Smith), Sarah O. Jewett
Notes
Well-Worn Roads. The first edition of Well-Worn Roads in Spain, Holland, and Italy: Traveled by a Painter in Search of the Picturesque appeared in 1887. Jewett indicates that a new special edition has just appeared.
Fields's: Annie Adams Fields. Key to Correspondents.
Authors' Reading: Richard Cary writes:
In his James Russell Lowell (Boston, 1900), 11, 333-334, [ Horace ] Scudder declared drily that by the winter of 1886 "the rage for Author Readings had set in, and under the guise of charity of one sort or another, society compelled its favorites to stand and deliver their old poems." During this period, however, the Readings were held for the benefit of the Copyright League, which was busily campaigning for international recognition of authors' rights.
Miss Jewett seldom participated in large public functions of this sort. A notable exception occurred during the winter of 1887 when she consented to act as secretary to the committee which arranged an impressive Authors' Reading in the Boston Museum for the purpose of raising a Longfellow Memorial fund (see Lilian W. Aldrich, Crowding Memories [Boston, 1920], 255-262, and Colby Library Quarterly, VII [March 1965], 36, 40-42).
An Authors' Reading took place at the Boston Museum on 7 March 1889 to benefit the International Copyright Association. Among the readers were Oliver Wendell Holmes. Sr., Samuel Clemens, Charles Dudley Warner, and Julia Ward Howe. Smith read "Behind the Rialto."
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. This new transcription with revised notes is by Terry Heller, Coe College.
John Greenleaf Whittier to Annie Adams Fields
Oak Knoll
Danvers
2nd Mo 28 1889*
My dear Friend
I am not sure whether or no thee and Sarah* are in Charles Street, or wandering off to meet the Spring half way in Washington or Virginia. I meant to have seen you, if at home this week, but I am expecting company, and besides
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I was foolish enough to strike my forehead against a stick of wood which gave my eye about as many colors as Joseph's Coat;* and I dont want to present myself in the guise of a Modoc Indian* in his war-paint. I wonder how you have been through the last two months. For myself I am dreadfully weary of the long winter. Our folks have just returned from Bermuda where they have had some weeks of delightful summer weather, with flowers & bird-songs, and bananas
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and paw-paws, and sweet lemons & sour oranges. Why don't thee & Sarah run over there this spring? Perhaps you have gone.
Celia Thaxter* has sent me a photograph of the [ gentle ? ] [ theosophist / theosophical ? ] Mohini.* It is a striking picture -- all the marvel and mystery of the Orient are in it -- withal it is a really beautiful and tender face, almost like ones idea of the Christs. Whether he is as good as he looks, or whether he can explain the unexplainable I know not.*
I have had a great
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pleasure in reading the Story of the Normans, which Sarah has told in her own charming way. Give a great deal of love to her. I am daily thankful that thee and she are both alive and that I can call you my friends. I am thine with grateful love.
John G Whittier
Notes
1889: Pickard has dated this letter in 1887, misled by Whittier's ambiguous handwriting. However, Whittier could not have read Jewett's popular history, Story of the Normans in February 1887, as it did not appear until the end of that year and was completed only shortly before publication.
Sarah: Sarah Orne Jewett.
Joseph's coat: Whittier refers to the biblical Joseph, youngest son of Jacob, and his "coat of many colors." See Genesis 37.
Modoc Indian: To Whittier, the Modoc Native American people would have been distant and comparatively exotic, as residents of the northwestern United States, Oregon and California. Possibly, Whittier has seen paintings or reproductions of these people by artists such as Elbridge Ayer Burbank (1858-1949).
Celia Thaxter: See Key to Correspondents.
Mohini: In his notes, Pickard says: "Whittier was much impressed by Mohini ... then lecturing in the United States for the second time. In a letter to Elizabeth Neall Gay on February 22, 1887, he said: 'Some of my friends in Boston are puzzling themselves with the Buddhist theosophy and have got a Hindu adept, one Mohini M. Chattingi -- a solemn-faced Oriental, to expound its mysteries. And the Society for Psychical Research are gathering up all the stories afloat of signs and wonders, and omens and apparitions, witchcraft and spiritualism -- a competitive examination of ghosts! -- I have rather enjoyed reading the reports of a similar society in England. Their investigations are conducted on strictly scientific principles. I hope some clew may be found to the great mystery of life and death -- and the beyond! -- But I scarcely expect it. We shall still have to trust and wonder and keep our faith' (Columbia University)."
Mohini Mohun Chatterji (1858-1936) was a Bengali attorney and scholar who became a prominent representative of Theosophy during the 1880s, taking his message to England and Ireland, as well as to the United States, where he visited in 1887. See Diane Sasson, Yearning for a New Age (2012), pp. 173-179.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields collection: mss FI 72-4834. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
This letter has been transcribed previously by Pickard, Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier. v. 3.
David Douglas to Annie Adams Fields
[ Begin Letterhead
Underlined portion filled in by hand. ]
DAVID DOUGLAS[ End Letterhead ]
PUBLISHER
15A Castle Street
Edinburgh March 1 1889
Dear Mrs Fields
The date of your letter exactly one month ago makes me ashamed of my delay in answering your question regarding the portrait of Sir Walter* engraved in the February No. of Scribner which you were good enough to send me. I did not recognize it at first but on a careful examination I think it is likely to be one of those described as 180 to 183 in the enclosed memorandum. You will find an account of the original painting in the artists own letter to Sir Wm Stirling Maxwell* in 1872, a copy of
[ Page 2 ]
which I have also enclosed. I am just looking at Scott's Diary [ curiously ? ] enough at this very moment with [ Scott's ? ] remarks upon the painter. I shall do myself the pleasure of sending you a copy of this revised & enlarged edition from the original precious M S S. in my hands{.} It is slow work however{,} this [ unrecognized word compiling ? ] of facts dates & [ identifying ? ] of people -- pleasant work too!! I wish I had for some parts of my business your dear husbands quickness of getting through the days labour of [ scanning ? ] m.s.s. {--} he told me I forget now the exact number of [ m s.s. so it appears ] he could run though in a single evening! -- I cannot [ comfortably ? ]
[ Page 3 ]Notes
read quickly -- The result is that my [ deleted word ] business or "shop work leaves me no time except on a Sunday afternoon for browsing lazily on the pleasant pastimes of literature.
This is merely a "reply" to you question. I [ trust ? ] to write you a pleasant letter by & by.
[ I am ? ]
[ unrecognized word ]
David Douglas
P.S. Did you know Mrs Brown* has been called home? She died some months ago, a happy release as she had been secluded for some time{.}
Fields: "rs" is underlined twice.
Sir Walter: Scottish author, Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832).
The engraving to which Douglas refers appears at the beginning of the February 1889 number of Scribner's Magazine. It is labeled: "Walter Scott. Engraved by Andrew, from a portrait in the possession of Mrs. James T. Fields." It precedes an essay, "Walter Scott at Work. Introduction," by American historian and educator Andrew D. White (1832-1918).
The original portrait was by Scottish painter, Sir Francis Grant (1803-1878). The letter to which Douglas refers may be seen in A Descriptive Account of the Portraits, Busts, Published Writings and Manuscripts of Sir Walter Scott (1871), p. 79.
Brown: Dr. John Brown (1810-1882). His wife was Catherine Scott McKay.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields Papers and Addenda, Box 16: mss FI 5637. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields
March 3. 89*In a little over two weeks we shall be there again, I suppose -- but if this weather continues, summer will burst upon us in full bloom before we know where we are! O Annie, I wish you could see my colonies of seeds, each sprouted in an empty egg shell, (& these shells ^for steadying^ packed closely in boxes of earth) so that when it is warm enough to transplant them in to the garden, I have but to break the eggshell, & can transfer the plant to the garden bed without disturbing the roots at all. Already my single dahlias are two inches high, & red & white & lilac & purple annual stocks the same, & other things beside, & mystic moon flowers are stewing in eggshells behind the stove in heat & moisture, soon to germinate. It is so interesting & delightful! As soon as
[ Page 2 ]
things sprout I take them to an upper window where the sun pours in & it is cool, so they grow stout & wax amain.
I am sure you have seen the warm crescent in the west tonight & the great Venus over her -- what a sky of spring it is, what soft splendor! Dear, I think of you every day. I would so many miles lay not between your dwelling & mine! My dearest love to you ever.
Your C
Notes
89: It is not certain that this year is written in Thaxter's hand.
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 6 (250-269) https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/qb98p592n
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields
47. State St. March 12th Tuesday.
1889
Dearest Pin:*
O cant you come down here next Saturday & spend the day as you did before? O do! for I go away to the Shoals next week --
Do, dearest Pin, come to your loving
Sandpiper
Pin: A nickname for Sarah Orne Jewett, as Sandpiper is for Thaxter.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University: Sarah Orne Jewett correspondence MS Am 1743 Box 4, item 211. Thaxter, Celia (Laighton) 1835-1894. 10 letters to Sarah Orne Jewett; 1888-1890 & [n.d.], 1888-1890.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
John Greenleaf Whittier to Annie Adams Fields
Amesbury
3/21 1889
My dear friend
I wonder how it is with thee and our beloved Sarah* at this time. Well, I must, for we have had a most merciful winter, for which I am profoundly grateful. March came [ bland ? ] and lamb-like, but
[ Page 2 ]
he is now the [ veritable ? ] old ram which we always expect. I have been here nearly a week and the wind from the North East has been blowing through his horns all the time. I stay in doors mostly, idle away the hours by my fireside. I can not read or write much without
[ Page 3 ]
suffering, which of course is a great frustration, but I must regard it as the fitting penalty for having read and written too much already. My old neighbors drop in and "pilgrims" are not wanting, and I think of dear friends, and thank God for them.
What a success the Author's reading* was! I wish I could have heard
[ Page 4 ]
Dr. Holmes read his "Last Leaf,"* for I am sure he must have felt its pathos as never before. I hope Sarah has written something for us this winter. Her {"}Winter Courtship"* I greatly enjoyed. Have you read Rose Terry Cooke's "Steadfast."* It is to my thinking one of her best.
God be with thee and my dear friends! I have thee ever in my thoughts. With a great deal of love to Sarah I
[ Up the left margin of page 4 ]
am affectionately thy friend
John G Whittier
Notes
Sarah: Sarah Orne Jewett.
Author's reading ... Holmes ... "Last Leaf": An Authors' Reading took place at the Boston Museum on 7 March 1889 to benefit the International Copyright Association. Among the readers were Holmes, Samuel Clemens, Charles Dudley Warner, and Julia Ward Howe.
For Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. see Key to Correspondents. His wife, Amelia Lee Jackson Holmes (1818 - 6 February 1888) died about a year before this letter and Holmes's reading of his poem, "The Last Leaf," which ends:
And if I should live to be"Winter Courtship": Jewett's story, "A Winter Courtship," appeared in Atlantic Monthly in February 1889.
The last leaf upon the tree
In the spring,
Let them smile, as I do now,
At the old forsaken bough
Where I cling.
Rose Terry Cooke's "Steadfast": American author Rose Terry Cooke (1827 -1892) published her novel, Steadfast: the Story of a Saint and Sinner, in 1889.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields collection: mss FI 72-4831. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields
47 State St. Ports ---
25th Mch -- (89
My dearest Annie:
A telegram came this A.M. saying "Do you go out to Shoals today? If not I will come by noon train. S.J." I only thought of Pinny,* tho' surprised that she should send from Boston, & telegraphed back, "Not going -- do come," to Charles St.. After it had gone Karl* said, "Are you sure it was Miss Jewett? Wouldn't she have put the O to her name?" Then it occurred to me that probably it was [ Sam corrected ] Jemmison,* & not Pinny at all! So I telegraphed him, & perhaps he will appear -- But I scratch this line to you to explain that mystic telegram.
Pardon the pencil -- I have had to keep to the sofa yesterday & today, & I dont think I shall dare go Shoalsward till the last of the week -- or till I feel more sure of myself than now. It was such a pleasure to see you, dear! I shall feel happier all summer for it. I shall keep the delightful wine till I am able to take it, & the delicious biscuits or buns were so nice, tho I could only smell of them! They were better than a nosegay, & Karl fairly revelled in them, they were so good! You dear, kind thoughtful Annie -- I have been looking at your beautiful paper in Scribners.* How interesting it is! Karl is fairly at his photographing at last tho' yesterday he was so worn out he couldn't do a thing. But now I have the strongest hopes that before the end of the week we shall send you every thing --
I am sorry we were so stripped & despoiled when you came, dear, so bare, & the plants half gone! Next time I hope we shall [ blossom ? ] for you! You were so dear to come! Ever with dearest love your
C.
over
[ Page 2 ]
Mrs Titcomb* is anxiously looking for a woman with a child, to go & live with her. She would not want her till last of April when she is to return to Kittery. She wants a
respectable middle aged person, if she can find one, & some one who could take care of her & be companionable in that loneliness. The place is easy & Mrs. T. the kindest & most thoughtful of house holders & keepers. It is a beautiful home for somebody. She said she was going to make inquiries at Charles St. & I thought I had better speak a word to you too about it. Her address this week is care of Mrs. Estes Howe,* 2 Appleton St. Cambridge. After that care of Mr Roland Thaxter 27, Lincoln St. New Haven, Conn{.}
John is anxiously looking for a man for farm work, some responsible person, if any
"swim into your ken"!
Notes
Pinny: Thaxter is using intimate nicknames shared among Jewett, Fields and herself. Pinny is Jewett; Flower is Fields; Sandpiper is Thaxter. See Key to Correspondents.
Jemmison: The transcription is uncertain, and this person has not yet been identified.
Karl: Thaxter's disabled son. Later in the letter she mentions her other two sons, John and Roland.
paper in Scribners: Fields's current article in Scribner's Magazine would have been "A Second Shelf of Old Books: Edinburgh," April 1889.
Mrs Titcomb: Lucy Thaxter Titcomb (1818-1908) was a sister of Thaxter's husband, Levi Thaxter.
Mrs. Estes Howe: Probably this is Lois Lillie White Howe (1824-1911), widow of Dr. Estes Howe of Cambridge, MA.
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 6 (250-269) https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/qb98p603z
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Adams Fields
[ March 1889 ]*
(She didn't, or you didn't ---((thats all of that story! ))*
-- Now this is a hopeful sign! I just looked out of the window and some boys have found a dry spot on the sidewalk and are playing marbles -- The mud is still very deep and the [ snow-drifts corrected ] very high, but the hills are like big leopards and tigers ready for a pounce at something, with their brown and white spots. I never was more glad to see the brown spots show themselves
[ Page 2 ]
and shouldnt you think the grass would be glad to have the snow go off, so that the sun can shine on it and the wind blow it? Once I should have been in a hurry to go racing off for hepaticas,* but it is too early at any rate, and I say to myself that I never did care very much for those flowers, and I find I am growing old and lazy and can let them bloom and wilt again without any sorrow -- Hepaticas are like ^some^ peoplewith avery dismal
[ Page 3 ]
blue, with ^the^ cold hands and faces + +* I had to stop to think about wild flowers and I believe there is nothing dearer than a trig little company of anemones in a pasture, all growing close together, as if they kept each other warm and wanted the whole sun to themselves beside -- They had no business to wear their summer frocks so early in the year.
(Good-bye darling* (This letter has been spinning itslef longer and longer -- I think I could keep on with it the
[ Page 4 ]
whole afternoon -- ) I am bewitched with a story, though I have nothing to say to you about it yet ( -- and I must be spinning that. -- ( I have not told you that Mother was worse yesterday with the change of the weather, and I was put to my [ trumps ? ] -- but today she is getting on capitally well again -- There is one thing, if I do have to wait until Mary* gets back I can stay longer than over the night --
Yours always H. E.*
I know you thought little A.W's* cape bonnet was a beauty!
[ Begin penciled postscript ] Pin to be writing something nice, ladies!
Notes
March 1889: Fields places this note in the upper right of page 1: March 1889? Fields is uncertain, and there is no information in the manuscript either to confirm or deny that date, except that the letter must precede Jewett's mother's death in 1891.
story!: This manuscript seems to open after the first page. The inside parenthesis marks are by Jewett, the outside ones by Fields, presumably marking the passage as to be omitted in Fields 1911 collection of Jewett letters.
hepaticas: Hepatica americana. Wikipedia says: "Hepatica ... is a genus of herbaceous perennials in the buttercup family, native to central and northern Europe, Asia and eastern North America. Some botanists include Hepatica within a wider interpretation of Anemone."
+ +: It is possible that these present Jewett dashes deleted by Fields.
Anemone: Wikipedia says Anemone "is a genus of about 120 species of flowering plants in the family Ranunculaceae, native to temperate zones. The genus is closely related to Pulsatilla ('Pasque flower') and Hepatica; some botanists even include both of these genera within Anemone."
darling: The parenthesis marks on this page and the next have been penciled in by Fields. Those on page 4 -- around -- and I must be spinning that -- are in green pencil.
Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
H.E.: This transcription is uncertain regarding the second initial. In any case, it is -- to date -- unique among Jewett's letters, and its meaning is not known. In the penciled postscript, Jewett uses her own more usual nickname, Pin, for Pinny Lawson. See Key to Correspondents.
Following the signature is a line in ink, that makes a sort of end parenthesis from H. E. to the end of the page, it's purpose not clear.
A.W.: This person has not yet been identified. Friends with these initials include the American sculptor Anne Whitney (1821-1915) and poet Adeline Dutton Train Whitney (1824-1906).
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University. 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). Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Annie Fields Transcription
This passage appears in Annie Fields, Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett (1911), p. 40.
[March, 1889.]
Now this is a hopeful sign. I just looked out of the window and some boys have found a dry spot on the sidewalk and are playing marbles. The mud is still very deep and the snow-drifts very high, but the hills are like big leopards and tigers ready for a pounce at something, with their brown and white spots. I never was more glad to see the brown spots show themselves, and shouldn't you think the grass would be glad to have the snow go off, so that the sun can shine on it and the wind blow it? Once I should have been in a hurry to go racing off for hepaticas,* but it is too early at any rate, and I say to myself that I never did care very much for those flowers, and I find I am growing old and lazy and can let them bloom and wilt again without any sorrow. Hepaticas are like some people, very dismal blue, with cold hands and faces. I had to stop to think about wild flowers, and I believe there is nothing dearer than a trig little company of anemones in a pasture, all growing close together as if they kept each other warm, and wanted the whole sun to themselves, beside. They had no business to wear their summer frocks so early in the year. I am bewitched with a story, though I have nothing to say to you about it yet.
John Greenleaf Whittier to Annie Adams Fields
Oak Knoll
4/3 1889
My dear friend
I have just been reading thy delightful paper in the Scribner and Sarah's charming Bit of Color in St. Nicholas.* It almost seemed like seeing you both.
[ Page 2 ]
Spring is here today warm, birdfull, blossoming with crocuses{,} snow drops and willows. Probably the East wind will scare her away tomorrow. It seems strange to me that I am here alive to welcome her, [ where ? ] when so many have passed away
[ Page 3 ]
with the winter, and among them that stalwartest of Englishmen John Bright* sleeping now in the daisied grounds of Rochdale, never more to move the world with his surpassing eloquence. How I [ regret corrected ] that I have never seen him! We had much in common,
[ Page 4 ]
-- in our religious faith,-- our hatred of war and oppression. His great genius seemed to me to be always held firmly in hand by a sense of duty, and by [ the corrected from his ] practical common sense of a shrewd man of business. He fought [ thugh meaning through ] life like an old knight errant, but without enthusiasms.* He had no personal
[ Page 5 ]
ideals. I remember how he remonstrated with me for my admiration of Gen Gordon.* He looked upon that wonderful personality as a wild fighter, a rash adventurer doing evil that good might come. He could not see him, as I saw him, giving his life for humanity, alone and unfriended
[ Page 6 ]
in that dreadful Soudan. He did not like the idea of fighting Satan with Satan's weapons. Lord Salisbury* said truly that he was the greatest orator England has produced, and his eloquence was only called out by what he regarded as the voice of God in his soul.
[ Page 7 ]
Have thee seen the just published Proceedings of our Society of Psychical Research.* It has some striking instances of dreams, and phantasms. I do not like the tone of Prof. Royce's* comments on them.
I scarcely know what is going on in the literary world. I seem to be quite outside of it; my eyes do not allow me to read much.
[ Page 8 ]
With love to Sarah I am [ affectionately seemingly abbreviated ] thy frd.
John G. Whittier
Notes
St. Nicholas: Sarah Orne Jewett's "A Bit of Color" began appearing in a 3-part serial in St. Nicholas in April 1889. These pieces eventually were gathered into a novel, Betty Leicester: A Story for Girls (1890).
Fields's article in Scribner's for April of 1889 was "A Second Shelf of Old Books: Edinburgh."
An "x" has been penciled at the beginning of this paragraph.
John Bright: John Bright (1811 - 27 March 1889) was a British Quaker statesman considered "one of the greatest orators of his generation."
enthusiasms: Whittier seems to allude to Don Quixote, in the narrative of that name by Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1615).
Gen. Gordon: British Major-General Charles George Gordon (1833 -1885). Whittier's admiration for Gordon probably was influenced in part by his efforts to suppress the slave trade when he was Governor-General of Sudan during the 1870s.
Lord Salisbury: British Conservative statesman who served three times as Prime Minister, Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830-1903).
Salisbury's tribute is quoted in the Wikipedia article on John Bright.
Society of Psychical Research: The American Society for Psychical Research, which began in 1884, with the purpose of scientifically investigating "psychical phenomena," such as communication with the dead.
Prof. Royce: American idealist philosopher Josiah Royce (1855-1916) had a long career at Harvard University. An officer of the American Society for Psychical Research, he chaired various committees in the 1885-1889 period. His chairman's report for the Committee on Phantasms and Presentiments appeared in Proceedings v. 1, pp. 350-429, which was followed by a long appendix, pp. 429-516, and "Comments on the Cases in Appendix," pp. 516-27, also by Royce.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields collection: mss FI 72-4830. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
This letter has been transcribed previously by Pickard, Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier. v. 3.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Thomas Bailey Aldrich
South Berwick Maine
3 April -- [ 1889 ]*
Dear Friend
Here is the little Shrewsbury story. See if you like it. I name $80. as the price with bitter reluctance! I wish it had held out to upwards of two hundred pages -- and grown more and more interesting.
I have been in Portsmouth today for a few hours to see Mrs. Thaxter* who is better, but not in sound health by any means. I fear that
[ Page 2 ]
there is something very bad the matter with her -- I thought of you as I went [ and corrected ] came from the station round through Deer and High sts -- for old times sake [ . intended a comma? ] and saw those sober old houses withpeople^women^ sitting at their front windows, the same kind of women as when I was a little girl, mending, and waiting for something that never happens. I looked over into the back garden of a gambrel [ roofer ? ] where I used
[ Page 3 ]
to stay when I was a littler girl than the [ deleted letters ] first mentioned, and saw an aged pear tree still alive and well, from which I have eaten much fruit -- All this reminds me of a message that was given me for you long ago { -- } the best regards of Captain Will [ Shackford* corrected ] who used to play with you and train in your company and so hopes you remember him --
I am keeping house by my self -- but I wish
[ Page 3 ]
you and Lily were here to help. Berwick is nasty with melting snow but will soon grow green. I am to be back in town sometime next week.
Forgive so long a letter from a most affectionate
S. O. J.
Please send back the story to Berwick if you dont want it.
Notes
1889: Jewett's "Going to Shrewsbury" appeared in Atlantic Monthly in July 1889, soon after Jewett submitted it to Aldrich. This was one of Jewett's shorter stories, at just under 4000 words.
Mrs. Thaxter: Celia Thaxter. See Key to Correspondents.
Captain Will Shackford: This is probably William Gardner Shackford (1840-1907). He was a steamship captain, recognized in 1891 for saving his passengers and crew when struck by a sudden Atlantic storm.
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: 2680.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Warwick James Price
My dear Mr. Price*South Berwick Maine
5 April 1889
It gives me great pleasure to send the enclosed paragraph from Deephaven* in answer to your note of the first of April --
I am glad to have this opportunity to say how much I enjoyed reading a copy of Hora Scholasticae*
[ Page 2 ]
which Mr Richard H. Dana lent me at the White Mountains* a few weeks ago -- I remember a beautiful sonnet in it called (I think) The Lengthening Days* which I wish so much to see again that I am going to ask you to find that number for me and to send it to 148 Charles Street, Boston{.}
With my best thanks in advance for your trouble.
Pray believe meNotes
Yours sincerely
Sarah O. Jewett
Price: David Levesque, Archivist at St. Paul's School in Concord, NH, identifies Warwick James Price (25 November 1870 - 6 April 1934). He was a student at SPS 1886-90 (Form of 1889), who then returned as an English teacher at SPS for 3 years from 1893-1896. He went on to publish several literary/historical studies, including: Nearest Things (1919) and The One Book (1928), on the Bible. According to the Yale Obituary Record 1933-4 (p. 88), after completing his B.A. at Yale University, he taught school, then worked as a writer, editor and lecturer.
Deephaven: Jewett's 1877 novel. It seems likely, though not certain, that Price has asked Jewett to copy and autograph a passage for him.
Hora Scholasticae: Horae Scholaticae was the literary newspaper of St. Paul's School, an Episcopal college-preparatory school in Concord, NH, founded in 1856. Richard Henry Dana III attended the school for 5 years before entering Harvard University in 1870.
Mr Richard H. Dana ... the White Moutains: American attorney and reformer Richard Henry Dana III (1851-1931) was the son of Richard Henry Dana, Jr., American author of Two Years Before the Mast (1840). He married Edith Longfellow, daughter of the American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. For New Englanders, the White Mountains of New Hampshire offered a number of resorts..
The Lengthening Days: David Levesque has located this sonnet in the 22 February 1889 issue of Horae Scholasticae.
February
The old, old wonder of the lengthening days
Is with us once again; the winter's sun,
Slow sinking to the west when day is done,
Each eve a little longer with us stays,
And cheers the snowy landscape with his rays:
Nor do we notice what he has begun
Until a month or more of days have run,
When we exclaim: "How long the light delays!"
So let some kindly deed, however slight,
Be daily done by us, that to the waste
Of selfishness some light it may impart,
Mayhap not noticed till we feel the night
Is less within our souls, and broader-spaced
Has grown the cheerful sunshine of the heart.
Levesque identifies the author as Samuel Francis Batchelder (1870-1927), who attended SPS from 1887-89 (Form of 1889) and who was one of the student editors named in the masthead of the issue. The poem was reprinted in Representative Sonnets by American Poets, with slight changes, from which the text above is taken. Batchelder completed his law degree at Harvard University and practiced in Boston.
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 Annie Adams Fields
[ Apr. 1889 ]*
Beloved Annie:
Thank you so much for your dear note! I did find the beef very nice, but it will last a long time yet. I am able to take other things now, thanks to the pepsin, which are better for me, on account of the change. I have been obliged to exist on beef so long. But I do not know the crackers of which you speak, dear Annie -- what did you call them? "[ Wheatize ? ] crackers"?* I cant take the hot water as I used. I have had to make an entire change of every thing.
I am so grateful, so thankful for a little ease, at last, after so many miserable weeks -- I thought at one time I must leave everything & go to Boston for medical assistance
2
but the young girl with the sunstroke came, with her medicines, & they are my salvation. Is it not wonderful!
I have had such heavenly hours in my garden since I began to feel better, sitting on a box & peeling off the egg shells from my dear baby plants -- there the roots are, folded round & round inside the shell, white & strong, and the ball of earth keeps its shape & the plant never knows it is moved & begins to grow the moment it is set into the warm, kindly earth. The dear things! Lovely stocks, gilliflowers all colors, & pansies wonderful Trimardean & yellow giant, & snow white, & purple Emperor William, & no end! And many another dear thing beside. And sitting on my box it is so beautiful! with the sun shining & soft airs blowing & birds singing & life springing
3
everywhere! The martins building in little houses all round our piazza roofs, are so charming, so beautiful to look at with their brilliant sapphire wings & white breasts, & oh their pretty talk & gossip! I am so happy in it all. My little dear girls Ruth & Margaret* came out yesterday in such a wild state of joy to be running in the green grass & picking the dandelions!
Poor Karl helps me so much, & tries to take care of me, coming from his work every little while with his anxious "Aren't you doing too much? Hadn't you better lie down a little while now?" Poor fellow! His machine is not yet out from Portsmouth.
4
We have been obliged to possess our [ souls corrected ] in patience, forthethe poor little tug Pinafore,* our only means of communication with the land, is loaded so deep every time she comes out, & the machine is so tremendously heavy, they could not bring it, with all the other things. But he has not been idle, tho' he could not take new plates as he wishes -- he has copied the old ones, I mean printed from them, & made some heavenly ones of you. Pinny's* dont come out so well, he has used two boxes of plates trying to get a good one of her, & lots of [ Winnie ? ],* -- I fear about getting a successful one of this desperately sad picture. Still he is going to try again when
5
the "engine" gets here -- we hope it may come today or tomorrow.
It is only a little after four o'clock -- I sleep much better now. The east is beautiful with the coming sun. Goodbye dearest. I am going to get up & have my breakfast & go sit on my box in the garden! With dearest love, & to Pinny
Your faithful
C
Notes
Apr. 1889: This date appears in another hand at the top right of page 1. There is little definitive confirmation in the text. Clearly this is during the period each spring when Thaxter's family went to Appledore to prepare for summer guests at the Laighton brothers' resort hotel. During the later winter and spring of 1889, Thaxter was quite ill, as she reports here. It is probable that the date is close to correct. See also Thaxter to Fields of 3 March 1889.
"[ Wheatize ? ] crackers": The transcription is uncertain. This is not a known food product from this time period. Digestive biscuits of various kinds were available in Britain and the U.S.
Ruth & Margaret: Ruth and Margaret Laighton are Thaxter's nieces. Later she mentions her disabled son, Karl. See Key to Correspondents.
Pinafore: The Pinafore was the steam tug by which Thaxter regularly traveled between Portsmouth and the Isles of the Shoals. It also brought supplies and carried mail for summer residents on the Isles. Karl Thaxter gave a good deal of his time and effort to inventing a machine for enlarging photographic prints.
Pinny's: Thaxter is using intimate nicknames shared among Jewett, Fields and herself. Pinny is Jewett; Flower is Fields; Sandpiper is Thaxter. See Key to Correspondents.
Winnie: This person has not yet been identified.
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 6 (250-269) https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/qb98p623f
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Adams Fields
[ April 1889 ]*
[ A fragment with missing material at the beginning ]
good Mr. Lewis* is going to Europe for two months this summer -- which is a great interest to the parish. I read Mrs. Burleigh Thy Friends letter about John Bright.* (She was Quaker born) and it gave a great pleasure. How all the Friends set by him as if they made him* and set him up for the rest of the world to admire! It is quite wonderful how fresh and strong his writing looks now -- The March meeting [ deleted word ] visit to Amesbury did him good. I must write him, it is far too long --
I have eaten my supper and
[ Page 2 ]
now the evening begins -- I dont think I ever wanted to see you quite so much as this time. Hannah* [ is ? ] singing a high slow measured air of her native soil that I [ deleted word ] do not remember to have heard before but there is a sad wail in it -- some thing about Robbie Burns!* -- but she often puts new words that she learns to the old lines -- now she descends to the girl I left behind me,* which is very much more cheerful besides being appropriate to the occasion of poor Pinny!* I like to leave the door ajar between this and the kitchen! (The pictures all came yesterday with Fuff* much dressed)
[ Manuscript breaks off. No signature. ]
Notes
April 1889: This date is supported by Jewett indicating that she has shared a Whittier letter of April 1889 with Matilda Burleigh. See notes below.
In green pencil, Fields has made two marks on the upper right of the first page, possibly "1." Parenthesis marks in this manuscript were penciled by Fields.
Mr. Lewis: George Lothrop Lewis. See Key to Correspondents.
Mrs. Burleigh Thy Friends letter about John Bright: Matilda Buffum Burleigh (1823-1911) was the widow of a South Berwick mill owner and Maine congressman, John Holmes Burleigh (1822-1877). See Wikipedia.
Thy Friend is John Greenleaf Whittier, "the Quaker poet." See Key to Correspondents.
John Bright ( 1811 - 27 March 1889) was a British Quaker statesman, "one of the greatest orators of his generation and a promoter of free trade policies," particularly the abolition of the "corn laws" that made wheat and other foods expensive for consumers, especially in years of poor crops.
It seems very likely that Jewett shows Mrs. Burleigh a Whittier letter to Fields of 3 April 1889 in which Whittier writes at length of his admiration for Bright and regrets that he never was able to meet him. See Pickard, The Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier vol. 3, pp. 566-7.
Quaker born): These parentheses are by Jewett.
him: Somewhat oddly, Fields has inserted in green pencil at this point: "Whittier." Perhaps she meant to insert it earlier, after "Thy Friend." At least, it seems that Jewett means that the recently deceased John Bright rather than Whittier is the person in whom Quakers have shown such pride.
Hannah: Probably Hannah Driscoll, Jewett's Irish-immigrant employee. See Key to Correspondents.
Robbie Burns: Robert Burns (1759-1796), the Scottish poet.
girl I left behind me: An English folk song. Popular adaptations in the United States served as a marching song for American troops in wars from 1812 to World War I. Wikipedia.
Pinny: Pinny Lawson (Pinny / Pin) was an affectionate nickname for Jewett, used by her and Annie Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Fuff: Nickname for Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University. 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). Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields
Shoals. 8th April (89*
Beloved Annie:
We came here day before yesterday, the little Pinafore* looked dressed for a festival with all the plants & flowers on the hurricane deck -- We came safely & pleasantly, & everything looked so pleasant & delightful when we got here. The good Theodine* had everything bright & shining with a real Norwegian shine, & the plants in the ten sunny windows made a perfect bower of greenery & bloom. I have not seen them so beautiful since my dear mother left them -- Ah, it is so pleasant to creep into that dear mother's comfortable bed, & it is so charming to be here! I love it so!
[ Page 2 ]
The song sparrows sing & sing, so sweetly. & oh the great lulling sound of the ocean is delicious to my ears.I am pretty well -- but a little uncertain feeling stays by me -- I am not sure of myself from hour to hour but I shall hope for the best.
I had such a delight in seeing my Roland's* little boy -- it was a great happiness -- Tell dearest Pin* please, that the photos she [ lighted ? ] so patiently were failures -- K.* took fresh plates of you & Pin & Minnie* before we left, but all were failures -- except yours wh. was enchanting -- I'll roll its discolored proofs together & send you just that you may see we tried -- When the machine gets going again we will go at it once more -- I write hurriedly for the Pinafore scampers away to town -- With dearest love to you & Pinny
Your C.
Notes
89: The manuscript includes a number of notes and marks related to the inclusion of parts in Letters of Celia Thaxter. These are not included in this transcription.
Pinafore: The Laighton brothers steam tug that served the Isles of the Shoals.
Theodine: This person remains unknown. In the autumn of 1888, the Laightons left new Norwegian immigrant Ladene Knutsen in charge of winter housekeeping at Appledore. See Thaxter to Fields of 17 October 1888. Perhaps Thaxter is using the name figuratively to characterize Mrs. Knutsen as Norwegian.
Roland's: Thaxter's youngest son, married Mabel G. Freeman. Their first son, Charles Eliot Thaxter, was born 31 October 1888.
Pin: Nickname for Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
K.: Celia Thaxter's eldest son, Karl.
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 63 FI 1- 4223. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Fields and Lamb Transcription for Letters of Celia Thaxter.
We came here day before yesterday; the little Pinafore looked dressed for a festival, with all the plants and flowers on the hurricane deck. We came safely and pleasantly, and everything looked so pleasant and delightful when we got here. The good Theodine had everything bright and shining with a real Norwegian shine, and the plants in the ten sunny windows made a perfect bower of greenery and bloom. I have not seen them so beautiful since my dear mother left them. Ah, it is so pleasant to creep into that dear mother's comfortable bed, and it is so charming to be here! I love it so! The song sparrows sing and sing so sweetly, and the great lulling sound of the ocean is delicious to my ears.I am pretty well, but a little uncertain feeling stays by me. I am not sure of myself from hour to hour, but I shall hope for the best.
Celia Laighton Thaxter to John Greenleaf Whittier
Shoals, April 11, 1889.
You cannot know what a joy your dear letter is to me. I have read it again and again. Ah, my dear friend, you speak so kindly', But who in our time has given so much strength and refreshment as you have done, not only to your friends and your country, but to all the world, which has been bettered by your living in it?
Yes, I had a quiet, lovely winter in Portsmouth. I did more writing than for years, and was well and content until about three weeks ago, when I was suddenly very ill, as I have been twice before, for no reason that anybody appears able to find out, except "overwork" the doctors say, in years past. I say as little about it as possible.
I do not mind the thought of death, it means only fuller life, but there is a pang in the thought of leaving Karl.* But I know the heavenly Father provides for all. It may be I shall get quite well and strong again in this beautiful air. I hope so, but whatever befalls, I am ready and know that all is for best.
Never did the island look so lovely in the early spring since I was a little child playing on the rocks at White Island.* Oh the delicious dawns and crimson sunsets, the calm blue sea, the tender sky, the chorus of the birds! It all makes me so happy! Sometimes I wonder if it is wise or well to love any spot on this old earth as intensely as I do this! I am wrapped up in measureless content as I sit on the steps in the sun in my little garden, where the freshly turned earth is odorous of the spring. How I hope you can come to us this summer! Every year I plant the garden, for your dear eyes, with yellow flowers. I never forget those lovely summers long ago when you came and loved my flowers. I am going to send you with this a little copy of an old picture of Karl and myself when we were babes together, he one year old, I eighteen.
Thank you for the beautiful poem you enclosed. It is most lovely. You ask what I have been writing? A great deal, for me. I wish I had sent you the April "St. Nicholas," for in it is a version I made of Tolstoļ's "Where love is there is God also."* I had such reverence for the great author's work I hardly dared touch it, but I did it with the greatest love. I called it "The Heavenly Guest." Dear Sarah Jewett has a sweet story begun in the April number, and my poem follows.
Ever with deep, gentle, grateful love,
Your C. T.
Notes
Karl: Karl Thaxter, Celia's son, was injured at birth in 1852; he limped and suffered emotional problems, requiring constant care throughout his life.
Never did the island look so lovely ... White Island: Thaxter writes from Appledore, which along with White Island, is among the Isles of the Shoals, off Portsmouth, NH.
Dear Sarah Jewett has a sweet story begun in the April number, and my poem follows: Jewett's "A Bit of Color" began in April 1889 in St. Nicholas (16:456-463; 514-523; 572-580), April, May, and June, 1889, with illustrations by C. T. Hill. She later expanded and published the story in book form under the title Betty Leicester. Thaxter's poetic treatment of Leo Tolstoy's story, "The Heavenly Guest" appears on pp. 564-5, following the first installment of Jewett's "A Bit of Color."
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 the editors of The Century Magazine
[ 12 April 1889 ]
Mifs Jewett sends this manuscript for consideration by the Editors of The Century* hoping that it will be pofsible* to examine it within ten days. The price is two hundred dollars.
148 Charles Street
Boston 12 April 1889
Notes
The Century: Jewett's first story to appear in Century was "In Dark New England Days" in October 1890, more than a year after this note and, it appears, more than a year after she was paid.
Several annotations appear in this manuscript.
Top left in pencil: Accepted [ unrecognized word or words ]
Top center in blue pencil: 80/G.
Top right in pencil: 5047
The final sentence is placed in parentheses and underlined in pencil.
In the left margin, penciled next to the final sentence appear initials that seem to be: JPB.
pofsible: This unusual spelling suggests a playfulness of tone, as does Jewett's odd speaking of herself in third person. One may wonder whether she knew her manuscript and letter would reach the eyes of Century editor Richard Watson Gilder (see Key to Correspondents), and whether their friendship at that time would allow of such whimsy.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the New York Public Library, Century Company records 1870-1930s [bulk 1886-1918], Series 1, General Correspondence 1870-1930, b. 51, Jewett, Sarah Orne 1889-1901.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Thaxter to Sarah Orne Jewett
Shoals -- Apr 13th
(90.*
Dearest Pinny:*
Thank you so much for your kind letter. Did you not get mine? I cant remember if I sent it to Charles St. or S. Berwick -- It was to ask you, if any one should want your picture very much, if you would be willing Karl* should sell some [ copies corrected ] of it. Mrs. Ole* had one & I told K. we must not let another go without asking your permission. That was all, Pinny dear.
To think of Stedman's book & yr picture and my signature / Goodness gracious! I cant remember a [ thing corrected from think ] about it! But how dreadful! And did they make a sad thing of Pinnys sweet face? How could they! I haven't seen the book --
Dear Pinny, your Sandpiper sends you no end of love & does hope you'll get here this summer!
[ No signature ]
Notes
90: Penciled down the right side of the back of this letter: Pinny Lawson Fields. Pinny Lawson is a nickname for Sarah Orne Jewett used by Thaxter and Annie Adams Fields. Sandpiper is their nickname for Thaxter. Why Fields's name is included is not known. See Key to Correspondents.
Charles St. or S. Berwick: Charles Street is the address of Annie Adams Fields; South Berwick of Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
Karl ... Mrs. Ole: Karl is Thaxter's disabled oldest son. Mrs. Ole is Sara Chapman Thorp Bull. See Key to Correspondents.
Stedman's book: with photo and autograph: Edward Clarence Stedman. See Key to Correspondents.
Stedman compiled and edited The Library of American Literature (1888-1890). Jewett's story, "Miss Tempy's Watchers" was included in V. 10, with a portrait and her autograph on p. 514. Thaxter's poem, "The Watch on Boon Island," appeared in V. 9, with her portrait and autograph on p. 366. Volume 9 probably first appeared in 1888, volume 10 in 1889.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University: Sarah Orne Jewett correspondence MS Am 1743 Box 4, item 211. Thaxter, Celia (Laighton) 1835-1894. 10 letters to Sarah Orne Jewett; 1888-1890 & [n.d.], 1888-1890.
A typescript is held by the Portsmouth Athenaeum MS129, Rosamond Thaxter's Papers for Sandpiper, Folder 12: Correspondence: Celia Thaxter to Sarah Orne Jewett, 1888-1893.
New transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Thaxter to Sarah Orne Jewett
Shoals - 17th Apr (89
O my belovedest Pinny,* I never knew you had a feather of a bird upon you at all! I was only thinking of all your pretty clothes & the lovely wrap with its many delicious colors & the silken hood thereof that the rain would spoil. Only as you were an owl & a comrade bird to Sandpiper --that was all. Did you think I would be so horrid as to talk to you about your poor old crow feathers? I swear to you, on the honor of a Sandpiper, I never knew you had any!
O Pinny, poor Sandpiper cant ever sleep after 3 oclock in the morning & so she gets so tired lying awake, she lights her lamp & writes her letters with a pencil, so Pinny will pardon it{.} It is four now, & the birds do sing so loud! It sounds so sweet & heavenly! O the spring is so beautiful! All the weather like the heavenliest May. But Sandpiper doesn't feel right, Pinny dear. She does every thing she knows how to do, & keeps the brandy by her as Pinny said -- 3 times has had to take it
[ Page 2 ]
& I think it kept off an attack -- Dont tell any body Sandpiper isn't well, dearest, except of course Flower, as you two are kind of one -- But I hate to be talked of & to,* dont you? So dont speak of it -- outside. I dont know what it is, I am so ill at ease -- I put a few seeds in the garden & then I go & lie down half an hour & then I try to do a little bit of the ten thousand other things I want to do, & have to go and lie down again -- I dont know how it is, but the life seems to have gone out of me -- the power to do{.}
All my life I have been so strong & well, to be incapable is so strange and trying -- I do hope I shall get back to myself bye & bye.
My dear love to you & to Flower -- Karl's machine is not yet out from Ports. but we hope the little
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[ Pinafore* corrected ] will not have too great a load when she goes in again, to bring it out, but she is always loaded to the "gunnel" -- Did Flower get the proofs?*
Ever, Dearest Pin, yours & Flower's loving Sandpiper
Notes
Pinny: Thaxter is using intimate nicknames shared among Jewett, Fields and herself. Pinny is Jewett; Flower is Fields; Sandpiper is Thaxter. See Key to Correspondents.
of & to: Thaxter has underlined both words twice.
Pinafore: The Pinafore was the steam tug by which Thaxter regularly traveled between Portsmouth and the Isles of the Shoals. It also brought supplies and carried mail for summer residents on the Isles. Karl Thaxter gave a good deal of his time and effort to inventing a machine for enlarging photographic prints.
proofs: Which proofs Thaxter speaks of is uncertain. In 1890, she published My Lighthouse and other Poems, but whether Fields was involved with this publication is not yet known.
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 5 (230-249). https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/qb98p612x
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields
Shoals -- Apr. 20th 89*Beloved, dearest Annie:
Karl* has gone to Port with his uncle Oscar in the Pinafore* to try to get his machine out. He wanted me ask you which of Winnie's pictures you prefer, the large face or smaller face & more of the figure? Will you please send word soon as you get this, dear?
That engine is so monstrous, K's little house isn't big enough to hold it. At first he insisted he must build an extension to hold it -- Despair clutched at my soul upon this intelligence. "O Karl," I said, "if there is lumber enough left in the world & money enough left to buy just boards enough to make a box to bury me in, I shall be grateful." I wrastled with him, to my infinite fatigue till I made him give it up & reduce his plan to enlarging his door & giving up part of his carpenter's shop, to stow the terrible structure. So now hope again faintly revives within my breast -- He has spent between fifty & 75 dollars on it, more, I fear than he will ever earn back again -- Did you like the last proof of Pinny,* as well as the first? Tell me please, for ^one^ of Pin* & of K. & me are owing you yet, dear.
[ Manuscript ends; no signature ]
Notes
89: With this manuscript is a clipping of Thaxter's poem, "Two." See Poems of Celia Thaxter (1896), pp. 220-1. The clipping indicates that the poem had been published in Our Continent.
Note that the following Thaxter fragment may be a continuation of this letter.
Karl: Thaxter's disabled son, has gone from Appledore to Portsmouth, NH. Later in the letter she mentions her brother Oscar Laighton. See Key to Correspondents. Winnie, who also is mentioned, has not yet been identified.
Pinafore: The Pinafore was the steam tug by which Thaxter regularly traveled between Portsmouth and the Isles of the Shoals. It also brought supplies and carried mail for summer residents on the Isles.
Karl Thaxter gave a good deal of his time and effort to inventing a machine for enlarging photographic prints.
Pin: Thaxter is using intimate nicknames shared among Jewett, Fields and herself. Pinny is Jewett; Flower is Fields; Sandpiper is Thaxter. 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 6 (250-269) https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/qb98p618k
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields (fragment)
[ 20 April 1889 ]*
It is between four & five in the morning -- & so still I can hear the fog-horn at Whale's-back lighthouse,* for a light mist lies over the sea -- And the birds! oh the birds, how they sing, the song sparrows! Such a sound of pure happiness is hardly found in all nature. There is a girl here, [ a Miss Loring Little ? ],* who begged to be taken in for a week or two, having overworked herself into great exhaustion{.} She takes care of herself pretty much, & stays on the rocks all day as near as she can get to the sea in a blissful state of mind -- she calls the sparrows "island bobolinks", for never anywhere has she heard them so sing before. That is what I always say -- nowhere else do you hear them so rapturously warble{.}
Notes
20 April 1889: This date is penciled at the top of the page. This fragment was included in Letters of Celia Thaxter, edited by Annie Fields and Rose Lamb. Note that this fragment may be a continuation of the Thaxter letter above.
lighthouse: Whaleback Light stands at the mouth of the Piscataqua River in Kittery, Maine, about 9 miles from Appledore Island.
a Miss Loring Little: In the manuscript this name has been altered and perhaps underlined or deleted. Where I have guessed "Loring," it may be "Louisa" or some other word. The identity of this person remains unknown.
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 63 FI 1- 4215. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Fields and Lamb Transcription for Letters of Celia Thaxter.
It is between four and five in the morning, and so still I can hear the fog-horn at Whale's back Lighthouse, for a light mist lies over the sea; and the birds! oh the birds, how they sing, the song sparrows! Such a sound of pure happiness is hardly found in all nature. There is a girl here who begged to be taken in for a week or two, having overworked herself into great exhaustion; she takes care of herself pretty much, and stays on the rocks all day, as near as she can get to the sea, in a blissful state of mind. She calls the sparrows "island bobolinks," for never anywhere has she heard them so sing before. That is what I always say; nowhere else do you hear them so rapturously warble.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Francis Hopkinson Smith148 Charles Street
Saturday 20 April 1889
Dear Mr. Smith
The day your new book came into my hands, I was going down to the country and I did not have your address with me -- then I came back to town and said a great deal about the White Umbrella* to ^my^ friends, but [ quite forgotten so it says ] that thinking about a letter of thanks doesn't
[ Page 2 ]
put it into the postbox and send it. Forgive me for such ungrateful carelessness for indeed I enjoy your stories more and more and I am one of the first to thank you for what you write. Nothing could be more charming than the dress of these Mexican sketches -- you
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make the little book as pretty as a picture!
With best regards to Mrs. Smith from Mrs. Fields* and myself, I beg you to believe me always
Yours sincerely,
Sarah O. Jewett
NotesWhite Umbrella: A White Umbrella in Mexico (Boston, 1889), Cary notes, is one of Smith's "typical sets of exotic travel sketches with illustrations by the author."
Fields: Annie Adams Fields. Key to Correspondents.
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. This new transcription with revised notes is by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Richard Malcolm Johnston to Sarah Orne Jewett
Baltimore Md. 33 W. North AveDear Mifs Jewett:
April 21. 1889.
Blefs your heart for sending me such a good book,* and such a great letter! The latter made me feel proud, and the former, happy. I have read it though{.} It delighted me by its earnest interest in the humble folk you describe so to the life. I saw that you love your people and respect them as I love and respect
[ Page 2 ]
mine. Yes, and yours are much like mine in what makes simple country folk akin all the world over.
But what made you stop in nearly all your stories, without telling the end of their several [ careerings ? ] ? I love, like my own friend, Mr Bill Williams,* to know that at last "they all got married and done well." I suspect that you had not the heart to tell of Jerry Minton's getting Polly Finch, or of Cousin John Whitefield's using the sewing machine to get
[ Page 3 ]Notes
in [ between ? ] the [ unrecognized word ], which he was evidently [ bound ? ] to do.
"The News from Petersham" is delicious. Yet, I think I Iike "Marsh Rosemary" best of all. In it is much power, very much.
It saddens me much to think how little I saw of you at Mrs Fields. I have been delighting myself with her book "Under the Olives."* May the
[ Page 4 ]
good Lord, on this [ sweet ? ] Easter, begin a [ lease ? ] of added blessings on you both, and may He let me see you both again before I die!
Most [ unrecognized word ] & [ truly ? ] yours,
R. M. Johnston.
Mifs Sarah O. Jewett:
[ New Berwick so written ]:
Maine.
book: Jewett has sent Johnston a copy of A White Heron (1886). He mentions Jerry Minton and Polly Finch, from "Farmer Finch," and John Whitefield, from "Mary and Martha."
Bill Williams: Johnston's Dukesborough Tales: the Chronicles of Mr. Bill Williams were published in 1871 through 1881.
Fields ... "Under the Olives": Annie Adams Fields. Key to Correspondents.
The correct title of her collection of poems is Under the Olive (1881).
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Miller Library, Special Collections, Colby College, Waterville, ME: JEWE.1. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
John Greenleaf Whittier to Annie Adams Fields*
Oak Knoll
4 mo 21 [ 1887 ]*
My dear Friend
If W Whitman* needs a little help I could add my mite, but I have too many urgent calls ^for^ assistance from those who have nobody else to help them, that I cannot [ undertake corrected ] to lead off in building a house. I helped him to a horse & carriage, which is
[ Page 2 ]
more than I ever had; but I cannot see my way clear to head this subscription. So I send this back to thee as I do not know him or his address.
The snow lies all about us, in patches, & the wind is still terribly rheumatic. What a busy life thee are having! Do spare thyself as much as possible. The hurry & bustle of
[ Page 3 ]
Boston is appalling.
Looking over thy letter again I see that Baxter hails from the "Herald" of Boston I suppose. So I will save thee the trouble and write to him directly. I have just got 20 letters by this mail, and am not able to answer one as I could wish. Heaven bless & keep thee, dearest friend!
Ever thine
John G Whittier
I have just read with
[ Page 4 ]
great satisfaction "Sister Wisby's Courtship,"* and am glad to have my hint of a story acted upon so admirably. My love & thanks to the author!
Notes
Fields: This letter has been transcribed previously by John B. Pickard, Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier. v. 2, and by Richard Cary, "More Whittier Letters to Jewett," ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance 58 (1970): 132-39. Both say the letter is addressed to Sarah Orne Jewett. But the Huntington Library catalogs it as addressed to Annie Adams Fields. While it is possible that Whittier wrote this to Jewett, to me it seems that the Huntington probably is correct, as the tone seems more consistent with how Whittier typically addressed Fields. It also seems more likely that Fields would have approached Whittier on Walt Whitman's behalf than that Jewett would.
1887: The letter is not dated by year, but the Huntington places it in 1889, while Cary and Pickard date it to 1887. In this case, Cary and Pickard are correct, for Whittier mentions Jewett's story, "The Courting of Sister Wisby," which first appeared in the May 1887 Atlantic Monthly.
W Whitman: American poet, Walt Whitman (1819-1892).
Pickard writes in his notes for this letter:
Sylvester Baxter and William Sloane Kennedy [1850-1929] were then raising money to erect a home for Walt Whitman in New Jersey. Eight hundred dollars were collected from people like Howells, Twain, Aldrich, Annie Fields, and Sarah Orne Jewett. Three contributions were noted as from a friend and one might possibly be Whittier's. Whitman acknowledged the receipt of the money in October 1887 but the house was never built....
"Sylvester Baxter (1850-1927) was then an editor of the Boston Herald. He wrote books on art, a novel, and poetry, besides helping to develop Boston's municipal park system."
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields collection: mss FI 72-4694. New transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Adams Fields
[ Late April 1889 ]*
Wednesday night -- Dearest Fuff* --
I am afraid that I am guilty about the book -- I remember that Marigold* sent some books to you of that nature, and that in a fit of orderliness which shall never happen again! I marched up to the top book room with them and put them away -- never looking inside their covers -- You will probably find the "Life of Alexander Stephens"-* on one of those shelves where the historical books are. I am ready to pay the fines with
[ Page 2 ]
deep contrition. Please forgive a well-meaning but too-neat-for-once-in-her-life-Pinny.*
I have had a lovely day -- I felt tired and flustered with things to do, so I took John and two horses and skipped to "York Long Sands"* -- and feel the better for it. The road was muddy after the rain and the country was so green and fresh -- I was really anxious to see old Miss Barrell,* having heard that she was very feeble. Good Mr. Freeman* was not there, but
[ Page 3 ]
the house was orderly and so* lonesome -- and the good woman who takes care of the poor soul [ deleted word ] told me that she had not been sleeping for night after night, that her mind was gone and she could hardlytalk^speak^. She asked if I would go up and I said yes -- There was the sunshiny great bedroom looking out on the river and the most minute attenuated figure of my poor old friend in her great chair with her dinner -- such a careful, good dinner! -- spread before her, and she seemed to be playing
[ Page 4 ]
with it without eating, like a child.
I went close to her and spoke to her, sad at heart with the change I saw, for she has evidently had a stroke which has dulled oneher^side of her^ face -- Then such a lovely flash of recognition! She took hold of me with her poor old [ deleted letter ] bird's claw of a hand and kissed and kissed me and tried to talk -- her eyes were full of life and of love as if I had found her in the prison of her body and would understand. She tried to say things and really did manage a few short sentences and I guessed at others but alas
[ Page 5 ]
I had to miss the rest, but the thought was all there, and she was so full of pleasure at seeing me, having me come to see her in prison,* for I can think of it in no other way. Dear quaint little creature, nobody knows how appealing it was; you see I have to write you all about it -- I dare say she doesn't ^always^ know people and that often her mind is gone, but she did know me and I knew her, and I hated to take myself away from her at last. She always asked for Mother in the old days and that was one of the things she said clearest
[ Page 6 ]
today -- all her touching little politenesses and acts of hospitality were [ evidently corrected ] in her mind, but it was like listening to an indistinct telephone* -- I caught one flash of her old manner when I happened to speak of a family she disapproved. "Pack o' fools!" [ deleted words ] she whispered and we did have such a laugh, the last of all our laughs together I fear me. It was dreadful when she said things that I couldn't make out -- but I took refuge in telling her every thing I could think of, that she might like to hear, speaking slowly and
[ Page 7 ]
clearly and she almost always knew and tried to answer, [ Deleted word ] nothing was really alive but her eyes -- like Heine's* -- I think she has had some new things to think of -- in her prison! The good nurse hardly knew what to make of us -- but she is [ very corrected ] kind and capable. I dare say this was a sudden flicker of Miss Mary's old self but wasn't it wonderful? Perhaps the shadow fell on her mind again directly [ deleted word ] and she has been in the pitiful state they described but you can't think how I
[ Page 8 ]
rejoice to think I went to see her --
I send you one of the Century notes: dear Fuff* you might have opened them. I am very much pleased that Mr. Gilder* liked the story -- I found four four-leaved clovers this afternoon in the garden -- after I came from York !! Please send the little Century notebook or keep it for me. Goodnight!
( only time to say a word for good morning. A busy P. L. putting her gowns out to blow in a good wind)!)*
[ No formal signature ]
Notes
Late April 1889: Fields's note at the top right of page 1 reads: 1889?
As seen in the note below, Jewett describes Mary Barrell in this letter. That her sister, Elizabeth, is not present indicates that she has already died. Mary's frailty suggests that she is near her death, which occurred in June of 1889.
Another letter, Jewett to the Editors of Century Magazine of 12 April 1889, reveals Jewett submitting a story to Mr. Gilder. See notes below.
Fuff: Nickname for Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Jewett has underlined "day" twice.
Fields has deleted "Fuff" in pencil. She has placed a penciled parenthesis mark at the beginning of the first sentence, and then erased it.
Marigold: Mary Langdon Greenwood (Mrs. James) Lodge, editor of St. Nicholas Magazine. See Key to Correspondents.
Pinny: Nickname for Sarah Orne Jewett. At the end of the letter, she refers to herself as P.L. for Pinny Lawson. See Key to Correspondents.
John ... York Long Sands: John Tucker. See Correspondents. York Long Sands is one of two beaches at York Beach, ME.
Miss Barrell: One of the Barrell sisters, spinster friends of the Jewett family. See Paula Blanchard, Sarah Orne Jewett, especially p. 223. Mary (c. 1804 - June 6, 1889) and Elizabeth Barrell (c. 1799 - November 12, 1883) lived in what is now the Sayward-Wheeler House in York Harbor, ME. for much of the 19th century. See also James Henry Stark, The Loyalists of Massachusetts and the Other Side of the American Revolution.
Mr. Freeman: This person has not yet been identified.
so: Jewett has underlined this word twice.
in prison: Jewett may allude to Matthew 25:36 in the Bible, in Jesus's parable of the sheep and the goats.
telephone: Annie Fields seems to have had a telephone as early as 1884.
her eyes, like Heine's: In an article, "The Poet Heine," on the German poet Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) in Century 29 (December 1884) 210-217, Emma Lazarus describes the long death of Heine from a "horrible disease of the spine, which chained him to his bed and gradually reduced his frame to the proportions of a child. His intellect remained active to the end...." A note at the end of the article offers a description of Heine's appearance from "the German poet Weinbarg," giving considerable attention to his eyes: "Between his close-drawn eyelids, his well-cut eyes, which were rather small than large, were usually shadowed by a dreamy expression, the most distinctive feature of the poet. When he was animated, they were lighted by a merry, clever smile, with a spice of lurking mischief, but without any sting of malice."
the Century notes ... Mr. Gilder: In the 1880s, Richard Watson Gilder was editor of Century Magazine -- see Key to Correspondents. Probably, then, Jewett refers to her first story to appear in Century, "In Dark New England Days" (October 1890).
Fuff: Fields has deleted this word in pencil.
Jewett's mentioning four-leafed clovers may relate to her poem, "Perseverance" (1883), which had appeared in St. Nicholas, also published by the Century Company.
The notes Jewett mentions remain without explanation.
wind: Probably these parenthesis marks were penciled by Fields.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University. 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). Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Annie Fields Transcription
This passage appears in Annie Fields, Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett (1911), p. 35.
Wednesday night. [Spring 1889]
I have had a lovely day. I felt tired and flustered with things to do, so I took John and two horses and skipped to "York Long Sands," and feel the better for it. The road was muddy after the rain and the country was so green and fresh. I was really anxious to see old Miss. Barrell, having heard that she very feeble. When I arrived, the house was orderly and so lonesome, and the good woman who takes care of the poor soul told me that she had not been sleeping for night after night, that her mind was gone and she could hardly speak. She asked if I would go up, and I said yes. There was the sunshiny great bedroom, looking out on the river, and the most minute, attenuated figure of my poor old friend in her great chair with her dinner, -- such a careful, good dinner! -- spread before her, and she seemed to be playing with it without eating, like a child. I went close to her and spoke to her, sad at heart with the change I saw, for she has evidently had a stroke which has dulled one side of her face. Then such a lovely flash of recognition! She took hold of me with her poor old bird's claw of a hand and kissed and kissed me and tried to talk; her eyes were full of life and of love, as if I had found her in the prison of her body and would understand. She tried to say things and really did manage a few short sentences, and I guessed at others, but alas I had to miss the rest; but the thought was all there, and she was so full of pleasure at seeing me, having me come to see her in prison, for I can think of it in no other way. Dear quaint little creature, nobody knows how appealing it was. You see I have to write you all about it. I dare say she doesn't always know people, and that often her mind is gone, but she did know me and I knew her, and I hated to take myself away from her at last. She always asked for Mother in the old days, and that was one of the things she said clearest today. All her touching little politenesses and acts of hospitality were evidently in her mind, but it was like listening to an indistinct telephone. I caught one flash of her old manner when I happened to speak of a family she disapproved. "Pack o' fools," she whispered, and we did have such a laugh, the last of all our laughs together, I fear me. It was dreadful when she said things that I couldn't make out, but I took refuge in telling her everything I could think of, that she might like to hear, speaking slowly and clearly, and she almost always knew and tried to answer. Nothing was really alive but her eyes, like Heine's. I think she has had some new things to think of, in her prison. The good nurse hardly knew what to make of us, but she is very kind and capable. I dare say this was a sudden flicker of her old self, but wasn't it wonderful? Perhaps the shadow fell on her mind again directly, and she has been in the pitiful state they described; but you can't think how I rejoice to think I went to see her.
Annie Adams Fields to Sarah Orne Jewett
Wednesday.
[ Spring 1889 ]*
My dearest child:
How I wish for you all the time! I get quite tired sometimes making decisions and [ looking ? ] about things when you are not here. But this cold and changing weather has been rather difficult to bear. Do guard against [ "cricks" ? ] as well as you can darling for they take away your strength.
I am glad the package arrived promptly from the [ help man ? ] and may it be as tender as the one you liked --
Katy [ Finley ? ]* has gone today{.} General Armstrong* is coming this week and would like to drive over to see "Thy friend" --
[ Page 2 ]
Mabel and Jo* and I are going to the botany lecture this afternoon and I expect the Wigglesworths and Danas* here to tea -- I have not heard another word from Mr. Pratt [ Nelly ? ] Prince about the robbery -- though I wrote Mr. Pratt two notes --
O he is an [ odd ? ] soul!
Meanwhile Mabel and I have had long talks, but I fear your prophecy of wisdom "gathered from the little room over the gate" will be long in getting fulfilled.
[ Page 3 ]
Paper not arrived yet: am glad you are seeing the English Journals{.} They are good for us -- Mabel says her father did mean to return to England but he is at [ least ? ] delayed by Norton who tells him plainly that he ought not -- Good for Norton!
Ever your loving
A.F.
Notes
1889: The season is uncertain. Though Fields reports cold weather, in a letter that seems to follow up on this one (Monday Spring 1889) she notes good weather and flowers in bloom.
The year is a guess that should be close. James Russell Lowell died in August 1891. He had returned from England to reside in the U.S. in 1885, after the death of his second wife. His American friends resisted his returning to live in England during his final years. 1889 would have been about the last year that he might seriously have considered a return to England.
Katy Finley: This person has not yet been identified.
General Armstrong ... "Thy friend": Samuel Chapman Armstrong. Thy friend is John Greenleaf Whittier. Key to Correspondents.
Mabel and Jo: Mabel Lowell Burnett. Burnett's father was James Russell Lowell. Key to Correspondents. Jo may be Burnett's son, Joseph (1874-1909).
Wigglesworths and Danas: The Danas probably are the family of Richard Henry Dana III. Key to Correspondents.
The Wigglesworths are more difficult to identify with certainty. Fields was friends with Robert Sturgis Grew (1834-1910), a Boston businessman and philanthropist who was interested in Associated Charities of Boston. Grew married Jane Norton Jennie Wigglesworth (1836-1920). Members of her Boston family that Fields may mention in her letters include: Jane Wigglesworth's mother, Henrietta May Goddard Wigglesworth (1805-1895);
the family of Jane Wigglewsorth's brother, Dr. Edward Wigglesworth (1840-1896) and his wife, Sarah Willard Wigglesworth (1848-1928);
the family of Jane Wigglewsorth's sister, Henrietta Goddard Wigglesworth (1847-1929) and her husband, Walter Scott Fitz (1838-1900).
the family of another sister, Mary Goddard Wigglesworth Pickering (1838-1909) and her husband, Henry Pickering (1838-1907).
the family of her youngest brother, George Wigglesworth (1853-1930) and his wife Mary Catherine Dixwell (1855-1951).
Mr. Pratt: Probably Mr. Pratt is the husband of Miriam Foster Choate, Ellerton Pratt. See Helen Bell in Key to Correspondents. Their daughter was Helen Choate Pratt Prince, mother of Nelly Prince. Key to Correspondents.
Fields's sentence seems confusing, and information about the robbery mentioned here has not yet been discovered.
over the gate: This quotation seems not to be from a well-known source. Perhaps Fields quotes from a Jewett letter.
Norton: Probably this refers to Charles Eliot Norton, friend and colleague of James Russell Lowell. See Sara Norton in Key to Correspondents,
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Sarah Orne Jewett Additional Correspondence, 100 letters from Annie Adams Fields, bMS Am 1743.1 Box 1, Item 33.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Annie Adams Fields to Sarah Orne Jewett
Monday.
[ Spring 1889 ]*
Darling: I did not know that General Armstrong* was going to you today until too late to send you word. He will tell you how we did not get to see Mr. Whittier!!
The English papers are most welcome. How good "The Spectator" -- on the whole the best. Mabel* [ thought ? ] that also. She is singing all over the house and has grown as well and cheerful as a happy child since she came -- [ Jo ? ] too has grown fat! They go back Wednesday morning, after a most successful visit, I trust.
[ Page 2 ]
Tuesday --
What a divine day! I hope you are to be out of doors and I wish you could see this place -- The waves and the sky and the flowers!
Your [ own love ? ]
A.F.
Notes
1889: The season and the year are a guess, based on this letter seeming to follow up on that of Wednesday, Spring 1889.
not: This word is underlined twice.
Armstrong ... Whittier: Samuel Chapman Armstrong and John Greenleaf Whittier. Key to Correspondents.
Mabel ... Jo: Mabel Lowell Burnett. Burnett's father was James Russell Lowell. Key to Correspondents.
Jo may be Burnett's son, Joseph (1874-1909).
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Sarah Orne Jewett Additional Correspondence, 100 letters from Annie Adams Fields, bMS Am 1743.1 Box 1, Item 33.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Adams Fields
Friday night, [ Spring ] 1889.Dear Fuff
(The strawberries came tonight and were most welcome to all of us. Mother sends you her best thanks and thinks you were very kind.) x* I thought of you today for I was over in the fields and found a brookful of delicious crisp water-cresses -- but I shall let them grow until
[ Page 2 ]
you come for I don't think anybody cares much for them -- I pulled two or three and washed them in the brook and thought there never were any so good. Some day we will take a piece of bread and butter and go there and have a banquet. (I haven't heard from Cora* yet about her coming but I suppose it will be some time next week
[ Page 3 ]
Georgie Perry wrote that she hears Mr. Rice has bought a house near them in Newbury St. I wonder if it is true -- )
There is a book I wish you would take to Manchester* for me, or is it there already? The life of Fox and somebody else -- Since I read the Warren Hastings essay I have been wishing to pick up more about that time -- & and about Burke and Sheridan.*
I was delighted to find
[ Page 4 ]
so many birds to-day -- golden robins -- blackbirds bobolinks and only Sandpiper* knows what else! It was beautiful in the fields -- and so resting and I felt so much less fretful for going -- I dont know what has been the matter with me lately -- "Spring feelings{"} account for a good deal though, dont they? -----
Good night dear dear T.L. from your loving
Pinny*
NotesSpring 1889: Fields places this note in the upper right of page 1: Spring 1889? Fields is uncertain, and there is no information in the manuscript either to confirm or deny that date, except that the letter must precedes Jewett's mother's death in 1891.
Fuff: Nickname for Annie Adams Fields. See Correspondents.
) x: The parenthesis marks and the "x" with the first sentence have been penciled in by Fields. All other parenthesis marks in this letter also were added by Fields.
water-cresses: Edible wild watercress should be harvested in middle to late spring, before it blossoms. This letter, therefore, probably was written in the spring.
Cora: Cora Clark Rice. See Key to Correspondents.
Georgie Perry ... Mr. Rice: Melissa Homestead of the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, probably has identified Charles French Perry and his wife, Georgiana West Graves. "Charles Perry was a distant cousin of the Jewett sisters, on their mother's side." Georgie Perry was a socially active resident of Cambridge, MA in the 1890s.
Manchester: Manchester, Massachusetts was summer home to many Boston intellectuals and literati, including Annie Fields.
It appears that neither Cora C. Rice's husband nor her father became owner of a house on Newbury St. Boston. See Key to Correspondents.
the life of Fox ... Warren Hastings ... Burke and Sheridan: Warren Hastings (1732-1818) was the first British governor-general of India (1774-85). Edmund Burke (1729-1797) brought charges of impeachment against him when he returned to England in 1785. Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) was a British playwright. It is likely Jewett refers to a life of Charles James Fox (1749-1806), leader of England's Whig Party in the latter half of the 18th century. Perhaps the book was Henry O. Wakeman (1852-1899), Life of Charles James Fox (1890) or Sir George O. Trevelyan (1838-1928), The Early History of Charles James Fox (1880).
Sandpiper: Celia Thaxter. See .
T.L. ... Pinny: Nicknames for Fields and for Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University. 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). Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Annie Fields Transcription
This passage appears in Annie Fields, Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett (1911), p. 43. The penultimate paragraph does not appear in the original manuscript, but in Jewett to Fields, Spring 1889.
Friday night, [Spring] 1889.I thought of you today, for I was over in the fields and found a brookful of delicious crisp water-cresses, but I shall let them grow until you come, for I don't think anybody cares much for them. I pulled two or three and washed them in the brook and thought there never were any so good. Some day we will take a piece of bread and butter and go there and have a banquet.
There is a book I wish you would take to Manchester for me, or is it there already? The life of Fox and somebody else. Since I read the Warren Hastings essay I have been wishing to pick up more about that time, and about Burke and Sheridan.
Last night I had a perfect delight rereading Dorothy Wordsworth's Tour in Scotland. I finished it by hurrying a little at the end, but there is no more charming book in the world. It is just our book, and the way we enjoy things isn't it, when we are footing it out of doors?
I was delighted to find so many birds to-day, golden robins, blackbirds, bobolinks, and only Sandpiper knows what else. It was beautiful in the fields, and so resting.
Note for Fields Transcription
Dorothy Wordsworth's Tour in Scotland: Sister of William Wordsworth, Dorothy Wordsworth (1771-1855) finished Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland 1803 in 1805. It was published in the United States by Putnam in 1874, edited by John C. Sharp (1819-1885).
***
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Adams Fields
[ Spring 1889 ]*
[ Missing material ]
(last time darling Fuff* . . but how often I have talked all this over with you! I long to get to you so as to talk it again, for all that -- You are such a comfort)!
Last night I had a perfect delight -- [ re reading so written ] Dorothy Wordworths Tour in Scotland --* I finished it by hurrying a little at the end, but there is no more charming book in the world. It is just our book & the way
[ Page 2 ]
we enjoy things isn't it, when we are footing it out of doors*
-- (I send you this bit of a dear note that is lying on my desk from Laura* because you always like her letters.
-- I have a great longing to see you this morning dear Fuff --
Your Pinny* -- )
Notes
Spring 1889: When Fields included a paragraph from this fragment in her collection, she gave it this date. No confirming evidence has yet been found.
Parenthesis marks in this manuscript were penciled by Fields.
Fuffs: Nickname for Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Dorothy Wordworths Tour in Scotland: Dorothy Mae Ann Wordsworth (1771-1855) a British author, poet, and diarist, sister of the poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850). Her Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland was first published posthumously in 1874.
out of doors: The page has a small tear at this point that may obscure a question mark.
Laura: Though Jewett and Fields knew more than one "Laura," it seems likely that this is Jewett's correspondent, Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards. See Key to Correspondents.
Pinny: Pinny Lawson (Pinny / Pin) was an affectionate nickname for Jewett, used by her and Annie Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University. 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). Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Annie Fields transcription
This paragraph appears in Annie Fields, Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett (1911), p. 44.
Last night I had a perfect delight rereading Dorothy Wordsworth's Tour in Scotland. I finished it by hurrying a little at the end, but there is no more charming book in the world. It is just our book, and the way we enjoy things isn't it, when we are footing it out of doors?
Sarah Orne Jewett to E. P. Clark, Esqr
[63 in another hand]*
148 Charles Street
Boston 4 May 1889
Dear Mr. Clark*
I send a small contribution for the Welch Fund. It is a most appealing story. I will surely do what I can about it --
Yours trulyThe manuscript of this letter is held by an unknown private owner. Transcription and annotation by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah O. Jewett
Notes
Mr. Clark: Almost certainly E. P. Clark is Edwin Perkins Clark (1847-1903), a journalist and editorial writer for the New York Evening Post. He was married to the author and lecturer Kate Upson Clark (Catherine Pickens Upson Clark, 1851-1935). In her biography of her husband, A Soldier of Conscience (1903), she recounts his efforts to raise money for the education of the children of the humorist Philip Welch, who "passed away with such ghastly bravery -- the victim of cancer of the mouth, supporting his family by his jokes written between operations and sending in copy to the Sun reeking with anesthetics ...." (pp. 55-6, 71-2).
63: The envelope for this letter provides the fuller name, E. P. Clark, Esquire. At the top center of the front is written: "Sarah O. Jewett $5." Probably this indicates the amount of her contribution. "#63" is in upper left corner of the envelope, matching the number at the top of the letter. This may indicate that this was the 63rd contribution received by Mr. Clark.
Sarah Orne Jewett to John Appleton Brown
148 Charles St.
6th May [ 1889 ]*
Dear Mr. Brown
I was so delighted with the picture of you and Roger* when it came that I hate to be so late in thanking you for it. I stood it against the wall and had it for company -- with many pleasant remembrances
[ Page 2 ]
of the doggie and his master.
I have had a very hard pull of illness and today I went out for the first time for a little drive and felt as if I had gone through with the battle of Waterloo* and had not beaten either! In a day or two I am
[ Page 3 ]
going to Berwick and there I shall pick up faster, where [ one corrected ] can get out of doors without preliminary arrangements!
Mrs. Fields is going down with me, but when she comes back she hopes to see you and Mrs. Brown. The garden* is lovely now, and a new double-flowering cherry tree is in bloom for the first time.
Will you please tell Mr. and Mrs. Shapleigh* how sorry we were to miss seeing them and how [ glad corrected ] we were to see the picture?
With love to Mrs. Brown believe me ever
Yours sincerely
Sarah O. Jewett
Notes
1889: Richard Cary has assigned this year to the letter, presumably upon noting that Jewett was acquainted with the Shapleighs after 1888. See note below.
Roger: Jewett also owned a dog named Roger. See "[ Sara so spelled ] Orne Jewett's Dog" by Gertrude Van R. Wickham, St. Nicholas XVI (May 1889): 544-5.
battle of Waterloo: Wikipedia says: "The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday, 18 June 1815, near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands." Defeated by European coalition forces, Napoleon Bonaparte failed in his final bid to regain his position of domination in Europe.
garden: Cary writes: "Miss Jewett took especial joy in the extensive garden back of her house. She employed one full-time and one part-time gardener to maintain it in becoming condition. All townspeople who remember her affirm that she passed most of her leisure hours in this beautifully cultivated sanctuary."
Shapleigh: Cary identifies Mary A. Shapleigh, and Frank Henry Shapleigh (1842-1906). Frank Shapleigh was "a painter best known for his New England landscapes. He kept a studio in Boston and one at the Hotel Ponce de Leon in St. Augustine, Florida, where Miss Jewett and Mrs. Fields stayed several times, the first time being the previous late winter and early spring of 1888."
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Colby College Special Collections, Waterville, ME: JEWE.1. Richard Cary included his transcription in Sarah Orne Jewett Letters.
New transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Phillips Brooks and Mary Greenwood Lodge to Annie Adams Fields
[ Begin Letterhead ]
233 CLARENDON STREET.
BOSTON.
[ End Letterhead ]
[ To the right of the letterhead ] May 10. 1889
My dear Mrs Fields --
I am afraid I do not wholly understand what it is to which the Baby* & I are invited for next Friday Evening -- I am sure, however, that it is something as delightful as it is mysterious. All the more sorry am I that on that Evening I am compelled to be in New York & cannot possibly escape -- I must lose the pleasure which you offer me & can only thank you --
Yours sincerely
Phillips Brooks
Notes[ This note was written on a single folded sheet. Brooks apparently folded it a second time (quartered) for mailing. Fields then probably had it hand-delivered to Mary Greenwood Lodge, who wrote her response on the back and returned it by hand delivery. The result is a sheet refolded several times to allow Fields and Lodge to address it to each other merely by name: "Mrs Lodge" in Fields's handwriting and "Mrs Fields" in Lodge's handwriting. Following is Lodge's 11 May response. ]
"Ai! Ai! [ Heisphoned! ? ]" This is bad indeed! I wonder if he would have come Thursday eveg? But it's too late to think of that now -- So whom shall you ask instead? Rev. E.E.H. or Gen'l Walker,* or who? Hang New-York! I want to see you, & hear all about the outward bound -- Love to S.O.J.*
Yours
M.G.L.*
Saturday
Baby: Like much in this letter, the Baby is a mystery. Brooks did not marry and had no children. Likewise, the occasion of the invitation is not known, nor the identity of the outward bound, nor why it seems important to Lodge that some eminent man be present.
E.E.H. or Gen'l Walker: Edward Everett Hale. See Key to Correspondents.
Probably, General Walker is the American educator and author, Francis Amasa Walker (1840-1897). He earned his military rank as a Union officer in the American Civil War (1861-1865).
S.O.J.: Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
M.G.L.: Mary Greenwood Lodge. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields Papers and Addenda Box 6: mss FI 5637, Brooks, Phillips, 13 pieces, 1879-1890. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Rebecca O. Young to Mary Rice Jewett
So Berwick, Me.
May 16, 1889.
My dear Mary.
Mr. Plumer* has gone for the usual ride, and I have half an hour which I may devote to you -- if nothing happens -- Sarah* has just been in & encouraged my writing, saying a letter would be just right for Saturday's steamer.* So I send you my fondest love with the hope that the letter will then be worth the getting, although I seem to have very little else to write.
It is just a perfect day, and it is so pretty out in the grass about Mr. Tompson's* house -- the leaves have just that lovely yellowish tint we sometimes see in paintings & call
[ Page 2 ]
unnatural -- because we see it so seldom I think -- Every day is making So Berwick more beautiful, and I have been doubly glad because of the Walkers* coming home the last of the week -- it is [ dear ? ] to them any way, but it is nice that it is so lovely after their long [ exile ? ] -- Poor Grandpa is as weak as ever he thinks.[ Page 3 ]
What a nice time Mrs Rollins* must be having at Lucy's today! She said yesterday she should spend the day with her -- I hope they are out of doors every minute, and not up stairs looking over old laces & dresses &c.!
There goes Will Trafton* in goodly [ array corrected ] wearing also a pink collar -- can you account for it? Florence* goes out more but still looks poorly. She must have had quite a hard sickness -- You will be pleased to ^know^
that dear Charles just passed by apparently in his usual health! There has been quite an exodus of our Baptists [ bretheren apparently so spelled] & their [wives corrected from wifes ] to attend the Baptist [ Anniversaries* ? ] in Boston this week -- Bro. Willard* has closed his store, the Muzzeys & all the deacons & I dont know how many more -- one of the very young men led the Wednesday evening meeting & if I smiled in my [ sleeve ? ] it was not because I was irreverent, but because some things were really funny.
I had such a nice call from your Carrie* Tues. Eve., & as Sister Anne was at Lizzie Stackpoles* I had her all to myself -- They miss you sadly dear Mary, as I do also, but they are bravely making the garden & hoping for the usual result, and these busy spring day{s} do not allow me time for fretting -- Mr. P. was quite funny last night --
[ Page 4 ]
he said -- "You need not hurry in tomorrow morning, it is a busy time for women folks." I replied "Yes, there is lots to do -- I guess you know" -- "Yes," said he, "I have been there & stayed all night."* So I was out until [ ten ? ] & found plenty to do. Anne & I have finished your book "We Two"* & both enjoyed it -- [ it ? ] makes us think how little we understand & appreciate the good in the people about us. Charity seems almost unattainable.
Friday morning -- Your dear "Ma" has just made us a call & signed the long dividend book, so you will know she is gaining in strength -- She expects to hear of your safe arrival the first of the week. I was at neighbor [ Davis's ? ]* last night & find he is already able to sit on a chair for a while. Isn't it nice he can get up from the bed before the hot weather comes? -- Sarah did not forget to bring me the "Rock Island" time table* with map, and I have enjoyed it. Is not your cousin Mr. Fiske* nice! I was pleased to meet him & I hope I did not "talk shop" too much. I don't often see a live "banker" outside of business -- I hope you have had a delightful passage & shall be sure to be around when your first letters arrive.
Very affectionately
[ Rebecc O. Young apparently so written ]
Notes
steamer: Mary Rice Jewett traveled to Europe in the summer of 1889, returning on 13 October. It appears that Young believes this letter will reach Mary before she sails, presumably on Saturday 18 May.
Mr. Plumer: Probably this is John Henry Plumer (1829-1894), who served as treasurer of the South Berwick Savings Bank, presumably before Young became treasurer. He appears to have had more than one position in South Berwick, as he also owned a local bakery. See Eighteenth Annual Report of the Conditions of Savings Banks of the State of Maine, p. 152.
Sarah: Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
Mr. Tompson's: Both Tompsons and Thompsons resided in South Berwick at this time. Which Mr. Tompson Young means is not certain, but a contemporary map of the area of the South Berwick Savings Bank shows a J. G. Thompson owning nearby property. This was John Goodwin Tompson (1825-1901), who owned a home and bookstore on Main Street.
Walkers: Probably this is John Francis Walker (1844-1890), who headed the South Berwick Savings Bank. His wife was Mary Elizabeth Hobbs (1848-1934).
Which grandfather Young refers to is not known, nor whether she refers to father or actual grandfathers. The Walker and Young grandfathers were deceased in 1889. John Walker's father died in 1891. Mary Hobbs's father died in 1895. Rebecca Young's father, William Augustus Young, died before this letter, in 1883.
Mrs Rollins ...Lucy's: Among the Jewett family's South Berwick friends was Ellen Augusta Lord Rollins (1835-1922). Lucy could be Lucy H. Lambert Hale of nearby Dover, NH, widow of abolitionist U. S. Senator John Parker Hale (1806-1873). See also "William Lambert."
Will Trafton: Likely to be William Augustus Trafton (1859-1890).
Florence ...dear Charles: Young may refer to South Berwick neighbors, Charles (1866-1924) and Florence Wentworth (1876-1956).
Baptist ... Willard ... the Muzzeys:. Henry C. Willard (1842-1920) ran a dry goods store in South Berwick. Arthur Eugene Muzzey was a South Berwick jeweler.
In Boston, the week of 15 May 1889, the American Baptist Missionary Union celebrated its 75th Anniversary. See the Boston Daily Globe 17 May 1889, p. 8.
Carrie ... Sister Anne ... Lizzie Stackpoles: Carrie Jewett Eastman, Mary Jewett's youngest sister. See Key to Correspondents. Rebecca Young's youngest sister was Anna R. Young (1863-1943). Probably Young refers as well to Elizabeth Burleigh Stackpole Twombly (1864-1926), who married in 1889.
"We Two": British novelist and suffragist Ada Ellen Bayly (1857-1903), who wrote as Edna Lyall, published We Two in 1884. As Sarah Barnette writes, We Two was controversial as a sympathetic presentation of characters who are religious doubters.
stayed all night: Young seems to have underlined these words twice. It is not clear what Mr. Plumer means in his worry about a busy time for women.
Davis's: This transcription is uncertain. If it is correct, then this may refer to the family of South Berwick drug store owner, Benjamin Franklin Davis (1862-1933).
"Rock Island" time table: In 1889, the Rock Island Railroad offered service from Chicago, IL west and south, as far as Santa Rosa, New Mexico and Galveston, Texas.
Mr. Fiske: Jewett relative William Perry Fiske (1853-1914) was treasurer of the New Hampshire Savings Bank in Concord, NH.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the University of New England Maine Women Writers Collection, Sarah Orne Jewett Correspondence Box 3 Folder 208. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
18 May - 13 October 1889
Mary Rice Jewett travels to Europe
These dates are inferred from letters of 1889 and may not be exact.
Sarah Orne Jewett to William Dean Howells
South Berwick, 22 May 1889.
Dear Mr. Howells
I have wished so much to write to you and Mrs. Howells since dear Winny's* going away but I somehow never could begin the letter and my heart was full of things that I could not say when I saw you. These spring days make me think of her so often and of all we hoped long ago when she was growing. I so often remember a line that Mr. Aldrich* said to me once years ago --
"The subtle hurt that nature feels
When a blossoming bough is broken".*
And yet I remember that there is another standpoint from which to see the dear young life that has seemed to us to walk in shadows. It is so good to think of Winny's being well and busy and unhindred -- she was always on a different level of things from most people -- it makes one's heart fill with wonder and an almost bewildered affection and sympathy to think of her now. Mrs. Fields* knows her better than I do, a great deal, but I have always been truly fond of Winny. It will be such a joy to see her again. I have felt nearer to her than ever before in these last few weeks.
I am so glad that you are going to be, in a way, our neighbours this summer. New York seems sometimes the most distant place in America. I make this confession bravely though it sets a very deep mark of provincialism on me! By and by I wish you would let me come out to Watertown and spend an afternoon as I used to. I should like it so much!
With love to you both and to Pilla* I am always and always
gratefully and affectionately yours
SARAH O. JEWETT
Notes
Winny's: One of the Howells' daughters was Winifred, who suffered from depression and general ill-health. Born in 1863, she died on 2 March 1889.
Aldrich: Thomas Bailey Aldrich. Key to Correspondents.
broken: Aldrich's short poem, "A Mood" was collected in The Sisters' Tragedy (1891):
A blight, a gloom, I know not what, has crept upon my gladness--Fields: Annie Adams Fields. Key to Correspondents.
Some vague, remote ancestral touch of sorrow, or of madness;
A fear that is not fear, a pain that has not pain's insistence;
A sense of longing, or of loss, in some foregone existence;
A subtle hurt that never pen has writ nor tongue has spoken--
Such hurt perchance as Nature feels when a blossomed bough is broken.
Pilla: Howells's surviving daughter. Key to Correspondents.
Two versions of a typescript of this letter are 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 (122). They are not identical. I have presented the double-spaced version.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Annie Adams Fields to Sarah Orne Jewett
[ Before 27 May 1889 ]*
Dear love: Will you tell me if you think the enclosed is a good thing to send to Mrs Howe* -- Of course I wish to send something I shall not be ashamed to have reprinted possibly, but at the same time I do not wish to send many of my other things for various reasons too long to say here -- so be a dear child and tell me if this is a mistake --
[ Begin long deletion ]* Wednesday. I mailed you the wrong paper yesterday. The Post with
[ Page 2 ]
Lowell's* oration I intended to mail to Mrs C. Cowden Clarke*
Villa Novello
Genoa
Italy
will you do this dear -- The other paper I send today [ end of long deletion ] = no no, it is all right ---
I will go now and try to find the photographs --
It is a rainy day! A bad look out for the Conference,* but it gives us time to pull ourselves together before the rush of winter work.
[ Page 3 ]
Have you the materials for your pillow? or can I send them -- Please give my love and best wishes to the travellers* when you write. I have sent off a note to Mrs Tyler.* May God speed it --
I introduced myself as your and Mary's* friend, Nicht Wahr??*
You have indeed been hard at work{.}
Good bye and bless you my own darling --
Your
A.F.
Notes
1889: This date is a guess, based upon Fields's concern about sending Mrs. Howe something printable for some occasion. Julia Ward Howe celebrated her 70th birthday on 27 May 1889. See the New York Times of 28 May 1889, p. 4. This date sort of works if one assumes Fields refers to Julia Ward Howe.
However, this is somewhat problematic, for Fields seems to anticipate "winter work" coming soon at Associated Charities of Boston. Also, it is not yet certain when Fields would have had a copy of Lowell's oration to mail to Mrs. Cowden-Clarke.
Mrs Howe: Probably Julia Ward Howe. Key to Correspondents.
deletion: Above "I mailed" Fields has penciled "no no".
Lowell's oration: James Russell Lowell's 1889 Presidential Address to the Modern Language Association appeared in Publications of the Modern Language Association in January 1890. Key to Correspondents.
Cowden-Clarke: Mary Cowden Clarke (1809-1898) was an English author and scholar, best remembered for her concordance to English playwright, William Shakespeare (1564-1616). Wikipedia.
Conference: Probably a meeting of the Associated Charities of Boston.
Mrs Tyler: Probably Augusta Maria Denny Tyler. Key to Correspondents.
travellers: In May through October Mary Rice Jewett traveled in Europe. Key to Correspondents.
Mary's: Mary Rice Jewett.
Nicht Wahr: German: Isn't that so?
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Sarah Orne Jewett Additional Correspondence, 100 letters from Annie Adams Fields, bMS Am 1743.1 Box 1, Item 33.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
John Greenleaf Whittier to Sarah Orne Jewett
AmesburyMy dear Sarah Jewett
May [24 ?] 1889*
I was delighted to hear from thee. I should have written thee before, but I am suffering from pain in my head & eyes which makes it difficult for me to read or write{.} It seems a very long time since I have seen thee,
[ Page 2 ]
and I have reached an age when long times are not to be depended upon{.} Did thee go to Manchester with dear Annie Fields* on Saturday last? I wish I could have helped you in your spring planting. We have just got through with our Friends Quarterly Meeting, and I
[ Page 3 ]
am tired with the company & meetings, unprofitable and noisy. For myself I prefer the old silent meetings leaving each to his or her own meditations. I suspect thee have laid up a store of material for out of door sketches this spring{.} Was Nature ever so lovely before?
I enclose a bit of verse written by a young friend of mine in
[ Page 4 ]
Amesbury. I know nothing of music, but the poem seems to me rarely good. Miss Hume is one of thy warmest admirers and [ treasures ? ] thy book as her choicest possess [ deleted letters ] ions [so this appears]. I wish thee could get our beloved Annie Fields out of Boston, and her unceasing work, and her lovely home, but I suppose she will have her Manchester cottage full of visitors. Dr. Leslie* always enquires
[ Written up the left margin of page 4 ]
for thee as to my [ recognized word ] the [ careless / goddess ? ]. Good night my dear friend! The Lord bless thee,
John G Whittier
Notes
1889: A transcriber's note reads: May (2_?) 188 (4 or 9). Examination of the manuscript persuades me that the date reads 1889, but the day in May remains uncertain.
Annie Fields: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Miss Hume: Very likely, this is Elizabeth Fielden Hume (1855-1948). Henry J. Cadbury in "Briefer Notices," Bulletin of Friends' Historical Association 29:1 (Spring 1940), says that Hume, "of Amesbury was a schoolgirl in the 1870's who spent her summers as did John G. Whittier and others of the town at West Ossipee, New Hampshire. Extracts from her letters, dealing with him and his circle, are now published in the Essex Institute Historical Collections 75 (1939), 313-325, under the title 'Summers with a Poet. Recollections of John Greenleaf Whittier'." A notice from her in The New Outlook 54 (1896) reads: "MISS HUME (Wellesley) desires resident pupils for the winter in her Eastern country home. Literature, history, and music. Modern methods in pianoforte. Address for particulars, Box 106, Amesbury, Massachusetts" (pp. 491, 529).
It also seems likely that the verse to which Whittier refers is "At the Piano," or perhaps something similar. At the Piano: Verses with a Whittier Prelude (1894) is described as "about a Moskowski piano piece." A seller on E-Bay provides this sample from pp. 10-11.
I see within the dying fire
A gleam of minaret and spire,
Where from the Neva's banks afar
Stretch the vast snow-fields of the Czar,
And hear the zither's note arise
Tuned to weird tales of mad emprise,
As the dusky children of the Nile
Make melody of their long exile.
A softer tone, but clear and strong
Comes to the ear; the People's Song,
Borne on the gray Rhine's rushing flood,
Voices no wild Egyptian blood.
From fragrant vineyards on the steep,
From quiet hamlets half asleep,
It sings in smoothly flowing phrase
Of lives serene and homely ways.
She also published "A Memorial Song: December Seventeenth, 1896," a four stanza lyric to be sung to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne." December 17 would be Whittier's birthday, though he died in 1892. While the lyric does not mention Whittier directly, it seems likely to be memorializing him as principal among "absent ones who in our hearts, / Live ever more enshrined." One major clue is her line in the final stanza: "And Snow-bound be the wintry cold!"
Dr. Leslie: Horace Granville Leslie (1842-1907), a physician and poet, served as a surgeon in the Civil War. See The Granite Monthly: A New Hampshire Magazine 39 (1907), p. 326. He participated in the Amesbury "Memorial to Whittier" on 17 December 1892, following Whittier's death that year.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the South Berwick Public Library, South Berwick, ME. Transcription by John Richardson. Annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields
Shoals -- May 25th
(89
My dearest Annie:
I was delighted to have your letter, & how kind you were to write to me in the [ early or lovely ? ] rain from Manchester! O Annie, do send to Farquhar* for a paper of seeds (mixed) called Rose of Heaven (Viscaria ^Oculata^Oculatablotted word deleted) & if you cant get them put in at Manchester, sow some in a box where you are & transplant out there when you get there -- They are so delicate{,} so [ brilliant blotted ], so elegant in shape & manner of growth, so hardy, growing any how & any where, so varied, white, blue, rose, carnation, scarlet, all sorts, growing like crimson flax, the loveliest thing for the house in
[ Page 2 ]
delicate glass vases & they last so long. Do get it, dear -- you will ^be^ so glad of it all summer.
Think of it, I have red poppies in blossom in my garden now! Such a thing I cant remember in May! I am trying roses this year -- they are so interesting, a little bed of them -- Jacqueminots & the delicious pink Mdm Gabriel de Luiset. And my single dahlias wax mightily -- You can ^get^ roots of these at Farquhar's, you know, that will bloom very soon -- Mine are from seed this year.
I have a letter from my dear Rose Lamb* saying she is coming in July to me to occupy her own little quiet room again. That is such a real joy. I am most thankful.
[ Page 3 ]
I am writing in a hurry for the infrequent Pinafore.* I keep comfortable so long as I continue my medicines without a lapse, the moment I try to do without them I suffer again. But I get stronger, I think -- At any rate I am grateful for ease, & dont look forward an hour.
I'm so glad you got planted before the rain! How sweet the showers, how soft the air, how divine is this ideal spring! My dear love to you & to Pinny* -- & pardon my scrawl,
Ever your loving
C.
Notes
Farquhar: R. & J. Farquhar Company of Boston, MA sold seeds and gardening supplies by mail order.
Rose Lamb: See Key to Correspondents.
Pin: Thaxter is using intimate nicknames shared among Jewett, Fields and herself. Pinny is Jewett; Flower is Fields; Sandpiper is Thaxter. 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 6 (250-269) https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/qb98p636h
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Editors of Century Magazine
South Berwick, Maine
27 May 1889
Editors of The Century
Gentlemen
I return the
type-written copy of my sketch* but I must confess that I am always a little confused by the useful type writer and that I count upon reading the printed proof in order to make this piece of work as good as possible -- Will you have the goodness to direct to
me here for the present, as I am out of town -- for the summer and I should have told you so much sooner and saved this delay -- If you post a proof to me one evening I can return it the second morning as the mail connection is very good between here and New York --
[ Page 2 ]
Believe me with many thanks for the sketch's place in the magazine
Yours sincerely
Sarah O. Jewett
Notes
sketch: Jewett's first appearance in Century Magazine was "In Dark New England Days," in October 1890. Reasons for the long delay between acceptance and publication are not yet known. Jewett's letter to Century of 9 January 1890 indicates that they were corresponding about the story at that time.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Princeton University Library, Princeton, NJ: Robert H. Taylor Collection of English and American Literature RTC01, Box 10, Folder 12. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Eugene M. Camp* to Sarah Orne Jewett
[ Begin Letterhead ]
SANTA CLAUS CO., LIMITED,
CAPITAL, $100,000
Santa Claus.
NEW YORK,1113 MARKET STREET,
PHILADELPHIA,
BOSTON.
PHILADELPHIA, May 28 1889.*
[ End Letterhead ]
Madam: --
We have to thank you for your kind interest in our enterprise, and sincerely hope we shall deserve all the good things you suggest. It finally came that we could find no better name than Santa Claus, but in our title we shall put [ also corrected ] "all the Year Round" to run for a year or two, and think that [ will batter so it appears ] than the one season notion about the saint. Our initial number will not be issued until autumn, but we will issue a Prospectus in a week or two and will later pleasure in mailing you one.
We regret you cannot furnish us a serial, but shall hope to receive the short story you suggest, and assure you that Autumn will do
[ Page 2 ]
for it if an earlier date is not convenient. I have taken your suggestion and written to Miss Woolsey,* and as I do not know her address have enclosed it to you. Will you be so very kind as to put the correct name and address upon it? Should you not have it, throw it away and don't bother about it. At any rate, we will be greatly obliged. We are going slowly and are going to try to make a journal that will appeal to cultivated American readers of the age of 8 and upward, and in our efforts we have in concluding to again thank you for wishing us success.
Respectfully
Eugene M. Camp.
President S. C. C.
To
[ Sara Orne Jewett so spelled ]
So Berwick
Me.
Notes
Camp: Eugene M. Camp (active in the 1880s and 1890s) was an American author, editor of the Philadelphia Times, and an advocate for establishing college-level professional journalism programs.
I have found no evidence that the magazine proposed here was ever published.
1889: Month and day are handwritten on a line and "89" is handwritten in the space after "18."
Woolsey: Sarah Chauncey Woolsey. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University: Sarah Orne Jewett Correspondence I, Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett.
Camp, Eugene M. 1 letter; 1889, bMS Am 1743 (37).
This transcription is from a photocopy held by the Maine Women Writer's Collection, University of New England, Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, 1875-1890, Box 2, Folder 99, Burton Trafton Jewett Research Collection.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Adams Fields
Thursday morning
[Decoration Day, 30 May 1889]*
Dearest Fuff --*
(I am afraid that you wont get this letter until tomorrow. I missed yours last night so I hope to get one today.)* There is going to be an unwonted parade in honor of the day and I am glad for usually every body trots off to Dover or Portsmouth and nothing is done here except to put the pathetic little flags about the burying ground.* It seems to me that I have just begun to understand how grown people felt about the war in the time of [ war or that ? ] -- at any rate it brought
[ Page 2 ]
tears to my eyes yesterday when John* said that over two hundred men went from this little town to the war. You can see how many young sons of old farmers and how many men out of their little shops and people who had nobody to leave in their places, went to make up that number. -- Yesterday I went travelling in my own land, and found the most exquisite place that ever was -- John had to see about some straw &c and we followed a woods road into an old farm where
[ Page 3 ]I used to go with father years and years ago -- (the first time I ever knew anemones* was there I remember) -- It is high on a great rocky hillside and deep in the woods -- and what I had completely forgotten was the most exquisite of glens.* I am not going to try to [ describe corrected ] it except to say that I never have seen a more exquisite spot -- and I must certainly take you to see it. It is so far off the road that I might
[ Page 4 ]be in the depth of the White Mountains* as to loneliness and it is much less often visited. I remembered it vaguely as a little child ^when I saw it again^ -- but I had completely forgotten it --
(I must run to the postoffice. Good bye dear Fuff and I do hope you can come down for a day or two or three it is so lovely just now, and I do wish for you so much.)
Your Pinny*Decoration Day, 30 May 1889: Fields has penciled in at the right top of page 1: "1882?" and "Decoration Day."
Notes
The actual likely date of this letter is established by noting Jewett's reference to the glen she depicted in "The White Rose Road," See note below.
Decoration Day was a holiday for honoring soldiers of the American Civil War (1861-1865) of which she writes in this letter, which later became Memorial Day (May 30), in honor of those who served in all American wars. The original name refers to the custom of decorating the graves of veterans as among the rituals of the holiday.
In 1889 Decoration Day fell on Thursday 30 May.
today.): The parenthesis marks appear to have been added in pencil by another hand. The later parenthesis that begins (I must run to the postoffice....) also is added in pencil. Both seem to mark off parts Annie Fields has cut from her transcription.
Fuff: Nickname for Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Dover or Portsmouth: Portsmouth and Dover are large New Hampshire towns south of South Berwick. York and Wells are among the frequently mentioned towns in Maine that are not far from South Berwick, from which Jewett often writes her letters. Jewett wrote at least two pieces on the value of small towns celebrating Decoration Day themselves, "Decoration Day" (1892) and "The Parshley Celebration" (1899).
John: John Tucker, who appears as a Civil War veteran in "Peachtree Joe" (1893). See Correspondents.
anemones: "A genus of plants (N.O. Ranunculaceę) with handsome flowers, widely diffused over the temperate regions of the world, of which one (A. nemorosa), called also the Wind-flower, is common in Britain, and several brilliantly-flowered species are cultivated." (Source: Oxford English Dictionary).
most exquisite of glens: Jewett refers to this glen in "The White Rose Road" Atlantic (September 1889).
White Mountains: Northern limit of the Appalachian Mountains in northern New Hampshire and western Maine. Jewett and her family frequently vacationed in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
Pinny: Nickname for Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University. 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). Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Annie Fields transcription
This appears in Annie Fields, Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett (1911), p. 60.
Thursday morning, Decoration Day.
There is going to be an unwonted parade in honor of the day and I am glad; for usually everybody trots off to Dover or Portsmouth, and nothing is done here except to put the pathetic little flags about the burying-grounds. It seems to me that I have just begun to understand how grown people felt about the war in the time of it, -- at any rate it brought tears to my eyes yesterday when John said that over two hundred men went from this little town to the war. You can see how many young sons of old farmers, and how many men out of their little shops, and people who had nobody to leave in their places, went to make up that number. Yesterday I went traveling in my own land, and found the most exquisite place that ever was. We followed a woods road into an old farm where I used to go with father years and years ago (the first time I ever knew anemones, was there, I remember).*It is high on a great rocky hillside and deep in the woods, and what I had completely forgotten was the most exquisite of glens. I am not going to try and describe it except to say that I never have seen a more exquisite spot, and I must certainly take you to see it. It is so far off the road that it might be in the depths of the White Mountains as to loneliness, and it is much less often visited. I remember it vaguely, as a little child, when I saw it often, but I had completely forgotten it.
[ Note that the following passage, though Fields presents it as from this letter, is not actually in the Decoration Day 1889 letter, but in a letter to Fields dated 7 November 1883. ]
I did have the most beautiful time yesterday afternoon. I feel as if I had seen another country in Europe. Oh, a great deal better than that, though I only went wandering over a great tract of pasture-land down along the river. You would think it is such a lovely place, and I shall have to write about it one of these days, for I saw so many things. I never had known anything beyond the edges it before. It was the sweetest weather in the world, and Roger went. But last night there was a dismal time, for the bad bowwows got into the parlor together, and first thing I knew there was a pitched battle, and I was afraid the lamps and everything would be tipped over before I could get hold of anybody's collar, and Roger passed a suffering night with a lame paw and broke my rest all to pieces with his whining, and Browny's ear was damaged, and dogs are at a discount.*
Note
Roger ... Browny: See "Sarah Orne Jewett's Dog."
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Adams Fields
Wednesday morning. [Summer 1889]
I wrote hard and fast yesterday morning, and in the afternoon, we all went to drive, and had the most delightful expedition to an old farm up in the wild country between here and the sea, where the rough woods come close to painfully cleared little green fields and pastures. Don't you remember my telling you about a charming waterfall? Well, it was there again that I went, but furthermore, to see a great view from the top of the high hill beyond. Then we took a wide sweep round into another road and so home, as Mr. Pepys says.* I must tell you about that farmhouse at the old place, near the brook and fen. It stands very high, but has no view of the country, in summer at least, and a mile and a half from the main road.
We went in to see old Mr. G., who has been long ill and for a year bedridden, but was sitting up at last yesterday, looking down the lane up which so few people are likely to come; but it seemed a great pleasure because we ensued! and he absolutely cried when he saw mother! He is A good old fellow, who in old days brought the best of walnut wood and other farm-stores, and like all his kind, considered father and mother to be final! He has left, out of a large household, only one son and two orphan grand-children, and there they live in that solitary place. The house is bare and clean and looks as if men kept it, though just as we were coming away a little girl came out of a wood-path, home from school, in a pink dress, like a shy flower. She will soon grow. Listen to this, dear: the man's wife sat in that same bare room looking down the lane, thirty years, and for twenty-five she could not feed herself, a martyr to the worst sort of rheumatism and everything else.* One of the best souls in the world. It makes my heart ache to think of her and of all the rest of them; generations have lived there, and most of them die young. There is a swamp back of the house out of which the beauty of the waterfall comes like a mockery of all the pain and trouble, as if it were always laughing. But those people could hardly be persuaded to put their house in another spot; when the old one wore out thirty years ago or more, they built another on its cellar. There was a white rose-bush within reach of the old man's hand. Indeed, I call that region the White Rose Road,* for every farmhouse has a tall bush by its front door, and yesterday they were in full bloom. I didn't mean to write such a long chapter when I began, and I must fly to my work.
Don't you think it would be nice for us to have the "Revue"# again this summer just for a few months? I have a feeling that I should like it, -- and as if I wished to get as near to France as possible, without going there. I have a curious sense of delight in the fragrance that blows out of Madame Blanc's letter every time I take it out of its envelope, it is so refined, so personal, and of the past.
I have the greatest joy in reading Wordsworth lately. I can't get enough of him, and I take snatches of time for "The Leech-Gatherer," and the other short ones, and feel as if I had lived a week in going through each one of them.
Fields's note
#The Revue des Deux Mondes.
Notes
1889: As Jewett's story entitled "The White Rose Road" has not yet been published in Atlantic, this letter must have been composed soon after her Decoration Day letter and some time before the sketch's appearance in September.
Mr. Pepys says: Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) was an English diarist and civil servant, influential in the development of the British navy. He kept a famous, detailed diary of his life and of contemporary events in London from 1660-1669.a martyr to the worst sort of rheumatism: Jewett herself suffered from rheumatism. Among the characters she represents so suffering are Nancy Gale in "The Life of Nancy" and Mrs Hight in "A Dunnet Shepherdess."
old Mr. G. ... White Rose Road: Jewett refers to this glen in "The White Rose Road" (September 1889). In The Placenames of South Berwick (2007), Wendy Pirsig indicates that "Mr. G" was Daniel Littlefield (pp. 208-9). Daniel P. Littlefield (1821-September 1891) lost his wife, Mercy A. Littlefield, (b. 1836) in 1888. See also Find-a-Grave.
Madame Blanc's letter: Mme. Thérčse Blanc (1840-1907) wrote under the name of Th. Bentzon. She wrote more than thirty novels during a successful literary career. She made a specialty of translating American authors into French, including Mark Twain, Bret Harte, and Jewett. (Source: Cary, Sarah Orne Jewett Letters 111).
This letter appears in Annie Fields, Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett (1911), Transcribed by Annie Adams Fields, with notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Thaxter to Sarah Orne Jewett
Shoals. June 2nd (89My dearest Pin:*
I was so glad of your kind, dear letter. But what have you sent to "Robert & James"* for? I am devoured with gardening curiosity! You say "I have just written to Robert & James, but where I am going to tuck them in, the dear knows! for our old garden is chokefull &c" -- Now Pinny, what is a Sandpiper to think! Not that Robert & James are to be tucked in, but some seeds -- what of? Poppy? This rainy morning I gathered five big scarlet blows off mine that began to blossom the 20th of May, & when it clears off I'm going to count the buds on it. I never saw such a sight! Cedric & I, both gardens, have stacks of others ready to blow -- they all sowed themselves -- those we planted are much later. O Pinny do you know a yellow perennial poppy that is perfectly beautiful -- you plant him & he blows first year, till frost, & stays in the ground ever after like a tree, just as hardy, in every summer blows from June till frost. I planted some in egg shells in Ports [ meaning Portsmouth, NH ]. Now one plant has three fat buds on it & the others are just forming. It is such a treasure! Robert & James sent me the seed. I have got an Oriental poppy too, you
[ Page 2 ]
know how glorious they are? Wonderful, not to be told! For the first time I have got one growing gorgeously, & it had on it six buds, fat & green like half grown or third grown green apples -- Every day I watch it, we all watch it -- for the rest haven't seen the flower, & we long for it to burst into bloom. A few days ago I found my biggest bud off, & rolling on the ground -- What did it? Who can tell? But five are left still. I hardly dare look at them for fear something else will befall! This morning when we were at breakfast the most tremendous shower came. I knew the gutter at my piazza edge sagged just over my poppy, letting the water down in pailfuls -- & I rushed spite of detaining hands & tongues into the heart of the flood -- sure enough there pelted the water, striking the heavy buds, like flat irons dropped from the roof, blow upon blow! I was just in time, caught up some planks & leaned them against the piazza railing to conduct the flood off into the path. Of course I had to change every rag I had on, spite of waterproof, but I saved my poppy! Such fights I have with sparrows & cut worms & rats & stray half grown chicks -- 'tis all I can do to preserve my precious green growing things. There's a tiny red-brown beast that sucks the life out of peas & sunflowers & phlox & everything -- him I have to drown every few hours a day -- his name is legion.* And there's a bug, two or three! for each & every different thing that grows. I wonder how I save anything. And the rats! They dig graves & tunnels under the whole garden, eat the seeds & take tender shoots for salads with the mussels they drag up from the beach, the shells of which I find
[ Page 3 ]
lying round everywhere. The other day I was weeding among my little plantation of Jacqueminot roses that look so thrifty, & full of buds, & I leaned one hand heavily on the ground as I reached over -- suddenly down it went to the elbow! the ground was all undermined beneath the roses, such an awful grave hole! & the roses' roots hanging down in white fringes! O, I filled it up as quickly as I could with bushels of earth, but dear me! tomorrow it may be just as bad. Poison? do you suggest? My dear, they turn up their noses -- smile! They know too much, no matter how cunningly mixed -- they wont touch it --
But still, for all these tribulations, I shall have a sweet garden, I think. There's a little bed at Lily Bowditch's* cottage. She wanted a few flowers. There is no one to do anything about such a thing but your Sandpiper. I got Karl to dig it up for me & I planted it full of nasturtiums to run up the piazza, & Rose of Heaven in the rest of it. O I was so [ ill written over sick ? ] when I did it, so suffering & miserable I could hardly drag my self to do it, but I persevered, for I thought "poor Lily must have her little garden". Well, they all grew gloriously -- day before yesterday I looked at them & the nasturtiums were beginning to run! & I had weeded & taken such good care of it & it was fine! Yesterday I said to Julia,* "come up & look at Lily's little garden, it is so fine!" So we went, when we got to the Turner cottage,* I looked up toward the flower bed expecting to see the climbing green nasturtium curtain -- it was not there!
[ Page 4 ]
"Why where are the nasturtiums, Julia!" I cried aghast. Uprose before us a huge hen with a whole family of half grown chickens -- oh Pinny -- they had not left a thing, not any thing, the whole was [ nothing corrected ] but the abomination of desolation.* [ Upon corrected ] your Sandpiper's word, she could have cried as if she had been Ruth!* I had worked so hard, & Lily couldn't have her flower bed after all. Dana, ^one of^ the boys, had been careless about letting out the horse, he had upset one of the chicken coops & the hen had delightedly taken to the bushes with her brood with this disastrous result to a Sandpiper. My cousin Mark Laighton who was building a balcony for Lily, out of her room, heard me wailing & to comfort me said, "I'll put a little fence round it for you" & I said, "O Mark, will you? I've got some wire netting -- oh if you only will!" & he promised he would, & I hope still to transplant some things up there. And now I am so much better, it will not be such a task. You see every body is so busy here at this season, nobody can do anything except get the house ready, 'tis such a drive! It was awfully good of Mark -- if he only can get a moment to do it for me!
Dear Pin wasn't it wonderful something came to succor your poor sick bird? I was so wretched when I wrote to you last, I made up my mind I must go on shore & put myself under a physician's care & suddenly out of the clouds drops this nice young woman with my medicines in her trunk! I shall be glad, however, to see Lily Bowditch's [ dr ? ] who will be here in about ten days, for I want to ask him various questions.
[ Page 5 ]
I do take bi-carbonate potassium with the peptic -- it seems just the thing for me. I have lost my fifty lbs & now am happy to say I don't weigh two hundred any more! But what to do with a Sandpiper's baggy clothes! That's a dreadful question!
Pin dear, I'm fairly discouraged about the photos. The machine* was forever getting here, & when at last they bro't it out, they had so banged the ponderous thing that it has taken Karl weeks to mend it & patch it & get its labyrinthine wheels & ropes & pulleys & slides to work at all. Then he began to try to work & he spoiled dozens & dozens of costly plates & never got one decent picture out of the whole. O the stacks of money it takes to provide materials -- it is all I can do to contrive that he shall save barely enough to pay his living expenses & get his clothes, every thing else goes to the [ photographics ? ] & they only amount to just keeping him safely employed, that is all. If he gets a good plate it is broken at once, or marred so it can't be used. He lives in a chaos of broken glass, poor fellow -- he breaks every thing, lamp chimneys by the dozens, photographic plates by the bushel, window glass, any & every thing, bottles of chemicals, Lord knows what not. "I'm tired playing Sisyphus"* he said yesterday, "eternally rolling a stone up hill that eternally rolls down on me". It is true -- it is his fate. He is 47 years old today
[ Page 5 ]
poor boy, nothing but a child, & a child of misfortune. The big machine can never be moved back to Ports. & he is already planning to make another next winter! And all I can do is to thank heaven there is something that will keep him happy & employed.
O Pinny what an "awful" long letter! It rains so I don't want to go home to the cottage having drenched one suit of clothes this morning, & that is why I sit here scribbling to you out of an ink stand that runs very dry, as you see.
To think of Mary over seas!* Wont she have a fine time! I am so glad -- do give her my love when you write. Yes, haven't we had June all through May! I never saw anything so beautiful, & since I began to get better I have rejoiced in every instant of it. My nasturtiums are in bud & stocks all in flower & Cedric's corn flowers have begun to blossom -- such goings on who ever heard! Most uncommon!
My dear love to Flower when you write.
Ever your devoted
[ Signed with a stick drawing of a shore bird -- Sandpiper ]
Notes
Pin: Thaxter is using intimate nicknames shared among Jewett, Fields and herself. Pinny is Jewett; Flower is Fields; Sandpiper is Thaxter. See Key to Correspondents.
"Robert & James": R. & J. Farquhar Company of Boston, MA sold seeds and gardening supplies by mail order.
legion: Thaxter refers to the exorcism of demons by Jesus in the New Testament of the Bible.
Lily Bowditch's: Dr. Henry Ingersoll Bowditch (1808-1892), owned a cottage on Appledore. His wife was Olivia Jane Yardley (1816 - 10 December 1890); their daughter Olivia Yardley Bowditch (18421928), regularly spent part of her summer there. See Thaxter to Fields of 31 August 1887.
Julia: Julia is the wife of Thaxter's brother, Cedric. Karl is Thaxter's oldest son. See Celia Thaxter in Key to Correspondents.
Turner cottage: Ross Sterling Turner (1847-1914) "was a painter, watercolorist, and illustrator, active in the Boston area, known for his landscapes and floral subjects. ... Loosely associated with the 'Duveneck boys' after about 1879, Turner painted in Venice and Florence, and he also worked in Rome. In 1882 he settled in Boston, exhibiting more watercolors than oil paintings. He was closely associated with Childe Hassam, becoming known for his impressionist watercolor paintings of gardens. He married in 1885 and moved to Salem, Massachusetts, but maintained a Boston studio until 1903.... He was active as an instructor in the Boston area, teaching privately, at Grundmann Studios, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and after 1909 at the Massachusetts Normal Art School. Turner wrote on watercolor technique and other art subjects. In 1899 he exhibited watercolors of Mexican scenes painted during a trip in 1898."
Thaxter took some painting lessons from him.
abomination of desolation: This phrase occurs at various points in the Bible to name a sacrilege that produces great destruction or desolation.
Ruth: The title character of the Biblical book of Ruth, who suffered exile from her homeland.
Sisyphus: Sisyphus was a crafty and deceitful king in Greek mythology, who was punished by the gods with the endless, meaningless task of rolling the boulder.
machine: Karl Thaxter was attempting to invent a machine that would allow him to enlarge and print photographs.
Mary over seas: Mary Rice Jewett traveled to Europe in the summer of 1889. 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 5 (230-249). https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/qb98p642n
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields
Shoals --
June 4th [deleted word from ? ]
(89
My dearest Annie:
Your kind letters are always so welcome! Through the long rain & mist came the Pinafore* yesterday, bringing the mail. Too long the rain! & how awful the devastation in Pennsylvania!* Shudderful.
Yes, is it not dear that Rose* comes to me? I am so happy that she wants to come! Really I do look forward to her with the greatest joy -- she is an eternal joy & refreshment, Mrs. Hemenway* wrote some time ago asking how soon the house opened, how soon she could [ come corrected ] & about her rooms, so I do hope she will come, for I like her, she is a good, genuine kind of creature & she is very happy here.
Lily Bowditch* is to arrive the 14th before the house opens -- She has her own servants house, kitchen & all her arrangements, so she can come a little sooner. I shall
[ Page 2 ]
be glad to see her physician, who always accompanies her on her journey. Not that I am not just as well as I have been, but I want to ask about the medicines. I am so afraid they may cease to work -- as the other treatment did, & so I'd like to see a Dr.
About the Italian things. I asked my brother. He said perhaps they would sell in the little shop. They might -- one never could tell, but it might be tried -- So if some are sent the last of July peradventure there might be purchasers.
I want to send in this note one of our big white clematis blooms, just to give you an idea of the sheet of white the flowers spread over the trellis -- white softly suffused with warm lavender, with the wondrous pale green on the under side of the petals. It is some thing transcendently beautiful & by moonlight a vision indeed! The scarlet poppy I told you of has been blowing since May 20th & has 75 buds on it! What do you think of that for one poppy plant! And there are stacks of others both
[ Page 3 ]
in Cedric's garden & mine, ready to unfold in the first ray of sun shine, all colors -- I have set out twelve moonflowers about the house -- if they grow, they will smother it in their white, mysterious blossoms -- Why dont you set one out at Manchester? Farquhar* could get you one in a pot -- 'tis a little thing, but when it begins to grow it is like Jack's bean stalk,* & strong to withstand the winds of the hill top, & so interesting to watch growing & blowing -- only wants the [ help corrected ] of a string to run on.
I had a dear letter from "thy friend" enclosing a musical poem of Miss Hume's.* I have not heard of Edward Bellamy's book! What makes it sell so? It must be awfully interesting!
How is poor Mary Lodge?* Edwina sent me the most amazing photographs of herself, or rather Ignatz sent them -- really beautiful. Karl has spoiled the plate of himself & myself together, & whether he ever will be able to get another heaven only knows. I have been trying to get one to send you -- ever since the last I sent. I begin to feel hopeless We owe you two pictures, any how -- the last of Winnie* were better, & he is waiting for the sun to shine to
[ Up the left margin of page 3 ]
print some. Dear Annie, goodbye! Your loving
C.
Notes
Pinafore: The Pinafore was the steam tug by which Thaxter regularly traveled between Portsmouth and the Isles of the Shoals. It also brought supplies and carried mail for summer residents on the Isles.
Pennsylvania: The Johnstown Pennsylvania flood occurred on May 31, 1889, after the catastrophic failure of a nearby dam. The entire village was washed away, with about 16 fatalities.
Rose: Rose Lamb. See Key to Correspondents.
Lily Bowditch: Dr. Henry Ingersoll Bowditch (1808-1892), owned a cottage on Appledore. His wife was Olivia Jane Yardley (1816 - 10 December 1890); their daughter Olivia Yardley Bowditch (18421928), regularly spent part of her summer there. See Thaxter to Fields of 31 August 1887.
Mrs Hemenway: Probably, this is Mary Porter Tileston Hemenway (1820 - March 6, 1894), who, according to Wikipedia, "was an American philanthropist. She sponsored the Hemenway Southwestern Archaeological Expedition to the American southwest, and opened the first kitchen in a public school in the US. ... [S]he married Edward Augustus Holyoke Hemenway (1803-1876) in 1840."
Farquhar: R. & J. Farquhar Company of Boston, MA sold seeds and gardening supplies by mail order.
Jack's bean stalk: "Jack and the Beanstalk" is an English fairy tale in which magic beans grow into a gigantic plant.
"thy friend"... Miss Hume's: "Thy friend" is John Greenleaf Whittier. See Key to Correspondents.
Very likely, "Miss Hume" is Elizabeth Fielden Hume (1855-1948). Henry J. Cadbury in "Briefer Notices," Bulletin of Friends' Historical Association 29:1 (Spring 1940), says that Hume, "of Amesbury was a schoolgirl in the 1870's who spent her summers as did John G. Whittier and others of the town at West Ossipee, New Hampshire. To see what is probably the poem Thaxter mentions, see Whittier to Sarah Orne Jewett of 24 May 1889.
Edward Bellamy's book: In 1888, American author and activist Edward Bellamy (1850-1890) published Looking Backward, a utopian socialist science fiction novel.
poor Mary Lodge: See Key to Correspondents. Mary Greenwood Lodge died on 21 December 1889.
Edwina ... Ignatz ... Karl ... Winnie: Karl is Thaxter's disabled son. Winnie has not yet been identified. Ignatius R. Grossman (1852-1920), a Hungarian orphan immigrant, joined the Thaxter family in 1868, when he was 15. He married Edwina Booth (1861-1938), daughter of American actor, Edwin Booth (1833-1893).
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 6 (250-269) https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/qb98p659t
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Wyman Whitman to Sarah Orne Jewett
Old Place
June 16th
[ 1889 ]*
I do not need to tell you for you will know, [ of strange ? ] gift which a friend's message makes. Just when I was in a curious trough of the sea, & when its bottom seemed so much nearer than the top, came that dear letter with love and faith
[ Page 2 ]
in it ---- not warranted, but maybe all the more sustaining --- and comforted my very soul. I have done more work this winter & at greater odds than usual -- and that's all right: only there comes a moment when ---- ah well, why do I use so many words -- when it is just [ unrecognized word ] to have a Comrade's hand merely laid in [ unrecognized word ], & I bless you once more for it, & for all which I [ have ? ] out of your generosity, come to count upon. --
Only the night before I took a half holiday with A.F.* to the River of the Moon, [ & ? ] the thought of you: & it was
[ Page 3 ]
very dear: and after that I got my [ forces ? ] in shape & moved to this familiar shore, and now it is apparently, as if there had been no year between. But somewhere, I have laid away, one little gold coin, borrowed out of the mint of Being & stamped with the year's value.
I have already
[ Page 4 ]
begun to wonder when it will be that you will come drifting to my shore? And if you will wonder this too, that some fair day, it will come to pass. -- and if you were to be in Boston give me a chance to see you there if there be [ one ? ].
Thine
_Sw_
Notes
1889: In Letters of Sarah Wyman Whitman (1907), this letter is tentatively dated to 1889. An envelope possibly associated with this letter is addressed to Jewett in South Berwick, and cancelled 18 June, but no year is given in the cancellation.
A.F. ... River of the Moon: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents. Whether Whitman intended an allusion with her phrase "River of the Moon," is not known. It seems likely to mean that she and Fields walked along the Charles River together, before Whitman moved to her summer home at Old Place.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University. Whitman, Sarah (Wyman) 1842-1904. 92 letters; [1884]-[1903] & [n.d.] Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. Sarah Orne Jewett additional correspondence, 1868-1930. MS Am 1743.1 -107. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Transcription from Letters of Sarah Wyman Whitman (1907)
Part of this letter appeared on p. 65.
June 16 (1889?).
Just when I was in a curious trough of the sea, and when its bottom seemed so much nearer than the top, came that dear letter with love and faith in it -- not warranted, but maybe all the more sustaining, and comforted my soul. I have done more work this winter and at greater odds than usual, and that's all right: only there comes a moment when -- ah well, why do I use so many words? . . .
Celia Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields
Shoals -- June 18th (89
My dearest Annie:
It is very long since I heard from you -- I am going to send if possible with this, two pictures of Pinny Karl* managed to do, & proof of a new plate of Winnie* -- He has spoiled the plate of himself & me & [ has corrected ] to take another when he gets his machine mended -- I had one poor print of it (not good enough to send in exchange for money, or I shd have sent it to you) which I enclosed to Helen Bell* the other day -- she was delighted with it -- But oh, the poor fellow never will get it working, I fear. The [ prints corrected ] of Pinny are not very good -- still I will send them -- If he ever gets better ones you shall have them -- but I do feel discouraged -- 'Tis a most troublous world!
Miss Bowditch* came, but by rail this time, & her Dr only came as far as Portsmouth with her, so that I did not see him after all, which was a great disappointment -- But there will soon be other physicians here & I am pretty well, with my medicines --
I expect Mrs Hemenway* day after tomorrow
[ Page 2 ]
& Ellen Robbins Monday, & Rose July 1st & Ross Turners & Paines &c some time -- Ap-Browns* a little later -- The gardens are gorgeous, blaze of red & yellow poppies & cornflowers all colors & such forgetmenots, & hyacinth & stocks & roses & what not!
Do write to me, dear, & tell me where & how you are -- Pardon my pencil -- I write from the sofa corner
With dearest love your
C.
Notes
Pinny Karl: Pinny is a nickname for Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents. Karl is Thaxter's eldest son.
Winnie: This person has not yet been identified.
Helen Bell: See Key to Correspondents.
Miss Bowditch: Dr. Henry Ingersoll Bowditch (1808-1892), owned a cottage on Appledore. His wife was Olivia Jane Yardley (1816 - 10 December 1890); their daughter Olivia Yardley Bowditch (18421928), regularly spent part of her summer there. See Thaxter to Fields of 31 August 1887.
Mrs Hemenway: American philanthropist, Mary Porter Tileston Hemenway (1820-1894).
Ellen Robbins ... Rose ... Ross Turners ...Paines ... Ap-Browns: Ellen Robbins (1828-1905) was an American botanical illustrator.
Rose is Rose Lamb. See Key to Correspondents.
Ross Sterling Turner (1847-1914) was an American painter, known for his landscapes and floral subjects. He was Thaxter's main mentor in painting.
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).
John Appleton Brown. 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 63 FI 1- 4225. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
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 ]
[ 21 June 1889 ]
Dear Sadie:*
I couldn't help, in spite of my hurry, strolling along that delightful White Rose Road* after I once set foot in it. Thanks!
Ever very affectionately and sincerely yours,
T. B. Aldrich.
June 21st / 89
Notes
Sadie: Aldrich uses his affectionate nickname, "Sadie Martinot." See Key to Correspondents.
White Rose Road: Jewett's sketch appeared in Atlantic Monthly in September 1889.
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.
Samuel Sidney McClure to Sarah Orne Jewett
[ Begin letterhead ]
S. S. McCLURE,
TRIBUNE BUILDING,
NEW YORK, N.Y.
CABLE ADDRESS
"AIDDECAMP, NEW YORK."
[ End letterhead ]
June 25th, 1889.
My dear Miss Jewett:
I am in no special hurry for the story which I wrote you about. Whatever time would please you would please me.
I received a letter from you on June 3rd, in which you say, "I will send you one or two short sketches for the Youth's Department, between now and August." You also say "I have not forgotten the sketch for older people which I promised you last year. I was thinking it over to-day."
I am not in a position to pay fancy prices for anything, but will pay you whatever you regard as the right price. I think I paid you $20. per thousand words for what I bought from you before.
Very sincerely yours,
[ signed by hand SSMcclure ]
Notes
The typescript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University: Sarah Orne Jewett Correspondence I, Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett.
McClure, Samuel Sidney, 1857-1949. 1 letter; 1889. bMS Am 1743 (141).
This transcription is from a photocopy held by the Maine Women Writer's Collection, University of New England, Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, 1875-1890, Box 2, Folder 97, Burton Trafton Jewett Research Collection.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to William Morton Fullerton
South Berwick Maine
27 June 1889
My dear Mr. Fullerton
I have enjoyed reading your 'Letter" about Goldsmith* so much that I must make this note carry you all the thanks it will hold!
No one ever went on pilgrimage to a certain
[ Page 2 ]
tomb-stone near the Temple Church with deeper feelings of regret and gratitude than I -- and I have taken real pleasure in your good bit of work.
With pleasantest memory of our talk at Craigie House,* I am
Yours sincerely
Sarah O. Jewett
Notes
Goldsmith: Fullerton has written about Oliver Goldsmith (1728 -1774), an Irish novelist, playwright and poet. Wikipedia notes that he is buried in Temple Church in London. His tomb reads: "HERE LIES / OLIVER GOLDSMITH." Where Fullerton's letter about Goldsmith was published is not yet known.
Craigie House: The home of the American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) in Cambridge, MA.
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
[Summer 1889]*
Tuesday Morningwith a heartfelt love -- I had a note from Helen Merriman* last night with a dear little pencil sketch of an old house I took to out in the Worcester country.* I long to show it to you -- it is so characteristic I could go right to work & write a story! Dear dear Fuff be careful of yourself in this [ foul ?] weather -- [fer meaning from your or yours ?] P. L.*
Dear Fuff*
It was good to get the letter from Craigie House.* I wonder -- since it cleared away here for a good while at midday [deleted letters] if you didn't get to see Fru Ole Bull's chateau* and if you didn't see Mabel,* or has she gone? I should be delighted to do my part toward the Vaughan* present and I send you a signed cheque to which you can add the
[ Page 2 ]
same sum you think best to give, & send it to Alice --*
-- I put the price on the Century story* $200 -- and I suppose it might have been more but that seemed right at the time. and I am taking the usual satisfaction in spending it! My coffers were getting a little low -- as usual you will say, but the first of [this corrected] ^next^ month is not so productive as some others, & so I was glad to get the cheque --
A Pinny had
[ Page 3 ]
to have a little [chof meaning cough ?] too, yesterday which will make you laugh but it is better today also a sore throat which made me feel quite mis'able --butI suppose I got cold in fact I know I did but I wont tell you how for fear of being speaked of as foolish !!
-- I was asked just as I began to write, to do an immediate errand and my conscience wont let me make this letter any longer so good by dearest little Fuff
[ Page 4 ]
[ Up the top left margin of page 4]
I have had three letters from editors for stories! Business seems to be lively!
Notes
Summer 1889: This letter seems to pair with and precede another in which Jewett reminds Fields that she has not yet described Mrs. Ole Bull's house and given news about Mabel Lowell. That letter seems to have been written soon after Mary Rice Jewett departed for her trip abroad, which would have been in the summer of 1889. However, this is complicated by Jewett indicating that she is spending the money she was paid for a story in Century Magazine. Her first story to appear there was "In Dark New England Days" in October 1890.
There also is a letter to Fields dated Spring 1889, in which Jewett mentions that Century Magazine has accepted one of her stories. As that date is relatively certain, it would seem then that Century published Jewett's story long after accepting it and paying her.
Jewett' mother, Caroline, died in October 1891, and she was alive when the later letter was written, showing that the letters must come from before that date.
Fuff: One of the nicknames of Annie Adams Fields.
Craigie House: Craigie House was the home of American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882). After his death, his daughter Alice Mary Longfellow continued at Craigie House in Cambridge, MA. A traveler, preservationist and philanthropist, Mary Longfellow, along with Fields, joined in the work of providing social occasions for working women of the Boston area.
Fru Ole Bull's chateau: Ole Bornemann Bull (1810-1880) was a Norwegian violinist and composer. Wikipedia describes Bull's second marriage:
In 1868 Bull met Sara Chapman Thorp (1850-1911), the daughter of a prosperous lumber merchant from Eau Claire, Wisconsin. On a return visit in 1870 (and despite their age difference; he was 60, she was 20), Bull began a courtship, and the couple was secretly married in Norway in June 1870, with a formal wedding in Madison later that year. They had one daughter, Olea (1871-1913). In 1871, he bought a summer home on a rise in West Lebanon, Maine which he named Ironwell. Sara traveled with Bull for the remainder of his career, sometimes accompanying him on the piano. In 1883 she published a memoir of Bull's life.Jewett refers Sara Chapman Thorp Bull as "Fru Ole Bull," an American author and philanthropist. According to Wikipedia, as a widow, Mrs. Bull made her home in Cambridge, MA, and summered at a cottage in Eliot, ME. "After her husband's death ... she turned to philosophy, read the Bhagavad Gita and became a deeply spiritual person. She also developed an interest in Eastern religions, particularly of Vedanta philosophy after she became a disciple of Swami Vivekananda," whom she met in 1894.
Ole Bull bought the island of Lysųen in Os, south of Bergen, in 1872. He hired architect Conrad Fredrik von der Lippe (1833-1901) to design a residence on the island. Bull died from cancer in his home on Lysųen on 17 August 1880.
Presumably the "chateau" is the Cambridge home of Mrs. Bull, but this is not certain.
Mabel: Very likely, Jewett refers to Mabel Lowell (1847-1898), daughter of the American poet, James Russell Lowell. Mabel married Edward Burnett; they had three sons and two daughters. Mrs. Burnett collaborated with Charles Eliot Norton on a Grolier Club edition of John Donne in 1895.
Vaughan present: This reference is unresolved.
Alice: Probably Alice Mary Longfellow, but possibly Alice Greenwood Howe. See Key to Correspondents.
the Century story: This reference casts doubt upon the letter date suggested by other internal evidence in the two letters here thought to be composed during Mary Rice Jewett's trip to Europe in the summer of 1889. The first story that Jewett published in Century Magazine was "In Dark New England Days" (October 1890). While it seems unlikely that Jewett was paid a year in advance for her first story in this magazine, that would be necessary if this date is correct.
Pinny: P. L., Pinny Lawson, one of Jewett's nicknames.
Helen Merriman: See Key to Correspondents.
Worcester country: Worcester, MA is about 50 miles west of Boston, MA.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. 40 letters to Annie (Adams) Fields (no date). Sarah Orne Jewett additional correspondence, 1868-1930. MS Am 1743.1 (117). Transcribed and annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Adams Fields
[ Summer 1889 ]*
South BerwickDearest Fuff*
Monday Morning
[ ( added in another hand ] We think that it is waiting a good while to hear from Mary but I dont doubt that a letter will come today{.} It is two weeks since she landed* ---- (Dear Fuff while I think to speak of it, will you send me three or four black glove buttons from your hoardfromfor Mother? I find that she is 'out' ---- ) It
[ Page 2 ]
was a good old fashioned rainy Sunday yesterday and I was afraid that it was going to clear off in the morning, but it didn't! and I read a French history all the morning and sat up ^in^ the garret at one of the three dormer windows all the afternoon and read some delightful -- pathetic old letters of my elders and betters -- so that I have felt as if I were living in their
[ Page 3 ]
world and day. There was a little package from Mrs Burroughs of Portsmouth* whom I [knew or know written over letters] only as a fairy-godmother looking, abrupt, quaint person, but these were touchingly beautiful letters out of an affectionate busy life. It was an afternoon after my own heart. I can see you smile Mrs Fuffatee! ---- Then there was [another written over letters] package written from Pensacola* by a young Surgeon in the Navy,* dead while I was a baby -- the poor fellow
[ Page 4 ]
having fallen ill there and longing to get home to die but at last gives up the hope and they send down a friend of his another young doctor to keep him company & nurse him. And they both write in the ^same^ envelope back to Portsmouth with great good cheer which soon fades and then the poor fellow dies. I have always had some of his books here -- his Gil Blas and his Wordsworths Excursion* and always wished that I knew more about him than these
[34 circled in another hand, bottom left corner of page 4.]
[ Page 5 ]*
rows of books in one of the old book cases could tell. Father used to talk about him some times, they were young men together -- Their love letters and locks of hair still bright, and [unrecognized word, perhaps funny] account books of private expenses: altogether a deeply interesting [box ?] full to an idle and romancing Pinny.*
Friday is our day then? I am looking forward more eagerly than you are I am afraid but I
[ Page 6 ]
long to get you away from town now and I long to see you [unrecognized word -- bende ? followed by an added end parenthesis in another hand ]. I haven't sent a book to the little [ Shaw or Show ? the word has been altered].* I always meant to have some copies prettily bound for such days, but alas!
---- I went that minute and found a pretty white copy of the White Heron* and it is all done up & ready for the mail -- I am so glad you spoke and it was such a pleasure to send it dear Fuff. It is the thought that counts, not the cover isn't it?
Good bye dear darling little Fuff. --
from your Pinny
[34 circled in another hand, bottom left corner of page 6.]
[ Up the left margin of page 1]
You never said whether you saw Fru Ole's house! or Mabel.!* [Both punctuation marks appear.]
Notes
Summer 1889: This letter seems to pair with and follow another in which Jewett asks Fields about Mrs. Ole Bull's house and about Mabel Lowell. These letters seem to have been written soon after Mary Rice Jewett departed for her trip abroad, which would have been in the summer of 1889. However, this is complicated by Jewett indicating in the first that she is spending the money she was paid for a story in Century Magazine. Her first story to appear there was "In Dark New England Days" in 1890. Jewett' mother, Caroline, died in October 1891, and she is alive when this letter was written. The range for this letter, then, seems to be summer 1889 to summer 1891.
Fuff: One of the nicknames of Annie Adams Fields, also Fuffatee.
Mary ... landed: Mary Rice Jewett traveled to Europe in summer 1889. While it is possible Jewett refers to a different Mary, this letter has been dated on the assumption that Jewett refers to her sister.
Mrs Burroughs of Portsmouth: It seems likely that Jewett has a package from Anne Peirce Burroughs (1794-1877), the wife of the Reverend Charles Burroughs (1787-1868), who lived in the Langdon House in Portsmouth, NH (1833-1877).
Pensacola by a young Surgeon in the Navy: This person has not yet been identified.
Gil Blas and his Wordsworths Excursion: Alain-René Lesage (1668-1747) was "a French novelist and playwright ... best known for his comic novel The Devil upon Two Sticks (1707) ... and his picaresque novel Gil Blas (17151735)." Wikipedia
William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was "a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads (1798).... In 1814 Wordsworth published The Excursion as the second part of the three-part work The Recluse, even though he had not completed the first part or the third part, and never did." Wikipedia
Page 5: This page appears to have been torn in half and then mended; page 6 is on the back side of 5.
Pinny: Pinny Lawson (P. L.), one of Jewett's nicknames.
the little Shaw or Show: This reference remains obscure.
pretty white copy of the White Heron: Weber and Weber indicate that the first edition of Jewett's A White Heron and Other Stories had "White paper-covered boards, pale green decoration (sketch of a heron) and lettering on front cover, gray-green cloth spine with gilt lettering; top edges gilt."
This cover design was by Sarah Wyman Whitman. See Key to Correspondents.
Fru Ole's house! or Mabel: Jewett refers Sara Chapman Thorp Bull as "Fru Ole Bull," described in Wikipedia as an American author and philanthropist. According to Wikipedia, as a widow, Mrs. Bull made her home in Cambridge, MA, and summered at a cottage in Eliot, ME. "After her husband's death ... she turned to philosophy, read the Bhagavad Gita and became a deeply spiritual person. She also developed an interest in Eastern religions, particularly of Vedanta philosophy after she became a disciple of Swami Vivekananda," whom she met in 1894.
Presumably the "chateau" is the Cambridge home of Mrs. Bull, but this is not certain.
Ole Bornemann Bull (1810-1880) was a Norwegian violinist and composer. Wikipedia
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. 40 letters to Annie (Adams) Fields (no date). Sarah Orne Jewett additional correspondence, 1868-1930. MS Am 1743.1 (117). Transcribed and annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Adams Fields
South Berwick
Monday night
[ June 1889 ]*
Dearest Fuff* --
We have had a delightful play day in York and I wished so much for you. The clouds were lovely and the sea, and we all played like children. Pinny* achieved a pretty house built with damp sand and sticked little weeds about it for trees and left the little mansion with regret, it being much
[ Page 2 ]
admired by all observers -- and was a great play. It was so warm that we sat in the grass above the beach and I stretched myself at full length and found a lot of nice blue violets next my face. The grass had not grown there but there they were, blooming away by themselves. There were three or four old crows on the sands and a little schooner or two ^out at sea^ and the sun kept going [ behind corrected from behing ] a
[ Page 3 ]
cloud and coming out again. ( I saw Coras* house from a distance and it is very pretty. I wish I could take a hearty interest in it but somehow I cant -- I saw the little slip of a new moon as I came home ( and it made me think of you as few things do. I hope that you and Mrs. Whitman* saw it too -- I wrote her a letter yesterday and then I couldn't make up my mind to send it -- I wish that I could have
[ Page 4 ]
seen her in town before this long summer begins. How charming Miss Eustis's* note is! She seems to be beginning her three months stay in a delightful frame of mind.
Dear Fuff when are you coming? For Sunday? I wish and wish for you dear darling. Goodnight from
Your Pin -- )
Oh dear Fuff it is so pleasant this morning and you must must come down for a little visit -- Stay three or four days any way dear -- It seems as if I couldn't wait! )
Notes
June 1889: This tentative date is supported by the existence of another letter to Fields almost certainly composed in Summer 1889 that mentions a Miss Eustis visiting Fields in Boston.
Parenthesis marks in this manuscript were penciled by Fields.
Fuff: Nickname for Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Pinny: Pinny Lawson (Pinny / Pin) was an affectionate nickname for Jewett, used by her and Annie Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Cora's house: This may be Cora Clark Rice, though her usual residence was in Boston. See Key to Correspondents.
Mrs. Whitman: Sarah Wyman Whitman. See Key to Correspondents.
Mifs Eustis's: It is possible that this is Elizabeth Mussey Eustis (1858-1936), a resident of Boston, who fortunately survived the Titanic disaster of 1912. See The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Volumes 76-77, pp. lxxxviii-lxxxix.
However, Jewett's reference to a 3-month visit, suggests that Miss Eustis is a foreign visitor.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University. 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). Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Adams Fields
Tuesday morning
[ Summer 1889 ]
(Dear Fuff --*
Letters from Mary from Paris [ a period appears here, probably intending a comma ] a beautiful passage across the Channel and Paris most gay & delightful & such good times with Fanny Hale* who has a charming house. They went together to see the pictures at the Exposition* &c. Yes I will indeed bring over some letters -- I had a busy day yesterday writing & taking somebody to drive and[ Page 2 ]
burrowing in the garden beside late in the day & after ten. And then I made a call and felt myself to have been unusually active!) What do you think I am reading but Middlemarch though I confess that I have to make skips often. How much more she dwells & harps than in Adam Bede and Silas Marner.* She draws her characters so that they stand alive before you and you know what they have in their pockets and then goes on
[ Page 3 ]for three pages analyzing them & their motives but after all one must read them with patience for the sake of occasional golden sentences, that have the exactness & [ deleted word ] inevitableness of proverbs. Perhaps I read my Middlemarch too late in the evening but I find very dull stretches in it now & then. But think of Mr. Casaubon being but 45 at the time of his marriage! I think of him as nearly seventy, -- & old for his years at that, and indeed be must have been growing
[ Page 4 ]old since he [ deleted word ] was born & never have had a season of [ merely corrected ] ripening. It is a wonderfully drawn character to me, the pathos & reality of it. How I should like to go on talking about it. (Do ask [ miss not capitalized ] Eustis* about the Nun of Kenmare* & tell her your experience. Now I must say goodbye to my dear Fuffatee with a kiss for her -- being summoned by Mr. Tucker* on some firewood business!
lovingly ever your Pinny)*
[ Down the left margin of age 4 ]Georgie Perry & Charles have just sailed for France for six weeks !!
Notes
Summer 1889: Fields penciled "1897?" in the upper right of page 1, but this letter clearly was composed when Mary Rice Jewett was traveling in Europe, in the summer of 1889. See notes below.
Fanny Hale: Fanny Hale has not been identified. Possibly, this is Fanny Hale Gardiner the translator from multiple languages to English.
Exposition: The Paris World's Fair (Exposition Universelle) of 1889.
Fuff: Nickname for Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents. Near the end of the letter, Jewett varies this with Fuffatee.
Parenthesis marks in this letter were penciled in by Fields.
Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents. Mary Jewett traveled to Europe in the summer of 1889.
"Middlemarch" ... "Adam Bede" ... "Silas Marner": George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans, 1819-1880) wrote the novels Adam Bede (1859), Silas Marner (1861), and Middlemarch (1871-2).
Eustis: It is possible that this is Elizabeth Mussey Eustis (1858-1936), a resident of Boston, who fortunately survived the Titanic disaster of 1912. See The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Volumes 76-77, pp. lxxxviii-lxxxix.
However, another letter to Fields, probably from June 1889, indicates that this Miss Eustis probably is a visitor from abroad.
Nun of Kenmare: The Irish-born Margaret Anna Cusack (1829-1899) was "known as Sister Mary Francis Cusack and Mother Margaret, was first an Irish Anglican nun, then a Roman Catholic nun, then a religious sister and the founder of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, and then an Anglican (or possibly a Methodist)." In 1888, she published an autobiography entitled, The Nun of Kenmare.
Mr. Tucker: John Tucker. See Key to Correspondents.
Pinny: Pinny Lawson (Pinny / Pin) was an affectionate nickname for Jewett, used by her and Annie Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Georgie Perry & Charles: Melissa Homestead of the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, probably has identified these people as Charles French Perry and Georgiana West Graves. "Charles Perry was a distant cousin of the Jewett sisters, on their mother's side." Georgie Perry was a socially active resident of Cambridge, MA in the 1890s.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University. 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). Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Annie Fields Transcription
Fields includes a passage from this letter in Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett (1911), p. 212-13.
Tuesday morning.
What do you think I am reading but "Middlemarch," though I confess that I have to make skips often. How much more she dwells and harps than in "Adam Bede" and "Silas Marner." She draws her characters so that they stand alive before you, and you know what they have in their pockets, and then goes on for three pages analyzing them and their motives; but after all one must read them with patience for the sake of occasional golden sentences, that have the exactness and inevitableness of proverbs. Perhaps I read my "Middlemarch" too late in the evening, but I find very dull stretches in it now and then. But think of Mr. Casaubon being but forty-five at the time of his marriage! I think of him as nearly seventy and old for his years at that, and indeed be must have been growing old since he was born, and never have had a season of merely ripening. It is a wonderfully drawn character to me, the pathos and reality of it. How I should like to go on talking about it.
Annie Adams Fields to Abbie Gunnison Warren*
Manchester by the Sea
Mass. July 1st
1889 --
My dear Mrs Warren:
I am very sorry to have left your exceedingly kind letter so long unanswered, but I have been especially occupied lately and until now have been obliged to neglect my letters. Mifs Jewett* desires me also to thank you for your remembrance of her.
I can easily believe
[ Page 2 ]
life in London is full of attractions for you and your husband. It is a great new world and yet the dear old world of which we feel ourselves a rightful part.
Pray accept my thanks for your letter with its kind words about the article
[ Page 3 ]
in Scribner* which you had just read.
My best wishes too go
with them for a pleasant summer to you both.*
With very kind regards believe me
very truly
A Fields.
Notes
Warren: The Maine Women Writers Collection identifies the recipient as Mrs. Arthur Warren. This choice is supported by the letter indicating that Mrs. Warren currently resides in London.
In January 1887, Abbie Nutter Gunnison (1861- after 1916) of Scarborough, ME, married American journalist Arthur Franklin Warren (1860-1924), author of London Days (1920). Warren, who was born in Dorchester, MA, was a London correspondent, 1878-1882, a drama critic in Boston, 1883-1888, and then London correspondent for the Boston Herald, 1888-1897. Finally, he served as an editorial writer and editor, 1897-1909.
Mfs Jewett: Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
Penciled in another hand, top left of page one: "Annie Fields mentions Sarah Orne Jewett".
Scribner: In July 1889, Fields's most recent article in Scribner's was "A Second Shelf of Old Books: Edinburgh" (April, pp. 453-76).
both: It is not clear why Fields has indented these lines. It appears she decided to alter her margins for the remainder of the letter.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the University of New England Maine Women Writers Collection, Sarah Orne Jewett Correspondence Box 3 Folder 192. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
John Greenleaf Whittier to Annie Adams Fields
Oak Knoll
Danvers
July 5 1889
My dear Friend
I have [ delays meaning delayed ] to write for the last few weeks, hoping I might be able to see thee at Boston,but^and^ I suppose thee may be now at Manchester or at some other seaside place. I have been hardly equal to any effort all the time, but
[ Page 2 ]
went to Portland to the Yearly Meeting* which I only looked in upon once or twice and came back very tired. I am now hoping to get away into N.H. in a few days, in the belief that I shall gain strength there. The [ one or two unrecognized words ] of days on the sea [ board ? ] have been very trying, and
[ Page 3 ]
I must make a change though not certain that I shall find the dry clear sun there which I long for. It seems very long since I have heard from thee. Some time ago I had a letter from Sarah* who I hope is now with thee. I am glad to read her beautiful realistic
[ Page 4 ]
"Going to Shrewsbury{.}" The pathos of it [ touched ? ] me deeply. With [ what tender ? ] sympathy, despite her sense of humor, she gives us "the short and simple annals of the poor." As I was in the cars from Amesbury, the other day, a bright, intelligent Scotch gentleman told me that years ago he travelled and [ arrived ? ] in company with thee and Mr Fields, and Dr Hale, and I was glad to hear the ad-
[ Up the left margin of page 4 ]
miring [ words ? ] in which he spoke of you. I do not know where to send this letter,
[ Up the right margin of page 4 ]
but I will try Boston, as it will probably
[ Up the left and across the top margins of page 1 ]
reach thee somewhere. Is dear Doctor Holmes* at Beverly? I am looking forward to his 80th birth-day with interest. What a mean thing was the attack on Gen. Armstrong,* by that [ unrecognized word ] [ scientist ? ].
[ Up the left margin of page 2 ]
I hope I shall hear from thee my dearly-beloved friend
[ Up the margin between pages 2 and 3 ]
before long. Every with grateful affection thy friend
John G Whittier
Notes
Yearly Meeting: Whittier often attended the annual meeting of the Maine Society of Friends.
Sarah: Sarah Orne Jewett. Her story, "Going to Shrewsbury" appeared in the July 1889 Atlantic Monthly.
"...annals of the poor": Whittier quotes from British poet Thomas Gray (1716-1771), "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard":
Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,Dr. Hale: Probably Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909), American author, historian and Unitarian clergyman, remembered for his story, The Man Without a Country (1863).
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the Poor.
Dr. Holmes: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (29 August 1809-1894). See Key to Correspondents.
Attack on Gen. Armstrong: Whittier supported the Hampton Institute, founded in 1861 to educate former African American slaves, now known as Hampton University. The first principal of the school was General Samuel Chapman Armstrong (1839-11 May 1893), a friend of Whittier.
Possibly the attack Whittier mentions refers to charges made at about this time that Native Americans were mistreated at the Hampton Institute. Armstrong's own account of these events appears in Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (1888), pp. 25-7.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields collection: mss FI 72-4857. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Wyman Whitman to Sarah Orne Jewett
[ 8 July 1889 ]*
Dear friend: such a long wait before sending an answer to your little note. But for good reasons: which is enough between friends.
The summer so far has been a matter of jobbing: and I have only guessed at the way the
[ Page 2 ]
sky & the trees look. Presently I think I am to have a little time to myself: & if this is bestowed I shall retire into Nature to work as she dictates! You will be glad of this? & someday we shall meet again I hope to speak of many things which have been a-laying in lavender for a long while, dear fellow pilgrim. Just now I am greatly involved with Minna's wedding* & the young people who have gathered
[ Page 3 ]
here for that event. One is full of joy & pain at beholding their youth & their ignorance.
Thine
_SW_
I send the [ Marsh-Boat or Book ? ]* by express tomorrow.
[ Unrecognized word and mark: July 1 ? ]
Notes
8 July 1889: The envelope associated with this letter was cancelled on 8 July 1889 and addressed to Jewett in South Berwick.
Minna's wedding: On July 2 1889, Sarah Wyman Whitman's protégée, Minna Elisa Timmins (1861-1897) married the author, John Jay Chapman (1862-1933). Timmins was the adopted child of Martin Brimmer (1829-1926), first director of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
See also Report of the secretary by Harvard University. Class of 1884 (1899), p. 31.
Marsh Boat or Book: This transcription is uncertain and the reference undetermined.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University. Whitman, Sarah (Wyman) 1842-1904. 92 letters; [1884]-[1903] & [n.d.] Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. Sarah Orne Jewett additional correspondence, 1868-1930. MS Am 1743.1 -107. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Transcription from Letters of Sarah Wyman Whitman (1907)
Part of this letter appeared on p. 66.
July, 1889.
The summer so far has been a matter of jobbing, and I have only guessed at the way the sky and the trees look. Presently I think I am to have a little time to myself; and if this is bestowed I shall retire into Nature and work as she dictates. You will be glad of this? And some day we shall meet again. I hope to speak of many things which have been a-laying in lavender for a long while, dear fellow pilgrim. Just now I am greatly involved with -----'s wedding,* and the young people who have gathered here for that event. One is full of joy and pain at beholding their youth and their ignorance.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Adams Fields
[ 21 July 1889 ]*
Sunday afternoon
My dearest Fuff*.
I just wondered if Alice* were there now an{d} if she came this morning on her way from church. It [must corrected] be a lovely day on the hill* I am so glad, and I hope that you have had a dear time with your Mrs. Spofford and Mrs. Hopkins.* How delightful and interesting they must be -- It is the place to see everybody at her best -- I think -- not a bit of fretting, and -- well Fuff knows how I love Manchester but when I think that my darling
[ Page 2 ]
gets tired of making it what it is to these people I dont feel so glad about it. I have been writing to Marigold* to tell her how sorry I was not to see her anymore but I did indeed think much [about corrected] having another night and perhaps two at Manchester until I found Mother so poorly. I am not going to start before Wednesday as I told you and I hope that Mother will be pretty well then. She has had that miserable white look that always makes me anxious but it is gone and she seems like her well self today only poorly still. I dont mean to
[ Page 3 ]
stay many days at Mouse Island{.} I would rather be here again and then get to Manchester the sooner. I must get after the Bit of Color work* if I mean to do it this summer. Sometimes I [think corrected] that I will let it go for what it is worth -- but I was heartened up [deleted letters] in Gardiner by finding that the young Richards girls* liked it so much -- Carrie* is coming in to tea so I must stop writing and dress myself. Oh I was so sorry about Marigolds not going to the wedding.* It must have been very hard for you to go off without her{.} I love to hear about it and the beautiful
[ Page 4 ]
girl. I am so glad that you have seen Katharine again, dear old Katharine! She is to my mind the best of the flowers of Florida!* Do tell a nice Pinny* a few things about the oak tree and the cedar tree ^(all covered with flowers)^ as soon as you go that way --
Yours always
P. L.
I send you one of three [pens ?] which Mary* sent me, with green little turned up toes. & I think perfectly delightful moral characters! This note should have gone back to you before*
[ 33 circled in another hand, bottom left corner of page 4]
Notes
21 July 1889: This date is inferred from Jewett mentioning that she is working on "the Bit of Color," which seems to have been published and read by the Richards girls. That Jewett went to Mouse Island in 1889 also tends to confirm this date. See Jewett to Sarah Wyman Whitman of 21 July 1889 and notes below.
Fuff: One of the nicknames of Annie Adams Fields.
Alice: Probably Alice Greenwood (Mrs. George Dudley) Howe, though possibly Alice Mary Longfellow. See Key to Correspondents.
the hill: The Fields's summer home, Gambrel Cottage, in Manchester-by-the-Sea stood on Thunderbolt Hill.
Mrs. Spofford and Mrs. Hopkins: Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford. See Key to Correspondents.
The identity of Mrs. Hopkins is not yet known. It is remotely possible that Jewett refers to Mary Frances (Sherwood) Hopkins, though by 1889 she had remarried and would have been Mrs. Charles Searles. Perhaps more likely, she may have been Lydia Levira James Hopkins (1842-1920), the mother of Jewett correspondent Frederick Mercer Hopkins.
Marigold: Mary Greenwood Lodge. See Key to Correspondents.
Mouse Island: A small resort island east of Southport and south of Boothbay, ME. See below, a letter to Fields from Mouse Island.
the Bit of Color work: Jewett's "A Bit of Color" appeared in a three part serial in St. Nicholas, April, May, and June, 1889. In 1890, Jewett published a novel for younger readers, Betty Leicester, developed out of this material.
Gardiner ... the young Richards girls: These are the daughters of Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards of Gardiner, ME. See Key to Correspondents.
Carrie: Caroline Jewett Eastman. See Key to Correspondents.
Marigolds not going to the wedding: Marigold is the nickname of Mary Greenwood Lodge. See Key to Correspondents.
In July 1889, Sarah Wyman Whitman wrote to Jewett about the wedding plans of her protégée, Minna Elisa Timmins (1861-1897) to the author, John Jay Chapman (1862-1933). Timmins was the adopted child of Martin Brimmer (1829-1926), first director of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The wedding took place on 2 July 1889.
See Report of the secretary by Harvard University. Class of 1884 (1899), p. 31. Whether this is, indeed, the wedding to which Jewett refers is likely, but not certain.
Katharine ... the best of the flowers of Florida: Almost certainly, Jewett refers to Katharine Loring, the older sister of Louisa Loring. See Key to Correspondents. She and Fields met the Loring family while traveling in the South for Fields's health in the spring of 1888.
Pinny: Pinny Lawson (P. L.), one of Jewett's nicknames.
Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
This note: Fields and Jewett frequently send each other letters they have received from other correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. 40 letters to Annie (Adams) Fields (no date). Sarah Orne Jewett additional correspondence, 1868-1930. MS Am 1743.1 (117). Transcribed and annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Sarah Wyman Whitman
Mouse Island Boothbay
Harbour
July 21st
[ 1889 ]*
[ Begin letterhead ]
South Berwick.
Maine.
[ End letterhead ]
Dearest friend I send you a little pattern of a pointed fir just to let you know that everything is right and* they are all growing and have got their new twigs this year. I have never been [ so corrected ] thankful to a nephew* for a little thing as for his beguiling me into coming away yesterday for three or four days -- I felt [ deletion ] this morning as if I were
[ Page 2 ]
resting for this whole year.
-- I could not manage to do things = when one tries to read proof and little letters in the middle of words keep turning round, one is very bad and worthless indeed! So this morning she sat under the fir trees and they were tall and friendly, and waved their green tops and said things in a whisper. There is a queer northern touch about this bay -- the long solid slopes of the green shores, and
[ Page 3 ]
the high sky over their low lines -- -- Oh my darling how I have thought of you, with such rejoicing [ at corrected ] your splendid bravery and all your splendid sense of honour that I have seen; all your mastery, and your recognition of the way! There could not be such things asked of the human creature if they were impossible -- but they cost very dear. You will not like me to write ---- alas, I
[ Page 4 ]
had been saying to myself that I should not write -- and I just begin to remember it . . Forgive one who loves you very much.*
I am going to join Mary* at Stonehurst on Monday and go home on Wednesday -- then I shall be coming to Manchester at the week's end. I do not know one word about you in all these days -- ---- I think you ought to go away for a long rest and change by and by and yet I am a coward when I think of it -- selfish and a
[ Up the left margin and across the top margin of page 1 ]
coward! ---- Goodnight darling and I hold you close to my heart.
Yours always
S.O.J.
[ Up the left margin and across the top margin of page 4 ]
Theodore is a little dearer than you have ever seen him this summer! I feel quite old and protected and it is so comfortable and makes one really younger!
Notes
1889: This date is supported by a letter from Jewett to Annie Adams Fields, probably from the same Sunday in 1889.
and: Jewett often writes "a" with a long tail for "and." I render these as "and."
nephew: Theodore Jewett Eastman. Key to Correspondents.
much: Jewett has drawn a short horizontal line between this paragraph and the next.
Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. bMS Am 1743 Box 6, Item 277.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Adams Fields
[ July 1889 ]*
Mouse IslandDearest Little Fuff*
Friday Morning
The exquisitely [beautiful corrected] weather of our first day or two has changed into gray mist, but to tell the truth I am a little tired and lame and am more than reconciled though far be it from me to tell Alice so -- the hardy and energetic Alice !!* Fanny* and I pose for the weak & wicked members of the company -- We are reading a capital novel by Miss Edwards. Lord Brackenbury* is its name
[ Page 2 ]
and it is most exciting to our minds. It is really masterly at some points and full of pleasant description, but lags here and there or perhaps I got a little restless as I listened. How good Miss Edwards's letter was! I look forward with great pleasure to seeing her.
---- No yachts have turned up yet. I suppose the weather prevents. The harbor too is quite deserted and we have seen none of the charming flocks of white sails that we saw last
[ Page 3 ]
summer. Today we meant to go up the reach somewhere to land and make a little camp for ourselves but it is too damp of course. I have a notion now of going home on Monday but I want to see Mary Longfellow* -- & she does not come until then. If the weather is going to keep on I would rather go home tomorrow but [ Al_ices so written] feelings would suffer. She was so funny going in swimming yesterday -- for she carries her head high and
[ Page 4 ]
dry & straight up -- as if she were simply walking about. It was very funny to see it ride the low waves.
-- I had such a dear funny dream of your Judy* yesterday -- come home in such a big bonnet so that I thought she looked like Mrs. Carlyle!* and we were dreadfully fond of her and so glad to see, & it was a little Judy but an old bonnet. Mrs. Vaughan wants the ink so goodby with dear love from Pinny.*
They all send ever so much love & are always wishing you were here{.}
[ 30 circled in another hand, bottom left of page 4]
[ Up the bottom left margin of page 1]
I'm sure I do!
Notes
July1889: Jewett's visits to Mouse Island generally took place in the summer, when swimming was possible in the North Atlantic, and the absence of yachts suggests this is early in the season, probably July. The year is established in relation to Jewett's anticipation of meeting Amelia Edwards, who made a lecture tour of the United States in the winter of 1889-90. See note below.
Fuff: One of the nicknames of Annie Adams Fields.
Alice: In this case, one would suspect "Alice" to be Alice Mary Longfellow. Richard Cary says "Alice Mary Longfellow (1850-1928), daughter of the poet, was a friend of long standing. Jewett often visited with her in the summer at Mouse Island in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, where Miss Longfellow annually filled in the season with a vigorous regime of walking, rowing, and sailing."
Though in a 23 July letter to T. B. Aldrich, Jewett reports that Alice Longfellow was with her at Mouse island, she indicates clearly that Mary Longfellow has not yet arrived at Mouse Island. Therefore, Jewett probably refers to Alice Greenwood Howe. See Key to Correspondents.
Fanny: Other letters from Mouse Island in July 1889 indicate that this is Frances Coolidge Stone (1851-1931) of Newburyport, MA. She was the daughter of Massachusetts politician Eben Francis Stone (1822-1895), who served in Congress in 1881-1887. Among her closest friends was Alice Longfellow. See Key to Correspondents.
Miss Edwards ... Lord Brackenbury: Lord Brackenbury, a novel by the British writer and traveler, Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards (1831-1892), appeared in 1880. "In 1882, she co-founded the Egypt Exploration Fund (now the Egypt Exploration Society) and became its joint Honorary Secretary. In 1889-1890, she toured the United States lecturing on Egyptian exploration."
Mary Longfellow: Alice Mary Longfellow. See Key to Correspondents.
Judy: While this has not been confirmed, it seems likely that this is Judith Drew Beal, stepdaughter of Annie Fields's sister, Louisa Adams Beal. See Annie Fields in Key to Correspondents.
Mrs. Carlyle: Jane Welsh Carlyle (1801- 1866) was the wife of the Scots writer, Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881).
Mrs. Vaughan: Though this has not been established, it is possible that "Mrs. Vaughan" is Anna Harriet Goodwin (Mrs. Benjamin) Vaughan 1838-1919, wife of the Cambridge, MA businessman, Benjamin Vaughan (1837-1912). He was a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, which provides a biographical sketch in its Proceedings for 1912, p. 105. They married in 1864. The Vaughans had roots in Maine, notably the village of Hallowell, and they moved in the same circles as many of the Boston area friends of Fields and Jewett. The Vaughans were the parents of Henry Goodwin Vaughan (b. circa 1868, Harvard 1890), who may be the same Henry G. Vaughan who married Elise Tyson in 1915. See Emily Tyson in Key to Correspondents.
Pinny: Pinny Lawson, one of Jewett's nicknames.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. 40 letters to Annie (Adams) Fields (no date). Sarah Orne Jewett additional correspondence, 1868-1930. MS Am 1743.1 (117). Transcribed and annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.
David Douglas to Annie Adams Fields
[ Begin Letterhead
Underlined portion filled in by hand. ]
DAVID DOUGLAS[ End Letterhead ]
PUBLISHER
15A Castle Street
Edinburgh July 9 1888
My dear Mrs Fields*
Make whatever use you please of the portrait of "Pet Marjorie"* & welcome. I wish I had anything more to give regarding the child. Thank you for calling my attention to Mifs Jewetts story "Miss Tempy's Watchers{.}" I read it in a magazine with great interest [ many ? ] months ago without knowing who wrote it. I shall now read it again in the volume which
[ Page 2 ]
the author kindly sent me. I [ am due ? ] her a letter which shall be sent very soon.
As you like these touches of [ a ? ] vanished land, I send you these trifles which Dr Brown intended to illustrate his paper [ on ? ] John [ Leech ? ] -- but never carried out his intentions beyond his wondrous verbal criticism & illustrations -- as we looked at them together --- I said to him one day "What shall we do in the other world with^out^ [ unrecognized word John ? ] ?" As quick as thought came the reply
[ Page 3 ]Notes
"We shall be with [ the / his maker ? ]! --- so be it.
Thanks for your letter -- write me when you have anything to say or ask me. [ It is very ? ] pleasant to exchange thoughts.
[ Yours ?
unrecognized word ]
David Douglas
Fields: "rs" appears to be underlined twice.
"Pet Marjorie": "Pet Marjorie"or "Marjorie Fleming: a Sketch" (1863) is an essay by Scottish author and physician, Dr. John Brown (1810-1882). Fleming (1803-1811) was a Scottish child writer and poet.
Mifs Jewett's: Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents. Her story, "Miss Tempy's Watchers" appeared in Atlantic Monthly in March 1888, and was collected in The King of Folly Island in the same year.
John Leech: This transcription is very uncertain. My guess is based upon Brown having written an appreciation of the English caricaturist, John Leech (1817-1864), John Leech and Other Papers (1882).
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields Papers and Addenda, Box 16: mss FI 5637. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Robert Collyer to Annie Adams Fields
Chicago July 10th 1889
Dear Friend
Edward Hale* told me of the lovely book and the gracious word about that Sunday in Edinburgh about which I felt rather woful at the time.* I remember, and wished I had not preached, it seemed so like "dropping buckets into empty wells." So it confirms the experience of 40 years since I began to mutter in sermons?* that your worst time may be better than you can dream for another and helps one to plod on. We are here with Emma{,} Mother and I for a few days
[ Page 2 ]
on our way to Sugar Hill in New Hampshire where we shall abide some six or seven weeks. Mother is very feeble and wanted to come here as she thinks for her last visit. We hope not but she is sadly broken poor mother { -- } some paralysis and ever so many troubles beside the mountain air as I trust may cause to vanish away and as she trusts also.
When we get settled down there, if all is well, I shall come down for a few days to see Mr & Mrs Dexter* along about the middle of August and you will know they are at [ Poverty Flat ? ]* if I have got the right name.
[ Page 3 ]
Then I will be sure to see you for it is not far away. The maid who has been with us so very long will meet us at Albany and be with us through the time we are in the hills. She knows Mothers needs and ways so well that it will be no trouble to leave her with Susan.
This tribe is ever so hearty, the three boys radiant over [ bycycles so spelled ]. The elder brothers shot off into space on them yesterday glass at near 90 and reported a journey of 14 miles there and back -- They are this instant shouting to Granpa -- got any refreshment{,} I said{,} at the other end. no said Phil
[ Page 4 ]
in high disgust. [ There ? ] was only one store and all they had was water and cough candy..
I am so glad to hear from you and mother will be also when she returns from her little ride
ever as always
Robert Collyer
Notes
Edward Hale: Edward Everett Hale. See Key to Correspondents. The "lovely book" has not yet been identified.
time: Collyer omits many periods in this letter. I have supplied them wherever they seem necessary.
empty wells: Though this saying has become proverbial, Collyer is likely to be quoting from English poet, William Cowper (1731-1800), who writes in The Task (1786), Book 3, The Garden:
Defend me, therefore, common sense, say I,sermons?: Collyer's question mark is somewhat ambiguous, but he does seem to have placed it here.
From reveries so airy, from the toil
Of dropping buckets into empty wells,
And growing old in drawing nothing up!
Dexter: Collyer's friends included Chicago lawyer Wirt Dexter (1832-1890) and his wife, Josephine Moore (1846-1937).
Poverty Flat: This transcription is uncertain. Possibly, Collyer referred to Poverty Mountain, near Amherst, MA.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields Papers and Addenda Box 10: mss Fl 1-5637. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields
Fais ce que doisMy dearest Annie =*
Advienne que pourra*
Shoals. [ 15th corrected from 11 ] July (89
From my sofa corner, wh. I hope soon to be [ leavin' ? ], for a seat, -- my own, at the painting table, I scribble a line -- so sorry it is so late! when I wished to answer your sweet letter at once. But you dont know how full of interruptions are the hours, pleasant interruptions to be sure, but still interruptions -- How to tell you of life here just now! It would be hard were I to attempt it -- Mrs Hemenway* still lingers & she has bought nearly five hundred dollars worth of Ross Turner's Bermuda pictures,* four beautiful ones -- they are wonderful -- the color like peacocks feathers, the water, fused jewels, sapphire, emerald, amethyst -- something divinely lovely!
Later -- Wm Mason is playing Grieg,* such charming music --
[ Page 2 ]
Mr [ Bertwell ? ],* whom you know, has gone away today -- what a fine creature is he { -- } only I think he will not stay in this planet very long -- Mr & Mrs Waters & Hope are here for weeks -- Charlotte Dana & her niece -- The Paines, Turners, Aunty [ Reed ? ] & Edwin, Miss Robbins, (Ellen), Rose --, & Horace coming Friday -- Mrs Hemenway's visit lengthens & lengthens, she grows so strong & well -- these are just our own party here in the [ house ? ] -- there are others too not so interesting -- The weather is so beautiful & every body having such a good time! I hope to see Pinny* every day{.}
I find Bellamy's book* very interesting. Thank you, dear -- And all sorts of people are reading it --
I am hoping to have my dear baby & Roland & Mabel* in the
[ Page 3 ]
middle of August for a week --
The summer is flying so fast -- I cherish my little roses & plants for my winter window garden when the wind shall blow -- & keep them altogether by the steps in a sheltered sunny nook, the pots sunk in the earth --
Mina Bernsten* is here & a good comfort.
Write dear -- tell me of your garden.
Has the Rose of Heaven grown? I hope it hasnt all come out magenta instead of the white & blue & delicate old rose color & lavender & crimson! I hope to send you a photo of my [ lambs ? ] presently -- Dear love to you ever and ever from your own
C.
Mr Mason is playing Chopin. Nocturnes, Preludes & things, enough to kill you! I wish you were here{.}
Notes
pourra: This French proverb appears to have been added in pencil after the letter was composed. The handwriting may be Thaxter's, but perhaps the note was added by Fields. In English the meaning is: Do what you must, come what may. Coe College Emeritus Professor of French, Jeannine Hammond, points out that in standard French, the proverb would read: "Fais ce que tu dois, advienne que pourra."
=: Thaxter usually places a colon here, and presumably this is what she intended. It was not unusual for those in the Fields circle to use this sign in their handwriting. Though it usually represents a colon, this is not always clear.
Mrs Hemenway: American philanthropist, Mary Porter Tileston Hemenway (1820-1894).
Ross Turner's Bermuda pictures: Ross Sterling Turner (1847-1914) was an American painter, known for his landscapes and floral subjects. He was Thaxter's main mentor in painting. New York's Lusher Gallery holds on of his "Bermuda" watercolors.
Mason ... Grieg: William Mason (1829-1908) was an American composer and pianist. Edvard Hagerup Grieg (1843-1907) was a Norwegian composer and pianist. At the end of the letter, Thaxter reports that Mason is playing works by Polish composer and pianist Frédéric Franēois Chopin (1810-1849).
Mr [ Bertwell ? ] ... Mr & Mrs Waters & Hope ... Charlotte Dana & her niece ... The Paines ... Aunty [ Reed ? ] & Edwin, Miss Robbins ...Rose ... Horace: The transcription of Bertwell is uncertain, and his identity unknown. One may speculate that he was James Cornelius Bertwell (1826-1893) of Cambridge, MA, but the letter offers no confirming evidence.
For the Waters family, the transcription is uncertain. They have not yet been identified.
Charlotte Dana probably is Ruth Charlotte Dana Lyman (1844-1903), who was called Charlotte. Her father was Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (1815-1882), American author of Two Years Before the Mast (1840). Among her nieces was Frances Appleton Dana (1883-1952), daughter of her brother, Richard Henry Dana III. She had several more nieces on her husband's side of the family.
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).
Aunty Reed and Edwin: This transcription is guesswork. The name looks a little like "Reed," and Aunty Reed is mentioned often in Thaxter's letters. Her identity remains unknown.
Ellen Robbins (1828-1905) was an American botanical illustrator.
Rose and Horace Lamb were siblings. See Key to Correspondents
Pinny: A nickname for Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents
Bellamy's book: American author and journalist, Edward Bellamy (1850-1898) published his best remembered utopian novel, Looking Backward in 1888.
Roland & Mabel: Thaxter's youngest son, his wife, and their child, Charles Eliot. See Key to Correspondents
Mina Bernsten: One of Thaxter's favorite employees, Mina Berntsen is mentioned often in Letters of Celia Thaxter (1895). See also Norma Mandel, Beyond the Garden Gate pp. 80-3.
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 63 FI 1- 4226. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Adams Fields
Mouse Island Saturday
[ July 1889 ]*Dearest Fuff*
The company were much pleased with your suggestions of Thunderbolt Hill* -- but the [ deleted letters, perhaps fo ] mist had departed and we had a [ delicious corrected ] day yesterday as ever was, rowing up the reach and into one of the narrow inlets between farms in the morning and reading aloud and sewing under the [ fir-balsams corrected ] in the afternoon and going out sailing again in the evening by the bright moonlight which was so enchanting that I wished for you more than I have at all. Fanny Stone* is a perfectly
[ Page 2 ]
delightful companion, and Alice* is in her most jubilant estate -- perfectly beaming and radiant. This morning I had a proof to do so that I stayed in for that & my letters and Mrs. Vaughan* had a headache so she stayed too and the others, Katy Wheeler* having arrived yesterday -- have gone sailing -- a cold white fog has caught them in its meshes and I dont know when I shall hail them back -- If there is adventure on hand I wish that I were along -- but to tell the truth
[ Page 3 ]
I was glad of the reason of proofs this morning being unable to continuously cope with the hardy Alice -- She never gives in except at sailing in the sun, at rowing she never quails -- and though I am tough I do sometimes ship my oars. Fanny cant row at all, but we have a dear light little boat. I should like to have it in the harbor at Manchester and we really must manage a sail now and then. Somehow we never get round to it but one of these days we will have a good time a seafaring. This is such a crabbed little pen though it pretends to be a stub that I shall be glad to get back to my
[ Page 4 ]
Flying [ Scotchman* corrected ] -- I have written to Mary* to get in some, but I have used and used mine and it is as good as ever -- Mrs. Vaughan & Alice & Fanny send their love and speak of you so [ deleted word ] wishfully -- I think they were ever so sorry you couldn't come. ----- I have been making more notes for a Bit of Color* and I do not believe that I shall be long about it when I once begin -- I mean to call it Betty Leicester when it is published in book form. I think it is more attractive & says itself more easily --
Goodbye dear darling
from your
Pinny*
[ Up the left margin and across the top margin of page 1 ]
I am sorry about Alice Lincoln* -- but Ionlynever [ formally corrected ] accepted -- she asked if I should be likely to be by Manchester this week & I said yes then but it was weeks ago and I did not know of this. I am sorry to have missed it, but I could have told her definitely
if she asked me lately -- I thought then that I should be likely to go right to Manchester after the Fourth.*[ Up the left margin of page 2 ]
Notes
July 1889: This letter clearly belongs with those Jewett wrote from Mouse Island in July 1889.
Fuff: Nickname for Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Thunderbolt Hill: The hill in Manchester-by-the-Sea, MA, upon which sits Fields's summer cottage, Gambrel House.
Fanny Stone: Frances Coolidge Stone (1851-1931) of Newburyport, MA, was the daughter of Massachusetts politician Eben Francis Stone (1822-1895), who served in Congress in 1881-1887. Among her closest friends was Alice Longfellow. See Key to Correspondents.
Alice: Identifying Alice remains problematic. While the most likely candidate would seem to be Mary Alice Longfellow, close friend of Fanny Stone and summer frequenter of Boothbay Harbor, Jewett indicates in her Friday morning letter from Mouse Island that Longfellow is not expected to arrive until Monday. Therefore, this may be the other Alice who was Jewett's close friend, Alice Greenwood Howe. See Key to Correspondents.
Mrs. Vaughan: Though this has not been established, it is possible that "Mrs. Vaughan" is Anna Harriet Goodwin (Mrs. Benjamin) Vaughan 1838-1919, wife of the Cambridge, MA businessman, Benjamin Vaughan (1837-1912). He was a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, which provides a biographical sketch in its Proceedings for 1912, p. 105. They married in 1864.
Katy Wheeler: This person has not been identified. A likely candidate is Catherine Foster Wheeler (1853-1930), of Templeton, MA, daughter of Ezra Lovell Wheeler and Mary Ann Wilder.
Flying Scotchman: "The Flying Scotchman" in the nineteenth century was a London to Edinburgh train renowned for its speed. Hence, this pen writes very fast. (Research: Betty Rogers, Coe College)
Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
Bit of Color: Jewett's "A Bit of Color" appeared in three parts, April - June 1889 in St. Nicholas. Her novel Betty Leicester: A Story for Girls appeared the following year.
Pinny: Pinny Lawson (Pinny / Pin) was an affectionate nickname for Jewett, used by her and Annie Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Alice Lincoln: This person has not yet been identified.
Fourth: Meaning the American Independence Day holiday, July 4.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University. 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). Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Sarah Wyman Whitman
Mouse Island Boothbay
Harbour
July 21st
[ 1889 ]*
[ Begin letterhead ]
South Berwick.
Maine.
[ End letterhead ]
Dearest friend I send you a little pattern of a pointed fir just to let you know that everything is right and* they are all growing and have got their new twigs this year. I have never been [ so corrected ] thankful to a nephew* for a little thing as for his beguiling me into coming away yesterday for three or four days -- I felt [ deletion ] this morning as if I were
[ Page 2 ]
resting for this whole year.
-- I could not manage to do things = when one tries to read proof and little letters in the middle of words keep turning round, one is very bad and worthless indeed! So this morning she sat under the fir trees and they were tall and friendly, and waved their green tops and said things in a whisper. There is a queer northern touch about this bay -- the long solid slopes of the green shores, and
[ Page 3 ]
the high sky over their low lines -- -- Oh my darling how I have thought of you, with such rejoicing [ at corrected ] your splendid bravery and all your splendid sense of honour that I have seen; all your mastery, and you recognition of the way! There could not be such things asked of the human creature if they were impossible -- but they cost very dear. You will not like me to write ---- alas, I
[ Page 4 ]
had been saying to myself that I should not write -- and I just begin to remember it . . Forgive one who loves you very much.*
I am going to join Mary* at Stonehurst on Monday and go home on Wednesday -- then I shall be coming to Manchester at the week's end. I do not know one word about you in all these days -- ---- I think you ought to go away for a long rest and change by and by and yet I am a coward when I think of it -- selfish and a
[ Up the left margin and across the top margin of page 1 ]
coward! ---- Goodnight darling and I hold you close to my heart.
Yours always
S.O.J.
[ Up the left margin and across the top margin of page 4 ]
Theodore is a little dearer than you have ever seen him this summer! I feel quite old and protected and it is so comfortable and makes one really younger!
Notes
1889: This date seems likely because Jewett spent part of July 1889 at Mouse Island, and probably was there on 21 July. However, other letters seemingly from the same July show that she must have returned home by 23 July, sooner than she would have had she followed the travel plans described here.
and: Jewett often writes "a" with a long tail for "and." I render these as "and."
nephew: Theodore Jewett Eastman. Key to Correspondents.
much: Jewett has drawn a line between this paragraph and the next.
Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. Stonehurst was the home of Alice Greenwood Howe. Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. bMS Am 1743 Box 6, Item 277.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Houghton Mifflin & Company
South Berwick Maine
23 July 1889*
Messrs Houghton Mifflin & Co.
Gentlemen
I spoke to Mr. Houghton sometime ago about the extension of a story for girls* which was printed early this year in St. Nicholas, but we did not discuss then any of the details of its publication in the autumn. I am now at work on it, and I should like to have some idea of the time it ought to be ready to go to press for a good
[ Page 2 ]
start for Christmas. I shall probably be in town within a week or two and by that time I can say more about it myself. It is now called A Bit of Colour but I mean to re-christen it, for that name does not 'say itself' easily enough. Would 50,000 words make a book of sufficient size? -- but I can ask such questions as this later. I am eager just now to know when I must have the copy ready, in order to arrange some other work which I am doing alongside for magazines -- Believe me
Yours sincerely
S. O. Jewett
Notes
23 July 1889: In the upper left corner of page 1, underlined and in another hand: "S. O. Jewett". Beneath this is a Houghton, Mifflin date stamp reading 22 July 1889. This stamp would suggest that either Jewett's date or the stamp is incorrect. However, Jewett may have written a "1" over the "3" in her date. This is not clear.
To the right of Jewett's signature on p. 2 appear initials in another hand, perhaps: H.E.S. for Horace E. Scudder. See Key to Correspondents.
With the letter in the Houghton Library folder appears a note on a separate small sheet in another hand, presumably used by the publisher in preparing a response to Jewett, to give her a sense of how many pages long Betty Leicester will be when printed. The note reads:
Playdays 213 pp. (pp 89) @ 306 = 164 Country Doctor 351 " (" 179) @ 266 = 177 Marsh Island 292 " (" 229) @ 222 = 226 _________________________________________
on the basis of 50.000 words
_____________________________
Here is a guess at the meaning of this note. The three books listed present three different formats.
The numbers in the 2nd column are the actual page lengths of the first edition of each title.
The number in the 3rd column remains mysterious, not obviously related to the others, except that in two cases, they are very close to the final numbers in each row. Note that the abbreviation "pp" in the third column is a guess, and its meaning is not yet known. Perhaps it means "proof pages" or "plate proofs."
But if one divides 50,000 by each number after the "@," one gets the final number after the "=" in two of the three cases. The final number for "Country Doctor" after division comes to 188, leading one to wonder if 177 is a math error.
One may guess, then, that the final figure in each row represents the number of pages that title would have been had its length been 50,000 words.
The number following "@" in each row probably represents the average number of words / page in each of the different book formats.
Providing Jewett with information based upon these numbers would aid the publisher in explaining her probable choices of format for Betty Leicester as well as giving her an idea of what 50,000 words will amount to in page numbers.
See her letter to Houghton Mifflin of 9 September 1889.
story for girls: Jewett refers to her novel, Betty Leicester: A Story for Girls published by Houghton, Mifflin in 1890. Much of it had appeared in 1889 as a serial in St. Nicholas, a magazine for young readers, under the title "A Bit of Color."
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University in Houghton Mifflin Company correspondence and records, 1832-1944, Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. 68 letters from; 1870-1907 and [n.d.]. MS Am 1925 (962). Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Thomas Bailey Aldrich
23 July 1889
South Berwick
My dear Friend
I saw in yesterdays papers that Mr. Lowell's goldfish poem* was in the August Atlantic and it reminded me that last spring when he came and read it to us, that he said I might have the manuscript after it had been printed and that he would tell you so -- I dare say that it slipped his mind afterward but if you do not particularly care for it will you let me
[ Page 2 ]
have it when you come home?
I* have been meaning to write to you and Lilian* but you see that a piece of selfishness makes me take my lazy pen at last! I have been busy at home with writing and gardening and all sorts of things but last week I spent down at an island on the Maine coast with Alice Longfellow* & two or three other cronies and I had a most delightful holiday, and went off yachting with some other friends who came along. This ^has^ kept me from going to
[ Page 3 ]
Manchester very lately but when I was last there three weeks ago our dear A. F.* was well and busy, though I think she is more lonely than usual as I can only run over for short visits and no whole months now that my sister Mary* is away. I do hope that you can go down for a little while by and by. You see that I am expecting you home very soon and very eagerly.
I called upon Miss Francis* the last time that I was in town, and she seemed to be very
[ Page 4 ]
disconsolate in the absence of the Editor, and as if she had not been cheered by a little joke since he sailed -- I do hope that you are having a delightful month in London, and I send much love to make up for such a dull little letter.
Yours always affectionately
:"Sadie"*
28--
29
30 31 1 2 3*
Notes
Mr. Lowell's goldfish poem: American poet, James Russell Lowell. See Key to Correspondents. His poem, "How I Consulted the Oracle of the Goldfishes" opened the August 1889 issue of Atlantic Monthly (pp. 145-50).
I: Apparently in pencil a beginning parenthesis appears here. The end parenthesis appears at the end of this paragraph in page 3 -- after "very eagerly." Probably this was added by another person.
Lilian: Lilian Woodman Aldrich. See Key to Correspondents.
A. F.: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
sister Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
Miss Francis: Richard Cary write: "Susan Moore Francis (1839-1919), graceful essayist and book reviewer, came to the Atlantic as editorial assistant during the incumbency of James T. Fields and served the five succeeding editors in similar capacity."
Sadie: Sadie Martinot was a Jewett nickname with the Aldriches, presumably after the American actress and singer, Sarah/Sadie Martinot. See Key to Correspondents.
3: This looks like a calendar. It's purpose is not clear.
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: 2713.
John Greenleaf Whittier to Annie Adams Fields
Conway House
Conway N.H.
7/24 1889
My dear Friend
My cousins & I have been here for the last week, with some other friends of ours. The weather has been delightful and [ Chocura meaning Chocorua ] & [ unrecognized name ] are looking their best{.} We have just returned from the banks of the Saco where it is joined by the Swift River* -- a very fine bit for the painter. This rainy season has left the mid
[ Page 2 ]
-summer greener if possible than June, and I never saw the Saco intervale more lovely.
Gen Armstrong* writes me that he is to be in Holderness at his place on Asquam Lake next month. He needs rest and he needs loving words ^of^ encouragement. He would I know appreciate them from thee more than any one else. I wish thee would write him.
What will be done for dear Dr Holmes* on his coming birthday? I wish I could be with him at the time, but fear I cannot. I am not certain of the date. Is it the 30th or 31st ?
[ Page 3 ]
Our house is pretty full and the [ young or younger ] people are enjoying lawn tennis and baseball, and the older folks are riding and gossiping. As soon as there are rooms I shall beg thee & Sarah* to come & occupy them.
If Dr Holmes is in thy neighborhood do give him my love. I hope thee will look in on the turtle-doves at East Gloucester.*
My cousins the Cartlands* desire to be remembered to thee and Sarah Jewett. I send all my love with theirs. Ever affectionately
John G Whittier
Notes
Saco River: Mount Chocorua in the White Mountains of New Hampshire is about 10 miles west of Conway. The Swift River flows into the Saco River on the north side of Conway.
Gen Armstrong: Whittier supported the Hampton Institute, founded in 1861 to educate former African American slaves, now known as Hampton University. The first principal of the school was General Samuel Chapman Armstrong (1839-1893), a friend of Whittier.
Probably Whittier's concern for Armstrong arises from charges made earlier in the year that Native Americans were mistreated at the Hampton Institute. Armstrong's own account of these events appears in Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (1888), pp. 25-7.
Dr Holmes: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (29 August 1809 - 1894). See Key to Correspondents.
Sarah: Sarah Orne Jewett.
turtle-doves at East Gloucester: It is likely Whittier refers to Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Herbert Ward, who were recently married in October 1888. See Key to Correspondents and also the Phillips Library.
Cartlands: Richard Cary says that Joseph Cartland (1810-1898) and his cousin Gertrude Cartland (1822-1911) accompanied Whittier on his summer vacations in Maine and New Hampshire for five decades, and Whittier lived in their home at Newburyport, Massachusetts most of his last fifteen winters.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields collection: mss FI 72-4854. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Horace Scudder
South Berwick
1 August 1889*
Dear Mr Scudder
You may call the book Betty Leicester in the Fall Catalogue, if you please, or Betty Leicester: a Story for Girls. *
I hope to send in the manuscript, or part of it at least, by the 20th or 25th unless I am unexpectedly hindered. It seems to me
[ Page 2 ]
that the middle of October is a good time to bring out a book of this sort, or even the first of November, since one does not wish to have it already old when the Christmas sales begin in the shops. If it were one of my books of stories I should think early September much the best.
But I say this to you who have thought much more about the matter than I!
With best regards
Yours sincerely
S. O. Jewett
To Horace E. Scudder Esqr
[ Page 3 ]
" With the House's permission I will say a word to Mrs Whitman* about the cover when I see her again.
Notes
1 August 1889: In the upper right corner of page 1, underlined and in another hand: "Sarah O. Jewett".
A vertical line has been drawn slightly to the horizontal through the first paragraph. At the end of the line are initials that are not clear, perhaps AJ ?
To the right of Jewett's signature on p. 2 appear Horace Scudder's initials, presumably in his hand: H.E.S.
Betty Leicester: A Story for Girls: Jewett's novel appeared in 1890. Much of it had appeared in 1889 as a serial in St. Nicholas, a magazine for young readers, under the title "A Bit of Color."
Mrs Whitman: Sarah Wyman Whitman. See Key to Correspondents. Link to cover designs.
The marks at the beginning of this line look like quotation marks, but as there is no end quotation, they may have been added by another hand, to note an item needing a response, or perhaps Jewett added them to call attention to this post script.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University in Houghton Mifflin Company correspondence and records, 1832-1944, Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. 68 letters from; 1870-1907 and [n.d.]. MS Am 1925 (962). Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich to Sarah Orne Jewett
Paris
Aug 3d / 89.
My dear friend Sadie:*
Your little note comes to me just as we are spreading wing for a short flight into Switzerland, and I have only a moment to say that you shall have the ms. when I return. The dear poet completely forgot his promise to you when he signed the poem and presented it to me to be bound in Stedman's Poets of America.* But you have the first claim to the ms, and shall have it tout le mȇme,* as we say in our native land. Dear T.L.!*
[ Page 2 ]
give our love to her. When we get back we shall run down to Manchester for a day, if it be a possible thing. I shall have a dreadful [ lot ? ] of matters to straighten out when I find myself in the Atlantic office. I hate to think of it.
Matilda and I and the boys* are having such a lovely time! I pity everybody who isn't with us!
Ever affectionately yours,Notes
T. B. Aldrich.
Sadie: Sadie Martinot was a Jewett nickname with the Aldriches, after the American actress and singer, Sarah/Sadie Martinot. See Key to Correspondents.
Stedman's Poets of America: Aldrich refers to Jewett's letter of 23 July, in which she requested the manuscript of "How I Consulted the Oracle of the Goldfishes" by American poet, James Russell Lowell. See Key to Correspondents. The poem opened the August 1889 issue of Atlantic Monthly (pp. 145-50). It was collected in a posthumous volume, Last Poems (1895), compiled by Charles Eliot Norton.
Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833-1908); his study of American poetry, Poets of America, appeared in 1885. What Aldrich means by his statement that Lowell's poem was to be bound in Stedman's volume is not yet understood.
tout le mȇme: French: all the same.
T. L.: Nickname for Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Matilda ... boys: Mrs. Aldrich's full given name was Mary Elizabeth "Lily" Woodman. Almost certainly, Aldrich refers to her. The Aldriches' twin sons, Talbot and Charles were born in 1868. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by Colby College Special Collections, Collection of Sarah Orne Jewett Materials: Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett, Thomas Bailey Aldrich 1889-1895. 2 ALS Cambridge. Ponkapog, MA. 6 p.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Houghton Mifflin & Company
[ 12 August 1889 ]*
Messrs Houghton Mifflin & Co.
Gentlemen
Will you please send me 3 copies Folly Island
and 3 copies White Heron
and 3 copies Marsh Island*
by express just as soon as possible to Manchester by the Sea, Mass. Care of Mrs J. T. Fields.*
[ Yrs very truly ? ]
Sarah O . Jewett.
Notes
12 August 1889: In the upper right corner of page 1, underlined and in another hand: "Sarah O. Jewett" followed by the initials "F.J.G." for Francis Jackson Garrison. See Key to Correspondents. Near the upper left corner is a Houghton Mifflin date stamp: 13 August 1889.
Marsh Island: Jewett's novel, A Marsh Island (1885), and two story collections, The King of Folly Island (1888) and A White Heron (1886).
Mrs J. T. Fields: Annie Adams Fields, whose summer residence was in Manchester by the Sea, MA. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University in Houghton Mifflin Company correspondence and records, 1832-1944, Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. 68 letters from; 1870-1907 and [n.d.]. MS Am 1925 (962). Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman to Sarah Orne Jewett
Randolph, Mass.Dear Miss Jewett,
12th August - 1889.
I was delighted when I returned from a little visit at Brant Rock to find your letter waiting here for me.
You dont know how glad I am that you do like my Gentle Ghost,* for I have felt somewhat uncertain as to how it would be liked. It is in some respects a departure from my usual vein, and I have made a little lapse into the mystical and romantic one for which I have a strong inclination, but do not generally yield
[ Page 2 ]
toit. [ Mr. corrected ] Alden liked the story very much, Miss Booth,* not so very well. And I believe I rather* laugh at myself for writing it, but that forlorn little girl had been in my head a matter of a dozen years, and I had put her in a poem with poor success once. I felt that she must be disposed of, so about two years ago, I put ^her^ in the Gentle Ghost.
Dear Miss Jewett, you are lovely to write to me so about my stories, but I never wrote any story equal to your "White Heron".* I dont think I ever read a short story, unless I except Tolstoi's "Two Deaths,"* that so appealed to me. I would not have given up that bird any more than you would, if he had come first.
[ Page 3 ]
I have not heard lately from Mrs. Pratt.* She wrote to me for a story some time ago, but I regret to say that I have not been able to let her have one. But I do mean to write one for her, and stipulate that it shall not be used except in the Magazine, as you said. I suppose she must be in New Hampshire.
I am going to Bar Harbor the 30th for a stay of two weeks, and I shall think of you, as I sail along the Maine coast. You were very kind to write to me.
I am truly yours.
Mary E. Wilkins
Notes
Gentle Ghost: Wilkins Freeman's "A Gentle Ghost" appeared in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, August 1889, and was collected in A New England Nun (1891).
Alden ... Booth: Henry Mills Alden. Key to Correspondents.
It would seem probable that Wilkins-Freeman refers to Mary Louise Booth (1831-1889), editor of Harper's Bazar. However, she died, after a short illness, on 5 March 1889, months before this letter, but perhaps not before she expressed her opinion about "A Gentle Ghost." Perhaps Wilkins Freeman submitted the story to Booth two years ago, and resubmitted to Alden more recently. Wikipedia.
rather: I am unable to make out what Wilkins Freeman wrote here. I defer to the transcription by Brent Kendrick in The Infant Sphinx: Collected letters of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (1985) pp. 97-8.
While Heron: Jewett's "A White Heron" first appeared in A White Heron and Other Stories (1886).
Two Deaths: Presumably, Wilkins Freeman refers to "Three Deaths" (1859) by Russian author Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910). Britannica and Wikipedia.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Miller Library, Special Collections, Colby College, Waterville, ME: JEWE.1. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
John Greenleaf Whittier to Annie Adams Fields
Newburyport
Aug. 23 1889
My dear friend
Thy note of the 8th [ unrecognized abbreviation ] came to me only three days ago. Where it has been wandering I scarcely know. I left Conway in consequence of serious illness on the 14th and have been confined here ever since, gradually I think gaining, but still very weak.
Had I been at Oak Knoll I should have welcomed Senator Edmunds* & family [ es meaning especially ? ]
[ Page 2 ]
if thee had been with them. It is so long since I have seen thee!
I have had the kind care of my dear cousins here, but I hope in a short time I shall be able to go to my old home in Amesbury.
I have just got a letter from the Boston Daily Adv. asking for something for Dr Holmes' birthday*{.} I am hardly in a fit condition to write but shall try to send a brief note or verse{.}
[ Page 3 ]
I hope Sarah* is with thee by this time. I am afraid it must be sometimes lonely by the sea.
My cousins desire to be remembered to thee. They have not forgotten the lovely visit to Asquam. For myself, sick or well, affectionately and very gratefully thy friend always.
John G Whittier
Notes
Senator Edmunds: The abolitionist Senator George F. Edmunds (1828-1919) of Vermont. Fields and Jewett had spent time with his family in the spring of 1888, in Aiken, SC.
Dr Holmes birthday: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (29 August 1809 - 1894). See Key to Correspondents.
Sarah: Sarah Orne Jewett.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields collection: mss FI 72-4864. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
John Greenleaf Whittier to Annie Adams Fields
Newburyport
Mass
Aug 27 1889
My dear Friend
I have just sent a few lines* to the Boston Advertiser this morning a copy of which my cousin Gertrude Cartland* has made. As I infer from thy letter that thee will see him on the 29th I enclose it. If opportunity affords please hand it to him with my love.
I am still far from strong, but on the whole gaining, and
[ Page 2 ]
[ and repeated ] expect to go to Amesbury in a few days.
I am glad dear Sarah* is to be with thee this week. Her new story in the Atlantic I expect to read today.
I hoped I should be able to see Celia Thaxter* at the Shoals this season, but of course it is now out of the question. I am not much interested in "reincarnation." I believe in God & the immortal life
[ Page 3 ]
and calmly await and trust.
I do not know what thee & others of Dr. Holmes neighbors intend on his birthday, but whatever it is I am sure it will be tenderly & beautifully done.
My cousins desire to be kindly remembered to thee, and with love and gratitude I am always [ thine ? ]*
John G Whittier
Notes
few lines: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (29 August 1809 - 1894). See Key to Correspondents.
Whittier composed a sonnet to honor Holmes on his 80th birthday.
O. W. Holmes on his Eightieth BirthdayPickard's note on this letter says:
CLIMBING a path which leads back never more
We heard behind his footsteps and his cheer;
Now, face to face, we greet him standing here
Upon the lonely summit of Fourscore!
Welcome to us, oer whom the lengthened day
Is closing and the shadows colder grow,
His genial presence, like an afterglow,
Following the one just vanishing away.
Long be it ere the table shall be set
For the last breakfast of the Autocrat,
And love repeat with smiles and tears thereat
His own sweet songs that time shall not forget.
Waiting with us the call to come up higher,
Life is not less, the heavens are only nigher!
Holmes acknowledged the poem on September 2, saying:
"Here I am at your side among the octogenarians. At seventy we are objects of veneration; at eighty, of curiosity, at ninety, of wonder, and if we reach a hundred we are candidates for a side show attached to Barnum's great exhibition. You know all about it. You know why I have not thanked you before this for your beautiful and precious tribute, which would make any birthday memorable. I remember how you were overwhelmed with tributes on the occasion of your own eightieth birthday, and you can understand the impossibility I find before me of responding in any fitting shape to all the tokens of friendship which I received. [ . . . ] I hope, dear Whittier, that you find much to enjoy in the midst of all the lesser trials which old age must bring with it. You have kind friends all around you, and the love and homage of your fellow-countrymen as few have enjoyed, with the deep satisfaction of knowing that you have earned them, not merely by the gifts of your genius, but by a noble life which has ripened without a flaw into a grand and serene old age. I never see my name coupled with yours, as it often is nowadays, without feeling honored by finding myself in such company, and wishing that I were more worthy of it" (Pickard, Life, pp. 741-742).
Gertrude Cartland: Richard Cary says that Joseph Cartland (1810-1898) and his cousin Gertrude Cartland (1822-1911) accompanied Whittier on his summer vacations in Maine and New Hampshire for five decades, and Whittier lived in their home at Newburyport, Massachusetts most of his last fifteen winters.
Sarah: Sarah Orne Jewett. Her sketch "The White Rose Road," appeared in the September 1889 Atlantic Monthly.
Celia Thaxter: See Key to Correspondents.
thine: This is Pickard's reading of difficult handwriting.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields collection: mss FI 72-4850. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
This letter has been transcribed previously by Pickard, Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier. v. 3.
Edward Everett Hale to Sarah Orne Jewett
Boston: Aug. 28. 1889My dear Mifs* Jewett:
You will be surprised to hear that I am safe at home again after my extraordinary adventures. Sindbad* himself did not rival them --
And among them all nothing was so [ charming ? ] as that happy chance by which I met you, and the promptnefs with which you turned it into an invitation, to a
[ Page 2 ]
poor storm tofsed traveller with no [ rest ? ] for the sole of his feet; whom you welcomed to the charming hospitalities of South Berwick --
I am just back here from the brawls and frivolities of Bar Harbour: -- the most extraordinary mixture conceivable: -- not to say inconceivable, had not one seen it. I enjoyed it very
[ Page 3 ]Notes
much and am very glad to be out of it. I see people so much in winter that they tire me in summer --
Susan* -- and Mr. Mackintosh are where we left them.
And by this mail comes the charming picture of Mrs. Fields* which you are
[ Page 4 ]
4/
so good as to obtain for me. Now I only need yours that my memorials of South Berwick may be complete{.}
Will you give my regards to your mother & sister:* -- and believe me Truly and [ alwys so it appears ] yours
Edw E Hale
Mifs: Hale makes consistent use of the "long s" in this letter. I have chosen to show it with "fs" as it appears.
Sindbad: Often spelled "Sinbad," this is a fictional sailor-hero in a story cycle of seven voyages set in the Arab regions of East Africa and Southern Asia. Wikipedia.
Susan ... Mackintosh: Hale's sister, American artist, traveler and author, Susan Hale (1833-1910).
The transcription is uncertain. This may be "Mrs." Mackintosh. The person has not yet been identified.
Fields: Annie Adams Fields. Key to Correspondents.
sister: Also living with Jewett and her mother at this time was Mary Rice Jewett. Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Miller Library, Special Collections, Colby College, Waterville, ME: JEWE.1. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Edmund Clarence Stedman to Sarah Orne Jewett
[ Begin letterhead, underlined portions by hand ]
"A LIBRARY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE"
_____
OFFICE OF
CHARLES L. WEBSTER & CO. PUBLISHERS.
EDITORS
EDMUNC CLARENCE STEDMAN,
ELLEN MACKAY HUTCHINSON.
3 EAST 14TH STREET.
NEW YORK CITY, Aug. 28 1889
[ End letterhead ]
My dear Miss Jewett,
I shall be forced to draw upon the good offices of our friends at 4 Park St.,* in order to make sure that this note reaches you promptly. But were I at Kelp Rock this summer, & not a slave to these galleys, I certainly should bear my present petition to you myself = thus having a fair excuse for a drive to your summer haunt, and for a meeting -- at last -- with Miss Jewett. As it
[ Page 2 ]
is, let my pen be as persuasive as if it were my speech, or, as in the case of St. Paul,* still more so. -- We are preparing some very fine engraved portraits, of authors, for our Vol. X, and very much wish to include yours among the number. Miss Woolson* has sent me a good photograph, which is now in the engraver's hands. If you will be equally gracious, I shall make every effort to produce a tasteful & artistic engraving, & shall take pleasure in giving you "artists proofs" of it, & in having it accompany the selections* from your writings in the Lib. of Amer. Lit -- I shall hope for an early reply, as we are driving matters rapidly.
Pray believe me
Very faithfully yrs
Edward C. Stedman.
Notes
4 Park St: The offices of Atlantic Monthly and Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.
St. Paul: Paul the Apostle (c. 5-64 CE).
Woolson: American poet, Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840-1894).
selections: Stedman compiled and edited The Library of American Literature (1888-1890). Jewett's story, "Miss Tempy's Watchers" was included in V. 10, with a portrait and her autograph on p. 514.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Miller Library, Special Collections, Colby College, Waterville, ME: JEWE.1.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
John Greenleaf Whittier to Annie Adams Fields
Newburyport
[ Septr corrected from Aug] 2 1889
My dear friend
Thy letter was very welcome, giving an account of Dr Holmes Birthday.* Would it not be possible for thee to come up here this week? I think there is a train from Gloucester which intersects with the Boston train at Beverly, reaching here in the forenoon. There is one afternoon train I think which reaches here between 2 & 3
[ Page 2 ]
o c'lk. Cousin Gertrude* sends her love, and would be glad to have thee drive with her on Wednesday or Sunday, and I need not say how glad I shall be to see thee. If thee can come, please drop a line [ telling us ? ] which day and by what train, so that we can meet thee at the station.
Every affectionately thine
John G Whittier
Notes
Dr Holmes Birthday: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (29 August 1809 - 1894). See Key to Correspondents.
Cousin Gertrude: Richard Cary says that Joseph Cartland (1810-1898) and his cousin Gertrude Cartland (1822-1911) accompanied Whittier on his summer vacations in Maine and New Hampshire for five decades, and Whittier lived in their home at Newburyport, Massachusetts most of his last fifteen winters.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields collection: mss FI 72-4847. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Louisa Loring Dresel
South Berwick
7 September
[ 1889 ]*
My dear Loulie
I hope that I am not late with my letter for indeed I should like to have you find it at first, and to make it say plainly how glad I am to think of your coming home -- I have missed you, and I was very sorry that so long time passed without a letter. I do not know whether you
[ Page 2 ]
ever received mine with the interesting fortune-telling lady's note in it, but you have never complained of not getting it so I will not worry -- I shall wish to hear more about her. I am to be in Manchester from Wednesday until Monday and I hope to see you. Mrs. Fields* is closing the house early this autumn
[ Page 3 ]
for we have promised to make a visit in Vermont and she does not think it is worth while to come back afterward. My sister* is still 'abroad' so that I could not promise to be with her (Mrs. Fields, I mean!) You will find her so much better than you left her last year when you went away. It is [ really corrected ] delightful to think how well she
[ Page 4 ]
has been all summer.
It will be so much pleasanter to tell you things when I see you that I am not going to write them now -- and I send this note just by way of saying how are you? [ to corrected ] you and dear Mrs. Dresel. I am so glad to have you both back again!
Yours affectionately,
S. O. J.
I am deeply interested about Ellis's photographs.* Your last letter was so interesting. Do not forget
[ Up the left margin and across the top margin of page 1 ]
to give my love to the ladies King,* it would seem quite good -- grammatical to say the three Princesses or strictly two Princesses and a Queen! I always wish to change names for people -- it is always a temptation to say the Fairchildren* [ are ? ] in town. And the Feets instead of the Footes but we can continue this and make ourselves [ fair ? ] some day!
Notes
1889: This date is penciled in the upper left of page 1. Jewett mentions that her sister, Mary Rice Jewett, is abroad; she traveled to Europe without her family in the summer of 1889.
Mrs. Fields: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Ellis's: Dresel's brother. See Key to Correspondents.
King: Scott Stoddart identified these women as Dresel's aunts. One of them, "Caroline Howard King (1822-1909) wrote When I Lived at Salem. 1822-1866 (Brattleboro, Vt. 1937)."
Fairchildren ... Footes: See Sally Fairchild and Kate Grant Knowlton Foote in Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is in the collection of the Miller Library of Colby College, Waterville, ME: JEWE.1. Scott Frederick Stoddart's transcription is in his Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign: Selected Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett,1988.
New transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Houghton Mifflin & Company
Messrs Houghton Mifflin & Co
South Berwick Maine
9 Sept -- 1889*
Gentlemen
I have been wondering if among my changes of my address, the proof page of Betty Leicester* has gone astray? I have not received it and as Mr. Houghton* thought that it would be ready in a day or two I am little uneasy. The rest of the
[ Page 2 ]copy is ready; as soon as I know that the book is under weigh I will send it.
I have concluded that [ if corrected from it ] the Playdays* size asks for more material and if the page in larger type has too juvenile a look, to put the story into little classics form -- [ where or when ] we shall be quite safe. As nearly as
[ Page 3 ]
I can reckon there will be 52000 words, which is more than I supposed.
I shall be here untiltomWednesday morning and then I go to Manchester for a few days{.}
Yours very truly
S. O. Jewett
Notes
1889: In the upper left corner of page 1, in another hand, set off in a 2-line box: "S. O. Jewett Sept. 9". Near the bottom left corner of page 3 appear the initials "F.J.G." for Francis Jackson Garrison. See Key to Correspondents.
Betty Leicester: Jewett's 1890 novel.
Mr. Houghton: Henry Oscar Houghton. See Key to Correspondents.
Playdays: Jewett's collection of stories for young readers, Play Days (1878).
See the notes to Jewett's letter to Houghton Mifflin of 23 July 1889 for information on alternative formats for Betty Leicester.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University in Houghton Mifflin Company correspondence and records, 1832-1944, Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. 68 letters from; 1870-1907 and [n.d.]. MS Am 1925 (962). Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Houghton Mifflin & Company
Friday morning
Manchester
[ 12 September 1889 ]*
Messrs Houghton Mifflin & Co
Gentlemen
I have just received the proof of Betty Leicester* and I only fear that [it corrected from if ? ] may appear to be distinctly a "juvenile." If I am too fastidious in the matter & too apprehensive I beg that you will decide
[ Page 2 ]
the matter, by going on with the book in this shape -- I have been wavering between this and The White Heron* form but I like this fine type very much, & if you do not fear a baleful effect upon The Trade, we will have it so. I shall be in town [ on corrected from in ? ] Monday and I can see you about it if necessary in which
[ Page 3 ]
case please send me word tomorrow at Manchester. [ Unrecognized word ] I beg pardon for writing in such haste{.}
Yrs very truly
S. O. Jewett.
Notes
12 August 1889: In the upper left corner of page 1, in another hand, underlined: "Sarah O. Jewett". Below this is the Houghton Mifflin date stamp: 14 September 1889,
Betty Leicester: Jewett's 1890 novel.
White Heron: Jewett's short story collection, A White Heron (1886).
See the notes to Jewett's letter to Houghton Mifflin of 23 July 1889 for information on alternative formats for Betty Leicester.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University in Houghton Mifflin Company correspondence and records, 1832-1944, Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. 68 letters from; 1870-1907 and [n.d.]. MS Am 1925 (962). Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields
Kittery Point Sept 17th
(89*
My dearest:
Thousand thanks for your dear letter -- I hope you have the two photos of [ Lucy ? ]* I sent you to 148,* for you & Pinny* -- Karl & I got here a week ago & I am so busy writing, painting, cooking, mending, & heaven know what. I havent a minute to breathe --
Shall write some more at length. This is to send love to you & Pin. Am expecting Ross Turner* every day, to sketch. Am looking forward to seeing you in Nov. Dear love to Pin & to you from your faithful
C.
Notes
89: Transcription of Thaxter's date is uncertain; she may have written 81, 87, or 89. 1881 is unlikely because there is as yet no evidence that Thaxter and Sarah Orne Jewett were using the "Pinny" nickname for Jewett before the spring of 1882. While 1887 is not impossible, 1889 appears more likely, for during that year Thaxter's disabled son, Karl, was very active with his photography.
Lucy: What Thaxter has written is uncertain. It could be Lucy or Susy or even Sarah. Given this lack of certainty, there seems little point in attempting to identify this person.
148: Fields's Boston home at 148 Charles St.
Pinny: Pinny and Pin are nicknames for Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents. Karl is Thaxter's oldest son.
Turner: Ross Sterling Turner (1847-1914) "was a painter, watercolorist, and illustrator, active in the Boston area, known for his landscapes and floral subjects. ... Loosely associated with the 'Duveneck boys' after about 1879, Turner painted in Venice and Florence, and he also worked in Rome. In 1882 he settled in Boston, exhibiting more watercolors than oil paintings."
Thaxter took painting lessons from him.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University MS Am 1743, Box 7 item 321a. III Letters to Annie Adams Fields. 4 letters from Celia Thaxter.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
An admirer to Sarah Orne Jewett
[ 24 September 1889 ]
My Dear Miss Jewett,
This sad September day I have been driving with you in the clear Sunshine of Early Summer on the White Rose Road.*
[ Page 2 ]
I am moved to tell you how much I have enjoyed this drive with you{.} After a day ill-spent among little things, it has cleared the cobwebs from my brain, brought refreshing tears
[ Page 3 ]
to my eyes, and carried me straight back into the heart of my childhood with all its simple loves and [ golden ? ] ways. Thank Heaven for a true interpreter of simple noble country life
[ Page 4 ]
Yours is the stamp of the genuine penny royal. I will not trouble you with my name, but sign myself,
Your most Sincere and hearty admirer.
Sept. 24th '89.
Notes
1889: An envelope associated with this letter was canceled in Greenwich, CT on 26 September 1889.
White Rose Road: Jewett's admirer refers to Jewett sketch of this title, which appeared in Atlantic (September 1889).
The manuscript of this letter is held by the University of New England Maine Women Writers Collection, Sarah Orne Jewett Correspondence Box 1 Folder 049
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Azariah Smith
South Berwick
28 September
[ 1889 ]
Dear Mr. Smith
The thought strikes me that it will be a good thing to put an advertisement into St. Nicholas, in orderthatthat the young folks who were pleased to like "A Bit of Colour" may understand that "Betty [ Leicester corrected ]"* includes those chapters with a great deal of new material.
There have been letters and letters about it you see! and I think that
[ Page 2 ]
the book might [ deleted letters ] add to its Christmas sale, but of course we must make it understood by that special audience that there has not been merely a change of title. I think that nearly two thirds of the book will be new.
If you find the September Atlantic notices* will you please let me see them? and I will send them back.
Yours sincerely
S. O. Jewett
Notes
1889: In the upper left corner of page 1, in another hand, underlined: "Sarah O. Jewett". In the right corner are what appear to be two initials, probably A.S., though they are difficult to make out.
Betty Leicester: Jewett's 1890 novel, from which she developed from her long story, "A Bit of Color," was serialized in St. Nicholas in early 1889.
notices: Jewett's sketch,"The White Rose Road," appeared in Atlantic in September 1889. Presumably, she is curious about any attention this piece may have received in other publications.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University in Houghton Mifflin Company correspondence and records, 1832-1944, Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. 68 letters from; 1870-1907 and [n.d.]. MS Am 1925 (962). Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to John Greenleaf Whittier
South Berwick
Wednesday night
[ September/ October 1889 ]*
My dear friend
I am so sorry to hear that you have been so poorly and I do wish that there was anything I could do for you. Is there? Can I write or read or make the time go easier in any way? I envy Mrs. Cartland* who can do so many things -- but I do love you and think of you a great deal.
[ Page 2 ]
I did not know until lately that you had come back from Conway but I thought you were waiting tohearknow about an empty room in the hotel to which Mrs. Fields and I could come, and I was looking forward to seeing you and having our summer talk under the pines -- I am so sorry to think of your being ill --
-- I have been busy writing all summer. My sister Mary* went to Europe as I have told you, and that has made
[ Page 3 ]
me of unusual importance to the housekeeping here -- and I have done a great deal of writing -- some short things; one of them has gone to the Century and I called it In Dark New England Days* -- I wish that one didn't have to wait years for things to get into print !! I am so eager to see if you will not like it. Then I went to work to finish a book for girls called Betty Leicester,* part of which was printed in St.
[ Page 4 ]
NIcholas last spring. It has been a long 'stint' but I shall be done with it in a few days now.
How beautiful your sonnet was to Dr. Holmes!* -- one of [ your corrected ] most beautiful poems. I keep remembering what Dr. Holmes said about Mrs. Howe* "Seventy years young" -- it is so true of all who really live. I think that you and Mrs. fields are my two youngest and growing-est friends!! So many people get their growth at twenty and are never any bigger like lilac bushes -- but up
[ Up the left margin and across the top margin of page 1 ]
go the big trees over head! Give my love to Mrs. Cartland, and you know how much I always send to you with and without letters. Yours truly & affectionately Sarah.
Notes
1889: As the notes below confirm, Jewett must have written this letter between August and October of 1889.
Cartland: Richard Cary says that Joseph Cartland (1810-1898) and Whittier's cousin Gertrude Cartland (1822-1911) accompanied Whittier on his summer vacations in Maine and New Hampshire for five decades, and Whittier lived in their home at Newburyport, Massachusetts most of his last fifteen winters.
Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. Key to Correspondents. She traveled to Europe in the summer of 1889, returning on 13 October.
In Dark New England Days: Jewett's story appeared in Century about a year after this letter, October 1890.
Betty Leicester: "A Bit of Color," three parts in St. Nicholas during the spring of 1889, eventually became Jewett's novel Betty Leicester: A Story for Girls (1890).
sonnet ... Dr. Holmes: Olive Wendel Holmes, Sr. Key to Correspondents.
Whittier's August 1889 sonnet was "O. W. Holmes on his Eightieth Birth-day." Whittier wrote, in part,
Long be it ere the table shall be setHowe: Julia Ward Howe. Key to Correspondents.
For the last breakfast of the Autocrat,
And love repeat with smiles and tears thereat
His own sweet songs that time shall not forget.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University, Cambridge, Pickard-Whittier papers I. Letters to John Greenleaf Whittier Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. 17 letters; [1882]-1883., [1882]-1883. Box: 3 Identifier: MS Am 1844, (169).
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
John Greenleaf Whittier to Celia Thaxter
Oak Knoll
10/2 1889
My dear Friend
Now I thank thee for remembering me, and sending that lovely picture of thyself among thy flowers! I heard about it and of the beautiful char
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ity which suggested it, and I am heartily glad to have it.
I am fairly well over with my illness of this summer & autumn and am now about as usual.
Sir Edwin Arnold* came to see me and we had an interesting talk of the Oriental philosophies and the Future Life. I wish thee could have been here
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as Life, or what is called death he said was immaterial to him. He had not the slightest fear. He is on his way with his daughter to Siam and Japan.
For myself I cannot quite feel as he does. I [ dislike corrected ] change; I dread strange faces. But faith is strong that nevertheless all will be well. Even if we suffer here & hereafter, it may be the best possible for us.
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I hope the weather at the Shoals has been more sunshiny than it has been on the mainland{.} We have been soaking wet all the season. I have not been able to sit or lie on the ground at all which was a great [ deprivation ? ].
I am always affectionately and gratefully thy friend
John G Whittier
Sir Edwin Arnold: British poet, traveler and journalist, Sir Edwin Arnold (1832-1904). In his poetry, he set out to interpret for Westerners the culture of India, and especially, of Buddhism. According to Find a Grave, his only daughter was Katharine Lilian (Arnold) Earle.
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]; Oak Knoll, 2 Oct 1889. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Louisa Loring Dresel
South Berwick Maine
7 October
[ 1889 ]
Dear Loulie
Thank you for your letters. I am sorry that you didn't get mine because 'sorry' as it was by way of a letter. I meant that it should be there to meet you and tell you how glad I was that you were at home again. I was just thinking as I began this letter, how strange it must seem to have two roots and first grow with one and
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then with the other! I who have only one can hardly understand it! You see that I have no idea of allowing that you are entirely a [ deleted word ] German plant! ---- This figure might lead me into a vast letter if I only had the time, but we must both reflect further upon ^such^ a simile and the advantages and disadvantages of being double-rooted ----
I hope to be in Boston late this week to meet my sister who is coming
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in on the Pavonia.* I shall be there after Thursday morning so do try to find me, for though I am not sure of my time's [so written] and seasons the nearer it gets to Saturday the surer I am not to be far from the telephone and I do wish to see you so very much. Mrs. Fields* wrote me about seeing you with great pleasure. I shall surely get down to see Mrs Dresel if I can. It is so good that she is better, but [ I apparently written over another letter ] am so sorry that your father
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has not been feeling well. Good bye dearest Loulie. I shall be looking out for you!
Yours always affectionately
S.O.J.
Notes
1889: In another hand in the upper left corner of page one appears: 1889. As indicated below, this would seem to be the correct date.
sister ... Pavonia: Mary Rice Jewett traveled to Europe on her own in 1889. The Cunard steamship Pavonia sailed from Liverpool on 3 October 1889, arriving in Boston on 13 October.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Columbia University (New York) Library in Special Collections, Jewett. Transcription from a microfilm copy and annotation by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Adams Fields
Monday morning
[ 7 Oct. 1889 ]*
Dearest Little Fuff,*
If you were here you would look out from your window into such a beautiful yellow tree! Fuff would have to say things! and Pinny* sees it when she wakes up in the morning & looks out of her window and hates to get up and leave the lovely sight! "Any excuse for Pinny to stay in bed"? ----
(The company, all three, went away Saturday afternoon and evening so that we were alone yesterday. I went to church in the morning
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and Mr. Lewis* preached a rambling hardworking sermon with many good things in it, one of those sermons that ought to have been two! I was hoping for a / walk but I heard the rain drumming on the church roof while I sat there, so I read almost all the afternoon and through a long evening -- ) Little old Miss Elizabeth Cushing* is dead at ninety-two after a miserable year or two when all of her has been dead but her small body. I went down to see Mr. Hobbs,* her nephew, and found him as bereaved as
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possible. I dont go into the old house very often -- but yesterday I was so moved by the sight of certain things and especially of an ottoman on which I used to sit very high in the air & perilous both [ & ? ] with a sense of the occasion & being off soundings as to the floor. Such pound cakes as I have eaten on that ottoman! Somehow all the [ hospitality corrected ] of those days came back in touching contrast to the empty womanless room yesterday. Mifs Cushing has always been a recluse. I have seldom seen her on the street
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and but a few times at church. She would have been a nun in earlier days. The bustling world was always too much for her. Dear kindly soul that she was! with a pair of beautiful childlike blue eyes, which seemed forever young though I cant remember when her thin bent little figure didn't look old. She always hid away from the gayeties of the house. Her mother was a kind of little old duchess with great social facility, a friend of Lafayette* in the war times so that on his royal progress he took pains to come to see her. I used to hear the call
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related with great particularity when I was a little girl -- These were Boston Cushings originally, andhave beenwere for a long time new comers! having moved to Berwick in '95!* when Berwick, though small, was as proper a place to live in as Boston, "at least sothought^thinks^" Madam Cushing!
-- I must not forget to tell you that Mifs Elizabeth said a year or two ago when that base-looking Methodist church was building nearby -- "Charles! is that a ship I see? When are they
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going to launch!" ------ It was a curious memory of her ^childish^ visits at the old Wallingford house, her grandfathers!* which stood across the river from the Hamilton house,* when ships were built there and the river, so quiet now, was a busy place. ----
Too much of Miss Elizabeth says a patient Fuff, but I am always delighting in reading the old Berwick picturesque as it was, under the corner of the new life which seems to you so dull and unrewarding in most ways. "Where every prospect pleases" &c ought
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to be Fuff's hymn for Berwick!* the which I don't suggest unmercifully but rather compassionately, and with a plaintive feeling at heart.
I dont know when I have had such a delightful day of reading as I had yesterday. Parts of Rousseau's Confessions* were perfectly enchanting -- the bits about his walks; and whatever he writes about, he is never disgusting to me, as many of his age are. I never began to know the Confessions before. It was my first time
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as Mrs. Bell* says. I also read a good bit in Daniel' s Poems* and was so snug and lazy by a big fire in the fireplace. John* suggests the furnace, being evidently tired of getting in enough big walnut logs for all the fireplaces every morning, but I beg off selfishly. The house never seems half so pleasant when the fireplaces are cold. Give my dear love to Marigold* when you see her. ( I know she will like it better in town now that the [ piazza blotted or corrected ] is windy and I hope she will feel better for coming.) Good bye dear.
Your own P. L.)*
[ Up the left margin and then across the top margin of page 1 ]
I went down river in the canoe Saturday morning -- & wished for you -- Miss Grant's* red apples are redder this year than usual and we picked some out of the river where they had dropped in and were bobbing!
Notes
7 October 1889 ... Miss Elizabeth Cushing is dead at ninety--two: Fields notes in the upper right of page 1 are: Fall 1886. But 1889 composition of the letter is inferred from the date of Miss Cushing's death. See notes below.
Parenthesis marks in this letter are added by Fields in green pencil.
Fuff ... Pinny: Fuff is one of Jewett's affectionate nicknames for Annie Adams Fields. Pinny, Pinny Lawson, and P.L. are nicknames between Fields and Jewett for Jewett.
Fields seems to have deleted "Little Fuff" with black pencil.
Mr. Lewis: Reverend George Lothrop Lewis, Sr. (1839-1910). He was pastor at the First Parish Church (Congregational) in South Berwick, ME, 1874-1910. He read Jewett's funeral sermon.
Miss Elizabeth Cushing ... Mr. Hobbs: Elizabeth Cushing (6 October 1797- 5 October 1889). Elizabeth Cushing's cousin, Mary Hamilton Cushing married Hiram Hays Hobbs, and one of their children was Charles Cushing Hobbs (1835-1917). See The Harvard Graduates' Magazine 26 (1917) p. 277, and The Genealogy of the Cushing Family.
Fields has deleted "Mr. Hobbs" in green pencil.
friend of Lafayette: Elizabeth Cushing's mother was Olive Wallingford (c. 1758-1853), daughter of Colonel Thomas Wallingford, whose widow became a fictionalized main character in Jewett's 1901 novel, The Tory Lover. Olive and John Cushing resided in Boston during the American Revolution, where they became acquainted with the Marquis de Lafayette, the French military officer known for his service to the American army in the Revolution. During his 1825 tour of the United States, Lafayette visited South Berwick and called briefly upon Olive Cushing.
See also two accounts of the 1825 visit by General Lafayette to Madam Cushing in South Berwick and the Charles Cushing Hobbs Talk.
'95: Fields has inserted before this number in green pencil: 17.
base-looking Methodist church: This may be the Methodist Episcopal Church that stood at 36 Main St. in South Berwick. Built in 1837, burned in 1849 temperance unrest, then moved in 1888. Perhaps Miss Cushing referred to the moving of this church? Or she may have referred to the School Street Methodist Church, which was built in 1877.
the old Wallingford house ... Hamilton house: The houses of Thomas Wallingford and the Jonathan Hamilton house both figure prominently in Jewett's 1901 novel, The Tory Lover. Everett Stackpole in "South Berwick: The First Permanent Settlement in Maine" locates Madam's Cove on the west side of the Salmon Falls River between the mouth of the Great Works River and Hamilton House. (See also, Thompson 134 and Catalfo 257). Stackpole adds in "Sligo and Vicinity" that deep water in this cove was called "Hobbs' Hole" and that Thomas Wallingford's house stood "about two or three rods from the river and near a wading place close to the foot of Little John's Falls. After Wallingford's death, in 1771, his widow lived here many years and the cove in the river near by took the name of 'Madam's Cove'" (31).
"Where every prospect pleases,": This phrase is from the "Missionary Hymn" (1819) by Reginald Heber (1783-1826). Perhaps his best known hymn is "Holy! Holy! Holy!" (1827).Rousseau's "Confessions": Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), French philosopher and social critic, published his autobiographical Confessions in 1781-1788.
Mrs. Bell: Probably Helen Olcott Choate Bell. See Correspondents.
Daniel's poems: Samuel Daniel (c.1562-1619) was an English poet and dramatist.
John suggests the furnace: John Tucker. See Correspondents.
Marigold: Close friends of Mary Greenwood Lodge nicknamed her "Marigold." See Correspondents.
Miss Grant's: While this could be Olive Grant, the seamstress, she herself probably had died in January of 1888. See Correspondents.
P.L.: Pinny Lawson, one of the nicknames Fields and Jewett gave to Jewett.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University. 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). Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Annie Fields Transcription
Annie Fields included selections from this letter in her Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett (1911), p. 31, and she made a number of editorial changes.
Monday morning.
Little old Miss Elizabeth C. is dead at ninety-two, after a miserable year or two when all of her has been dead but her small body. I went down to see her nephew, and found him as bereaved as possible. I don't go into the old house very often, but yesterday I was so moved by the sight of certain things, and especially of an ottoman on which I used to sit very high in the air and perilous, both with a sense of the occasion, and being off soundings as to the floor. Such pound-cakes as I have eaten on that ottoman! Somehow all the hospitality of those days came back in touching contrast to the empty, womanless rooms yesterday. Miss C. has always been a recluse. I have seldom seen her on the street and but a few times at church. She would have been a nun in early days. The bustling world was always too much for her. Dear, kindly soul that she was, with a pair of beautiful childlike blue eyes, which seemed forever young, though I can't remember when her thin bent little figure didn't look old. She always hid away from the gayeties of the house. Her mother was a kind of little old duchess with great social faculty, a friend of Lafayette in the war times, so that on his royal progress he took pains to come to see her. I used to hear the call related with great particularity when I was a little girl. These were Boston Cushings originally, and were for a long time newcomers, having moved to Berwick in 1795, when Berwick, though small, was as proper a place to live in as Boston, "at least so thinks" Madam Cushing. I must not forget to tell you that Miss Elizabeth said a year or two ago, when that base-looking Methodist Church was building near by, "Charles, is that a ship I see? when are they going to launch?" It was curious memory of her childish visits at the old Wallingford house, her grandfather's, which stood across the river from the Hamilton house, when ships were built there and the river, so quiet now, was a busy place. Too much of Miss Elizabeth, says a patient friend, but I am always delighting in reading the old Berwick, picturesque as it was, under the cover of the new life which seems to you so dull and unrewarding in most ways. "Where every prospect pleases," etc., ought to be your hymn for Berwick, the which I don't suggest unmercifully, but rather compassionately, and with a plaintive feeling at heart.
I don't know when I have had such a delightful day of reading as I had yesterday. Part of Rousseau's "Confessions" were perfectly enchanting, -- the bits about his walks; and whatever he writes about, he is never disgusting to me, as many of his age are. I never began to know the "Confessions" before. It was my first time, as Mrs. Bell says. I also read a good bit in Daniel's poems, and was so snug and lazy by a big fire in the fireplace. John suggests the furnace, being evidently tired of getting in enough walnut logs for all the fireplaces every morning; but I beg off selfishly. The house never seems half so pleasant when the fireplaces are cold. Give my dear love to Marigold# when you see her.
Fields's note
#Mrs. James Lodge.
Ellen Tucker Emerson to Annie Adams Fields
Concord, 11 Oct. 1889.Dear Mrs Fields,
The violets were so sweet I could smell them all the way. We have no violets but plenty of violet leaves, so I have furnished them with an adequate throne of these
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and they look beautifully and have given my Mother much pleasure. We send our love and our thanks.
Yours truly
Ellen T. Emerson.
Note
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields Papers and Addenda, Box 16: mss FI 5637. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Francis Jackson Garrison
Saturday 12 October
[ 1889 ]*
Dear Mr. Garrison
I am so sorry that I forgot to thank you this morning for the portraits which you most kindly sent to Mrs. Fields* and me. I am under the shadow of reproach both on my own account and as Mrs. Fields's deputy because I did not remember
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my message. The engravings were just what we wanted --
Yours ever sincerely
S. O. Jewett
Notes
1889: In the upper left corner of page 1, in another hand, underlined: "S. O. Jewett". Below Jewett's date in the right corner, someone has placed "1889" in brackets. Though there is nothing in the letter to confirm this date except that 12 October 1889 fell on a Saturday, I have accepted it mainly because it may have been added by Mr. Garrison or another person at Houghton, Mifflin.
Mrs. Fields: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
What portraits / engravings Jewett refers to is not yet known, but she may refer to them again in a letter of 22 February 1890. If that is the case, then the portrait Jewett refers to probably is the one that appears on p. 79 of A Portrait Catalogue of the Books Published by Houghton, Mifflin and Company (1905-6).
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University in Houghton Mifflin Company correspondence and records, 1832-1944, Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. 68 letters from; 1870-1907 and [n.d.]. MS Am 1925 (962). Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Adams Fields
Tuesday evening.
[ 15 October 1889 ]*
I need not tell you what a joyful homecoming it was. Mother's look as she came running out to meet Mary was something that I never shall forget. it. It was like some old painter's picture of a Bible scene! With her arms out, and her aging face and figure. And such a time all the afternoon, and the unpacking and presents galore, and charming photographs as thick as the fallen leaves without. I kept wishing for you to "be to it," Pinny with such splendour! Burne-Jones' photographs,* new ones, and big! and a sealskin cape to her shoulders, and an Edinburgh pin, and a new ivory brush (needed!), and a beautiful piece of best lace, and some new undergarments, and stockings, and a best white petticoat, and Oh such a lot of things! I ought to be Sandpiper* to properly enumerate and describe!
Notes
15 October 1889: This letter almost certainly describes Mary Rice Jewett's return from her 1889 trip to Europe of June through October 1889. Her ship, the Pavonia, arrived in Boston on Sunday, 13 October.
Burne-Jones' photographs: Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833-1898), was a British Pre-Raphaelite painter.
Pinny ... Sandpiper: Pinny is one of Jewett's nicknames; Sandpiper is Celia Thaxter. See Key to Correspondents. Thaxter's letters often included long lists of currently blooming flowers in her garden, with comments on their colors.
This letter appears in Annie Fields, Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett (1911), Transcribed by Annie Adams Fields, with notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Annie Adams Fields to Sarah Orne Jewett
Monday Evening --
[ Autumn 1889 ]*
I cannot go to bed dearest without thanking you for your letters which came tonight to greet me at my home coming -- I had been to talk to the Conference at Roxbury and felt cold enough coming home in the horse car round the entire city -- but you shall have the handkerchiefs dear if they are to be had --
After you left on Saturday I had a quiet afternoon with calls from Mifs [ O'Brion corrected ] and Maidie Lang* until nearly five when Mr. Lowell came and big Coolidge and our dear Cambridge Alice. We four had a pleasant talk and tea and many
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inquiries were made for Pinny* and much love sent to her. Mr. Lowell has the gout still hanging about him and said he felt old{.} He was [ much corrected ] out of spirits though he said he was glad to be at home; he liked to ^ex^change fighting for his country ^in^to being abused for an Anglomaniac, every now and then. But he was much out of sorts and I was rather sorry I sent my note to him lest he had been put out by it and thought it [ unnecessary corrected ]{.} But on the whole I think it was a friendly good thing to do and I [ find ? ] it out of hand again -- Oh! he is a very sad man. Life is very hard to him. He changes place but "cannot change the pain" -- The concert was delightful and Coolidge enjoyed it all I think -- Last night they all dined with
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the Twins.* Sunday it [ snew so written ]; but I got a noble herdic about two o'clock and went to Marygold's. She was too ill to be up but today when I went again she seemed very well and read me letters from Alice James (very [ long corrected ], friendly, clever,) in which she asked to be remembered to us both ^also letters^ from A. Howe and Mrs Dresel* and was very busy and like herself. Pierce,* the grocer send his [ collecter so spelled ] after her, but she sent him off with a grand air by Mary Bolland!*
I sent the [ "go away" boy ? ]
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to E. B. E. who came to see me and left a beautiful tea=cup painted by Mifs Hale* for me with a card which I must keep to show you -- A. Warren* has not transpired since, though she left a message of thanks at the door for you ^on Saturday^ because of the wine and was sadly disappointed to find you were gone.
The concert was very beautiful and I see with regret for Mary's* sake that there is none on Saturday.
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Mr. Brooks* preached again in spite of the assistant -- a noble sermon and yet not one of the greatest.
How fine James's London* is! Marygold sent it in for me to read and I am too tired and sleepy but still I have "peeked" at it --
Rose and Horace* came last night and we talked boys clubs and she told me of her visit to Sandpiper* this past week --
Now I believe I must have told you the incidents of my life since
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we parted, [ except corrected ] perhaps the tale of a visit to the Houghtons* yesterday P.M. when I found them all clean and in their right minds and I carried some picture books to the children and made Maggie read to me in all the light they could get at 2 P.M. ---- !
Good nightNotes
darling
from your own
A.F.
1889: This date is supported by Fields's report that she has a copy of Henry James's A London Life. See notes below.
Mifs O'Brion ... Maidie Lang .. Mr. Lowell ... Coolidge ... Cambridge Alice:
For James Russell Lowell, Sarah Chauncey Woolsey (Coolidge), and Alice Longfellow of Cambridge, see Key to Correpondents.
Mary Eliza O'Brion (1859-1930 -- unconfirmed life dates), Boston-based concert pianist, private teacher, and instructor at Wellesley College. Her name appears regularly on programs as a piano soloist and accompanist with various groups and orchestras. She often performed with the Latvian immigrant composer and pianist Olga von Radecki (1858-1933). Among von Radecki's compositions is a setting of Jewett's poem, "Boat Song."
The transcription of "Maidie Lang" is uncertain, and this person has not yet been identified.
Pinny: A nickname for Jewett.
Twins: Affectionate reference to the sisters (but not really twins) Helen Choate Bell and Miriam Foster Pratt. Key to Correspondents.
Marygold's: Nickname for Mary Greenwood Lodge. Key to Correspondents. In the fall of 1889, she was fatally ill, dying on 21 December 1889.
Alice James: American author Alice James (1848-1892), sister of authors Henry and William James. Wikipedia and Key to Correspondents.
A. Howe and Mrs Dresel: Alice Greenwood Howe and the mother of Louisa Dresel. Key to Correspondents.
Pierce: the S.S. Pierce grocery became the grocer in Boston in the 19th Century. Wikipedia.
Mary Bolland: This person has not yet been identified.
E.B.E.... Hale: The transcription of E.B.E. is uncertain. It may well be E.B.G. In any case, this person has not yet been identified. Considering the others in this group of visitors, one may wonder if Fields meant to refer to Ellen Tucker Emerson. See Edith Forbes Emerson in Key to Correspondents.
A. Warren: This may be Alice Amelia Bartlett Warren (1843-1912) traveled often in Europe and moved in the same social circles as Fields and Jewett, being a friend of Henry James and Ellen Emerson, among other Jewett correspondents. See the introduction to Little Women Abroad: The Alcott Sisters' Letters from Europe, 1870-1871 (2008), edited by Daniel Shealy, pp. lxii-lxiii. Find a Grave.
Mary's: Mary Rice Jewett. Key to Correspondents.
Brooks: Phillips Brooks. Key to Correspondents.
James's London: Probably this is Henry James's A London Life, and Other Tales (1889).
Rose and Horace: Rose Lamb and her brother, Horatio. Key to Correspondents.
Rose Lamb served in the Women's Municipal League of Boston, which engaged in various projects to provide services to the poor.
Sandpiper: Celia Thaxter. Key to Correspondents.
Houghtons ... Maggie: That there are children at home indicates that this is not the publisher Henry Oscar Houghton (Key to Correspondents), but perhaps his son, Henry Oscar Houghton, Jr. (1856-1906). However the daughters of Houghton, Jr., were born in the 1890s, after the death of James Russell Lowell.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Sarah Orne Jewett Additional Correspondence, 100 letters from Annie Adams Fields, bMS Am 1743.1 Box 1, Item 33.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Mary Rice Jewett
Sunday afternoon
[ 20 October 1889 ]*
Dear Mary
I have finished work on Betty Leicester* and I shall send it by express tomorrow as that will be quicker Monday. Will you please take it over to Sarah Leah* in the evening if you can, for I want her to get it done in a week so that I can have it Tuesday (27th) when I can go over it & send it off before I start eastward. I hope she had got her typewriter mended -- it was out of repair ten days ago but she was going to have it put to rights next day. If she couldnt just bring the book home and I can sacrifice it having another copy and let them set up the type from it.
Yesterday was passed in friendly intercourse: we went to S.W.s* to a pretty luncheon, and saw many friends. There is a very nice Lord Gough (and his wife) who are cousins of the Arbuthnots* who have sent a letter about them and so we were glad to meet and have words together. Lord Gough who is Mr. As cousin and much more like Mrs. A! is a member of the Legation at Washington.* Of course the twins were there & the Higginsons* and it was all very nice and pleasant. S.W. is going to North East Harbor on Tuesday, so I dont expect to see her again. Katy Coolidge* is going away for a change -- to Paris for two months which we all hail with delight! She has decided suddenly, S.W. says. It was so nice to hear every thing you told about the day at York -- how much you managed to do -- but I am bustling with questions, especially for Sister Carrie.* Mrs. Lee wrote Mrs. Cabot* with such pleasure about seeing her. I have about decided to go to spend two days with Mary Garrett* next week which involves my leaving home on Wednesday morning but I hope to get home from the Mountains on Monday. You see I shall have to spend the night in Rockland any way and I should like to see Mary* before she goes abroad. Oh Mrs. Cabot is so well and nice and funny with every particular, and so glad to have friends with her. Now that I am done with this piece of work which I have been going over very carefully and thinking a good deal about, I shall be freer minded but I am having a very nice time & so is A.F.* We are in opposite ends of the house. She has three rooms and I two! -- and we take time for visits while Mrs. Cabot has her afternoon nap. Katherine Loring* has just been here, & yesterday we went to see the Kings, & Loulie* is also neighbourly. With ever so much love
Your Seddie*
Notes
20 October 1889: A typed and handwritten note on this transcription reads: /1890/ ? However, the date of this letter seems precisely determined by Jewett completing a stage of work on Betty Leicester that will then go to her typist in South Berwick, in the hope that it will be returned by "Tuesday (27th)." Jewett would have to write this letter on Sunday 20 October 1889, then express her manuscript to Mary to deliver to Sarah Leah in the hope that she can return it to Jewett by Tuesday 27 October.
Betty Leicester: Jewett's Betty Leicester. A Story for Girls appeared in 1890 with an 1889 copyright, indicating that it probably was released at the end of 1889 for the holiday market.
Sarah Leah: Sarah Leah, apparently of South Berwick, worked as Jewett's typist and is mentioned in several letters. However no details about her identity have been discovered as of this writing.
S.W.s: Sarah Wyman Whitman. See Key to Correspondents.
Lord Gough (and his wife) .. cousins of the Arbuthnots ... Mr. As cousin and much more like Mrs. A! ... Legation at Washington: Hugh Gough, 3rd Viscount Gough (1849-1919) married Lady Georgina Pakenham (1863-1943) in October 1889. His mother was Jane Arbuthnot (c. 1816-1892). According to Wikipedia, he gained his title upon the death of his father in 1895. According to Cracroft's Peerage, he served in the British diplomatic corps, including in Sweden (1888-1894) and Washington, D.C. (1896-1901). It should be noted that Jewett's information about him seems not precisely accurate. In 1889, he would not have been serving in Washington, though he might well have visited, and he would not yet have been Lord Gough. Perhaps Jewett met his father, George Stephens, 2nd Viscount Gough, but he was a military man, not known to have served in the diplomatic corps.
Mr. and Mrs. A are Lilian Woodman and Thomas Bailey Aldrich. Their twin sons, Talbot and Charles, are mentioned below as "the twins." How Lord Gough and Aldrich are related has not been discovered.
Higginsons: See Ida Agassiz Higginson in Key to Correspondents.
Katy Coolidge: Katherine Scollay Coolidge (1858 - 12 February 1900). She was the daughter of Francis Parkman and author of a volume of poems, Voices (1899), and, posthumously, of selections from her diaries and letters -- Selections (1901).
Sister Carrie: Carrie Jewett Eastman. See Key to Correspondents.
Mrs. Lee wrote Mrs. Cabot: Probably Elizabeth Perkins Cabot (1823-1909), sister of Sarah Perkins Cabot Wheelwright and wife of Henry Lee (1817-1898), Boston Banker and author of a pamphlet, "The Militia of the United States." A Civil War veteran, he was the son of the economist, Henry Lee, Sr., also a successful international merchant.
For Sarah Wheelwright and Susan Burley Cabot, see Key to Correspondents.Mary Garrett: See Key to Correspondents.
Mary: Presumably, Mary Garrett.
A.F.: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Katherine Loring: Katherine Peabody Loring. See Key to Correspondents.
the Kings, & Loulie: Loulie is Louisa Dresel, and the Kings presumably are her great aunts. See Dresel and Caroline Howard King in Key to Correspondents.
Seddie: One of Jewett's family nicknames. See Key to Correspondents.
This text is from transcriptions from mixed repositories in the Maine Women Writer's Collection, University of New England, Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, 1875-1890, Folder 73, Burton Trafton Jewett Research Collection. For more information about the individual transcription, contact the Maine Women Writers Collection. Preparation by Linda Heller. Notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Edmund Clarence Stedman to Sarah Orne Jewett
Kelp Rock
New Castle, N.H.
Oct. 24th 1889
My dear Miss Jewett,
Arthur ( my son ) has thrown me into his own state of trepidation, by forwarding your letter to me. Not that the case is otherwise than as you surmise. Hardly one of our best portraits has suited its subject, but each subject thinks all the other portraits fairly successful. However, yours was to be one of my [ pet ? ] pictures = there the Piscataqua River* is not only
[ Page 2 ]
swollen to-day by the tears of Arethuse at its Berwick source, but by an answering blow of my own bordering its harbor mouth. But what a task was ours -- to succeed with that blurred & clearly "counterfeit presentation" which you sent us! Oh, that the small photograph, which Arthur writes me is "exquisite," had reached us at the outset! -- Indeed, I was compelled to let the engraver have, alas, the Houghton-catalogue portrait, so that he could [ unrecognized word ] the features more surely.
The engravings are all
[ Page 3 ]printed, as we are hastening to press, -- our Vol. X* being under contract for early Dec. delivery.
But I have written, instanter, to have the engraver endeavor to improve the likeness on the block, by the aid of the small (new) photo. There is a chance of his being able to do so. If he can, I have directed a [ new ? ] "electro" to be cast from the retouched block, and a new set of prints to be made -- & the binding to be delayed for these.
I am quite certain that if you see the enlarged photo, which
[ Page 4 ]
you sent us, side by side with the proofs in your possession, you would be surprised that we had done even as well as we have.
So you are chez nous* again -- a temporary bill of separation from your soul's companion.* If I were not pledged to reach N.Y. on Monday, & were not driven to close up some work here, I should visit the [ tutelary ? ] goddess of our peerless river. As it is, this letter instead, with a hope that next Spring I may find you at Berwick and that you will not be unforgiving.
Very faithfully yours
Edmund C. Stedman.
Notes
Piscataqua River: This river flows between South Berwick, ME, and Portsmouth, NH.
Arethuse: Wikipedia says that Arethusa, in Greek mythology, was a sea nymph "who fled from her home in Arcadia beneath the sea and came up as a fresh water fountain on the island of Ortygia in Syracuse, Sicily."
Vol. X: Stedman compiled and edited The Library of American Literature (1888-1890). Jewett's story, "Miss Tempy's Watchers," was included in V. 10, with a portrait and her autograph on p. 514.
chez nous: French: with us.
companion: Annie Adams Fields. 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 203. I. Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Houghton Mifflin & Company
South Berwick
31 October
[ 1889 ]*
Messrs Houghton Mifflin & Co.
I return all the proofs tonight, and I shall not ask to see the revises, though of course it is always a satisfaction, and I am sorry that we should be in such a hurry at the last. As soon as the plate-proofs are ready, that is to say
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the sheets (or even half will do,) please send them to Mrs Whitman, as she wishes to get an idea of the story before she makes the cover design.
If in this busy day's work over the proofs I have made any bad errors, or if there is anything which you
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wish me to see about, please telegraph me and I will come to the Press with pleasure.
Yours most truly
Sarah O. Jewett
Notes
1889: In the upper right corner of page 1, in another hand: "Mifs Sarah O. Jewett, 10/31". Below Jewett's date in the right corner, someone has placed "1889" in brackets. This date is partially confirmed by the Riverside Press date stamp on the left side of the folded sheet of page 1, which in a longer letter would be page 4: 7 a.m. on 1 November. However, the year is not readable. Therefore, I have accepted the added date on page one, in the hope that its author had authoritative knowledge.
There is some slight confirmation for this date in that the time line for completing work on Jewett's Betty Leicester works for this year. The book was released in December of 1889, with an 1890 copyright date.
Near the bottom left corner of page 1, appear these initials with a line above and a line below them: L. a. w. It is difficult to be certain about the "L."
Mrs Whitman: Sarah Wyman Whitman. See Key to Correspondents. Link to cover designs for Betty Leicester.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University in Houghton Mifflin Company correspondence and records, 1832-1944, Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. 68 letters from; 1870-1907 and [n.d.]. MS Am 1925 (962). Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Wyman Whitman to Sarah Orne Jewett
Studio
[ November 1889 ]*
Dear fellow traveller -- do you think Betty is a Chrysanthemum kind of a flower? In my brief but very clear glimpse of her in a few pages which were vouchsafed to me, I get this idea of her -- I have so stated on the cover --
And your [ petitioner ? ] will ever [ unrecognized word ] !
_Sw_*
Notes
November 1889: The first reviews for Betty Leicester (1890), Jewett's novel for young readers, appeared in December of 1889. Whitman was almost certainly working on the novel's cover design by this time. See for example, Jewett's 31 October letter to Houghton Mifflin.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University. Whitman, Sarah (Wyman) 1842-1904. 92 letters; [1884]-[1903] & [n.d.] Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. Sarah Orne Jewett additional correspondence, 1868-1930. MS Am 1743.1 -107. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Louisa Loring Dresel
South Berwick Maine
First of November -- 1889
Dear Loulie
I seem to be most ungrateful for your last dear letter which has brought you nearer to me than ever before. But I really wished to thank you at once and then was prevented by three things -- first too much work and then too much rheumatism and then the expectation of seeing you when I went to town for a day or two and meant to get to see you and your mother. I was hardly well enough to go and had
[ Page 2 ]
to be careful in order to do some necessary things about my new book. Then I hurried home to meet some friends here, so all the time has gone. However I shall soon be going up again and then we will see each other and say many things that one cannot write. Believe me dear I am most grateful and glad to think that I play -- though so bunglingly, the part of a friend to you. I hope as time goes on that we shall always be caring more and more for each other and that
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the years I have lived through will make me more helpful while your unproved future and your possibilities and hopes will always be full of inspiration for us both -- I am just beginning to take it in that I am out of my own girlhood! and in writing Betty Leicester* I have made many things plain to myself. I am very eager to see how you like the little book -- Now that it is done I wish that it were much better -- it seems to me that I ought to have worked this whole winter on
[ Page 4 ]
it, and one [ deleted word ] thing you can do for me is to make me take time enough for my work even though the Riverside Press opens its mouth wide enough top swallow all Boston!
I must say good by but it is good to have this word with you and to know that there is room enough for a great deal of love in this small envelope.
Yours ever faithfully and lovingly
S.O.J.
Notes
Betty Leicester: Jewett's "story for girls" appeared first as "A Bit of Color" in three issues of St. Nicholas during the spring of 1889. Jewett expanded it into a novel for Houghton Mifflin's Riverside Press that appeared in time for the Christmas trade late in 1889. The novel's copyright date is 1889, but its publication date is 1890.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Columbia University (New York) Library in Special Collections, Jewett. Transcription from a microfilm copy and annotation by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Houghton Mifflin & Company
South Berwick Maine
1 November
[ 1889 ]*
Messrs Houghton Mifflin & Co.
Gentlemen
Somehow I do not like this title page very well, it seems to me that it might be prettier, but perhaps it will come right with the changes indicated. If not will you please have larger type tried for Betty Leicester. As I open Deephaven* the print of the title page looks very
[ Page 2 ]
pretty indeed. This looks a little dull! and seems to me rather light -- one sees only the book-plate and not the title at first glance. When the book comes out will you please have ten copies sent me ^in Charles St^* beside my usual twenty five which come to South Berwick, and may I have an advance copy if possible?
Yours very truly
Sarah O. Jewett
Notes
1889: Near the upper left corner of page 1, in another hand, underlined: "Sarah O. Jewett". In upper left the corner is the Houghton Mifflin date stamp: 2 November 1889, To the right of Jewett's date are underlined initials that may read: OBM.
A penciled line has been drawn vertically down the center page 1, a similar two part line appears on page 2.
In the left margin on p. 2, two notes are penciled.
Next to "please have ten" appears: "Charge these at 40% off";
next to "five which come" appears: "Gratis."
Betty Leicester ... Deephaven: Betty Leicester is Jewett's 1890 novel "for girls." Deephaven (1877) is her first novel.
Link title page image for Betty Leicester.
Link to title page image for Deephaven.
Charles St: Annie Adams Fields resided at 148 Charles St. in Boston. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University in Houghton Mifflin Company correspondence and records, 1832-1944, Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. 68 letters from; 1870-1907 and [n.d.]. MS Am 1925 (962). Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Adams Fields
Monday. [Autumn 1889]*
The big ash tree in front of the house is so nearly dead that it must come down, and the big elm between here and Carrie's, the dearest tree of my childhood and all my days, is all hollow and all the weight of it is toward the house, so that after much consultation we are afraid to let it stand through the winter, and that must be chopped down, too. I shall be glad when they are done and cleared away. I dread it so much that it quite haunts me, but I was shocked to find the other day in what a dangerous state the old tree was. It wouldn't be pleasant to have it prod through the roof; in fact, I begin to feel as if it were holding itself up just as long as it could, in a kind of misery of apprehension, poor old tree! It seems as if it must know all about us. Then one of the spruces is also to be slain to let in more light; that will meet your approval. . . . Today I have been reading, for one thing, Mrs. Oliphant's "Royal Edinburgh,"* a most delightful book, -- particularly the chapter about Mary Queen of Scots and John Knox, and the last chapter about Sir Walter, which we really must read together some time. It is a beautiful piece of work.
You will be much amused to hear that the funny old man in the linen duster whom I caught sight of at Chapel Station has really been the making of the "Atlantic" sketch. I mean to begin him this morning and get well on with him before the girls come. His name proves to be Mr. Teaby,* and he is one of those persons who peddle essences and perfumery and a household remedy or two, and foot it about the country with limp enameled cloth bags. What do you think of Mr. Teaby now? Teaby is the name, and he talks with sister Pinkham about personal and civic matters on a depot platform in the rural districts. Don't you think an editor would feel encouraged?
Notes
1889: Dating this letter is somewhat problematic. As the notes below indicate, Jewett's story, "The Quest of Mr. Teaby" appeared in January 1890, making it unlikely that the letter was composed any later than October of 1889. But Jewett reports reading Mrs. Oliphant's new book, which has a publication date of 1890. While it is possible that the Oliphant book appeared before its official publication date, it also is possible that this is a composite of two letters.
Mrs. Oliphant's "Royal Edinburgh" ... Mary Queen of Scots ... John Knox ... Sir Walter: Margaret Oliphant (1828-1897), prolific Scots author, published Royal Edinburgh; Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets in 1890. Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots (1542-1587) was imprisoned and beheaded as a dangerous rival by Queen Elizabeth I. John Knox (1513-1572) was a Scots Calvinist writer and preacher. His History of the Reformation of Religioun within the Realme of Scotland (1587) includes an account of Mary Stuart in Scotland. Sir Walter is Sir Walter Scott.
Chapel Station ... Teaby: Jewett's "The Quest of Mr. Teaby" appeared in The Atlantic in January 1890. It is possible that Jewett refers to Chapel Station in Brookline, MA, which in 1890 served the Boston and Albany Railroad and a division of the New England Railroad. See Elias Nason, A Gazetteer of the State of Massachusetts (1890), pp. 207-10.This letter appears in Annie Fields, Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett (1911), Transcribed by Annie Adams Fields, with notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields
Shoals. Nov 2nd (89My dearest Annie:
The stuff came in the returning boat whichbroughttook my last letter over to you, & is just right & delightful & I'm so much obliged to you! I sent the money to Arnold & Constable.* I am so glad to have this pretty stuff which is just what I want. The Pinafore* went in a hurry to town this A. M. & I hadn't a minute -- it brought back my babys pictures & your dear note -- Oh Annie, how I wish I were in Boston now, for I am sure you would let me have a peep at Miss Edwards* for whom I have the most unbounded admiration & always have had since the first book of hers wh. I chanced on & devoured a thousand years ago, more or less. As for the work ^in which^ she is now engaged, it is to me
[ Page 2 ]
most intensely interesting & nothing so makes me fret at the bars of my poverty as that I cannot afford to take even the smallest share in it. Those researches are so breathlessly interesting! How I wish I could follow them up in every smallest detail --
Somebody's Harper's Bazar keeps coming here, & one came today with her picture in it & I'm sure it must be good = it is a delightful face! How I do wish I could see her!
I dare say you have heard that dear Rose* had a splendid passage -- neither of them ill! They neither of them missed a meal at table, were eight days getting across arrived in Havre Sunday, spent night, went on next day to Paris, had been to the Exposition & were having a [ lively or lovely ] time. I am so glad!
I had a letter from Ross Turner*
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at Venice -- they sailed out into a terrible hurricane, had a dreadful passage {--} poor little Sterling awfully seasick -- they had the most dreadful weather & from their landing in Antwerp till their arrival in Milan, not one ray of sun -- had the most wretched colds & were almost down sick, but Venice was "bringing them to" fast. They were having mellow lovely weather & peace & quiet & a good time generally when they wrote.
I am greatly interested in the arrival of Childe Hassam who must have reached these shores before this & who means to spend next summer here, three months -- I am very fond of him -- So they go, to & fro, -- I suppose Ap. Brown* will be in Europe next summer, if he does well. The poor Eichbergs* were [ on corrected ] the Cephalonia* one of whose boilers exploded & she had
[ Page 4 ]
to put back to Liverpool.
I have been busy for a week on a new card for Prang* -- it is no end of work -- I think it is pretty & I hope he will like it & take it at my price,
I have made a picture of my lighthouse, the snow-white, softly-shadowed lofty tower on its [ rock corrected ], wh. fills all the [ right corrected ] hand inner page & have written appropriate verses opposite, & covered the whole of the outside diagonally from left to right, with a long wash of delicate sea weeds, leaving room for Tennyson's lines in gold in the lower left hand corner
"Frail, but of force to withstand& in the right hand upper corner a raying golden star -- The color is delicate & the whole effect is pretty, if I say so that shouldn't!
The cataract seas that snap
The three-deckers oaken spine"*
I am distraught at having a proof from the Century* that ought to go back instantly & no boat
[ Up the left margin of page 1 ]
will go over for a week! O my! O my! And nothing to be done.
I am really anxious now to be in Ports. You'll come down & see me, wont you dear? It storms amain today & it doesnt seem as if any thing would ever happen again except furies of the elements -- Dear love & thousand thanks to you from
Your grateful & faithful
C.
Notes
Arnold & Constable: Probably Arnold Constable & Company, a department store chain in the New York City area from 1825 to 1975.
Pinafore: The Pinafore was the steam tug by which Thaxter regularly traveled between Portsmouth and the Isles of the Shoals. It also brought supplies and carried mail for summer residents on the Isles.
Probably, when she mentions her "babys pictures," Thaxter refers to the photographic work of her disabled adult son, Karl.
Miss Edwards: British writer and traveler, Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards (1831-1892). "In 1882, she co-founded the Egypt Exploration Fund (now the Egypt Exploration Society) and became its joint Honorary Secretary. In 1889-1890, she toured the United States, lecturing on Egyptian exploration."
Rose: Rose and Horatio Lamb. See Key to Correspondents.
The Paris Exposition Universelle of 1889, was open from 6 May until 31 October.
Ross Turner: Ross Sterling Turner (1847-1914) "was a painter, watercolorist, and illustrator, active in the Boston area, known for his landscapes and floral subjects. ... Loosely associated with the 'Duveneck boys' after about 1879, Turner painted in Venice and Florence, and he also worked in Rome. In 1882 he settled in Boston, exhibiting more watercolors than oil paintings." Thaxter took some painting lessons from him.
Childe Hassam ... Ap. Brown: For John Appleton Brown, see Key to Correspondents.
American painter, Childe Hassam (1859-1935) produced a significant number of paintings of the Isles of the Shoals, including "Celia Thaxter in her Garden."
Eichbergs ... Cephalonia: Julius Eichberg (1824-1893) was a German-born composer, musical director and educator in Boston. His wife was author, Sophie Mertens (d. 1927).
The Cunard line SS Cephalonia was in service from 1882 to 1900.
Prang: Boston printer/publisher, Louis Prang (1824-1909) is known as the inventor of the Christmas card. His Christmas card business began in about 1873.
Which lines of her own, Thaxter uses on her card is not yet known. Her published poems contain a number of references to lighthouses.
spine: British poet, Alfred, LordTennyson (1809-1892). The lines are from Maud, Part 2, section II, stanza 4.
Thaxter has shortened the passage: ...
Frail, but of force to withstandproof from the Century: Thaxter's next Century Magazine publication after the date of this letter was "And His Will is Our Peace" v. 39 (April 1890), p. 905. It was collected in The Heavenly Guest (1935) pp.52-3. The title is taken from the Italian poet, Dante (1265-1321), Paradiso III, line 85.
Year upon year, the shock
Of cataract seas that snap
The three-decker's oaken spine
Athwart the ledges of rock,
Here on the Breton strand!
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 6 (250-269) https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/qb98p668s
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
John Greenleaf Whittier to Annie Adams Fields
Amesbury
Nov 4 1889*
Dear Annie Fields
It seems a long time since I saw thee in Newburyport but I have paid daily visits in thought to Charles Street. I wonder how it is with thee. I suppose thee are still listening to the "sad music" of complaining humanity, unable, or too often unwilling, to help itself.*
Judging from what I
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see here there is very little of actual suffering which may not be traced to intemperance, idleness and an utter lack of economy, wasteful and careless of the future when wages are good.* We need the Gospel of Poor Richard's Almanac* sadly. Last summer in Conway, I found a town without a poor-house, because there was nobody that needed it. There was no rich man, but the village was a model of neatness, every house, freshly painted, and comfortable. The young clergyman had a salary of $400
[ Page 3 ]
per year, and I was told that the cost of living was less than $300 per family. There was no liquor allowed in the place. The small Savings Bank had a deposit of $80,000. With economy, sobriety, and thetheabsence* of ostentatious display & extravagance, the example of Conway might be imitated in our country towns and to some extent, in our cities. But, I suppose this is not to be expected. The poor we shall always have with us* -- until Bellamys millennium.* I hope our dear Sarah* is with thee, but I
[ Page 2 ]
am afraid she will not like to leave her old haunts in Berwick until the snow comes. Our October was the coldest one I ever knew, and the autumn colors the faintest.
I would be glad to visit Boston but I am never free from pain in my head and I dread the effort{.} Still I hope to get there before the winter fairly sets in and have the great pleasure of seeing thee once more in thy own home. In the mean time I am thy faithful and ever grateful friend
John G Whittier
Notes
1889: Penciled at the top center of page one is: 4.
In Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier, S. T. Pickard reads this date as November 7, John B. Pickard reads it as November 4. Whittier's writing is ambiguous, and either could be correct, but a comparison with other dates in the manuscripts suggests that "4" is more likely.
"sad music": In his notes, John B. Pickard identifies this allusion to British poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850), "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey." The lines read:"but hearing often times / The still, sad music of humanity."
to help itself: Whittier refers to Fields's work with the Associated Charities of Boston, and perhaps to her book, How to Help the Poor (1884).
wages are good: Whittier changes from blue to black ink at this point. A penciled "x" appears in the left margin at this change.
Gospel of Poor Richard's Almanac: American author, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was the editor/author of Poor Richard's Almanack (1732-1758), an annual containing information, entertainment, and advice: "It is chiefly remembered, however, for being a repository of Franklin's aphorisms and proverbs, many of which live on in American English. These maxims typically counsel thrift and courtesy, with a dash of cynicism."
Whittier probably also is thinking of Franklin's Father Abraham's Sermon, also known as The Way to Wealth (1758), which collects many of Franklin's aphorisms about thrift and the value of work that had appeared in the almanac over the years of its publication.
Whittier also may refer to Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), "Wealth" (North American Review, June 1889), a piece later incorporated into The Gospel of Wealth.
theabsence: A penciled "x" appears in the left margin before the deleted word.
poor ... with us: See the Bible, Matthew 26:11.
Bellamys millennium: American novelist Edward Bellamy (1850-1898) authored the utopian science fiction, Looking Backward (1888). The novel predicted a benign socialist, technologically advanced future America, without social class or poverty.
Sarah: Sarah Orne Jewett.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields collection: mss FI 72-4844. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
This letter has been transcribed previously by Pickard, Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier. v. 3.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Louisa Loring Dresel
Saturday morning
[ November 16, 1889 ]
Dear Loulie
When Miss Edwards* returned from New-Haven yesterday and entered the library her eyes fell upon the drawing, and she was more amused and delighted than I can say. It was very clever of you, in both the English and New English senses of the word!* -- I was sorry that I forgot my
[ Page 2 ]
[Sant' Maria ?] at the last minute especially after Mr. Dresel had been so kind as to get it for me. Perhaps now I had better leave it until I come up to town, and Miss Cary* can have "her first" --
In haste with much love.
S.O.J.
Notes
November 16, 1889: This date appears in another hand in the upper left corner of page 1. As the notes below indicate, this seems a likely date. 16 November fell on a Saturday in 1889.
Miss Edwards: The British novelist and travel writer, Amelia Edwards (1831-1892) made a lecture tour of the United States in the winter of 1889-90, and she seems to have been a guest of Annie Fields during part of her visit, when she lectured in the Boston area.
clever: Jewett may be referring to the difference between the more common use of the word before the 19th-century to mean skilled or talented and the more recent common meaning: intelligent, quick in understanding.
Sant' Maria: Saint Mary, mother of Jesus. However, Jewett seems to be referring to a material object, perhaps a work of art or a photograph.
Miss Cary: Emma Forbes Cary (1833-1918) and Sarah Gray Cary (1830-1898) were younger sisters of Elizabeth Cabot Cary Agassiz. See Key to Correspondents. All three sisters were close family friends of Mrs. Dresel. Presumably, Jewett refers to Sarah, the elder of the unmarried sisters.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Columbia University (New York) Library in Special Collections, Jewett. Transcription from a microfilm copy and annotation by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Annie Adams Fields to Sarah Orne Jewett
[ 17 November 1889 ]*
My darling -- I am so sorry and disappointed not to be able to send you a letter, but I was utterly tired last night and went to bed at nine o'clock.
This morning everything and everybody have conspired to keep me from my desk --
We are going to wear our bonnets and plain dresses to the breakfast -- I think
[ Page 2 ]
your red dress would be very pretty with the [ bit ? ] of [ unrecognized word ] in your bonnet -- The ladies were terrified at the idea of going without them and made a stand at once!!! I feel as if they need not have made that engagement -- of course if dear [ M ? ]* slips away from us I shall not go -- but she was just the same last night -- They, the ladies, missed you sadly at midnight round the little table and they hardly got their breakfasts yesterday they were so tired and un=ready.
[ text ends; no signature ]
Notes
Associated with this letter is an envelope addressed to Jewett in South Berwick, postmarked on 17 November 1889.
M: Close mutual friend, Mary Greenwood Lodge, affectionately known as Marigold, was on her deathbed in November 1889, dying on 21 December. Key to Correspondents.
The ladies to whom Fields refers may have been the members of the Round Table Club, a group mentioned in S. W. Whitman to Jewett of 8 December 1891, and on an envelope addressed to Jewett of 10 December 1889 .
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Sarah Orne Jewett Additional Correspondence, 100 letters from Annie Adams Fields, bMS Am 1743.1 Box 1, Item 33.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields
47. State St. Ports.My dearest Annie:
Nov 25th (89
I am so glad to have your note just here this moment -- We have been here a week today & I am so thankful to be near the post office, tho' I havn't used it much since I came, we have been so busy getting shaken down & I am sorry to say I am not good for much & have to keep to this sofa corner a great deal That's why I write with pencil{.} So many letters I ought to write, but somehow I don't feel up to them -- Nothing but my medicine religiously taken, six doses a day, keeps me from being actually ill, I mean disabled. But I hope to do better bye & bye. Please don't tell any one -- I do so hate figuring as an interesting invalid -- Perhaps I have been doing too much, getting settled -- But oh, I used to be able to do any thing! where is my old energy & vigor & power gone! I am
[ Page 2 ]
not yet 55 -- it shd. not ebb away quite so soon!
How interesting everything is about Miss Edwards.* I envy you yr "glimpses" of her, & to hear her lecture must be most delightful. Indeed I can guess how busy you must be, Annie dearest.
I'm glad you had such a pleasant [ evening ?] at the Winches.* "Spend Sunday!" They are so kind -- but dear me, I don't feel as if I ever should leave this little quiet corner again & if I did I would go to you, dear Annie. But you will come to me, I hope, when the rush of things quiets a little for ^you^. And is Mary Lodge so near the mysterious verge? How fast she sank! Helen Bell* said she ^(Mary)^ did not know what really was the matter -- I did not think years ago, she would go first of us.
I have been thinking so much of dear J.T.F.* lately, & all his kindness to
me & to every body -- I don't know any body I/miss* more constantly. How good, how kind he was & how much beloved.
I shd. think Father Damien's friend* would be very interesting. Rose & Horace Lamb had his book at the Shoals -- I had a dear letter from Rose -- she seemed to be enjoying much in Paris, but rather
[ Page 3 ]
looked forward to Italy & more quiet --
This little box of mine is very comfortable & pleasant & I am most grateful for so agreeable a shelter. My plants give me all the entertainment & refreshment I need & when poor Karl* is not very poorly & miserable I am very happy, & thankful. As I said before, my anxiety is ebbing & flowing round him every hour & minute of the day & night, -- [ fears corrected ] hopes, a thousand fears --
I am so glad to feel you near, my dearest Annie, so glad you keep me in your dear thoughts & I am ever & ever & ever your faithful
C.
Notes
Miss Edwards: British writer and traveler, Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards (1831-1892). "In 1882, she co-founded the Egypt Exploration Fund (now the Egypt Exploration Society) and became its joint Honorary Secretary. In 1889-1890, she toured the United States, lecturing on Egyptian exploration."
the Winches: William J. Winch (1847- ), tenor, John F. Winch, bass, and Mrs. John Winch, alto, made up a musical family performing in Boston from the 1870s.
See "Sweet Boston Singers" Boston Globe (13 October 1895) p. 28.
Mary Lodge ... Helen Bell: See Key to Correspondents. Mary Greenwood Lodge died on 21 December 1889.
J.T.F.: Fields's late husband, James T. Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
I/miss: Thaxter seems to have corrected "miss" and then drawn a line to clearly separate these two words.
Father Damien's friend: Edward Clifford (1844-1907) was a British author and artist. He became interested in Father Damien (1840- 15 April 1889), a Belgian Roman Catholic priest, then famous for his work with lepers in Hawaii. Clifford published Father Damien; A Journey from Cashmere to his Home in Hawaii (1889).
Rose & Horace Lamb: Rose Lamb and her brother, Horatio Lamb. See Key to Correspondents.
Karl: Thaxter's disabled son.
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 6 (250-269) https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/qb98p6756
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Thomas Bailey Aldrich
148 Charles Street
Sunday. [ November 1889 ]
My dear Friend
I thank you many times for Wyndham Towers,* such a beautiful book outside and in -- in fact more beautiful than I who delight so much in your poems, had expected, and that is saying a great deal. The dedication is one of your best pieces of prose and that is saying a great deal too!
I wish that I could ever
[ Page 2 ]
tell you what a constant pleasure it is to have you for my friend and playmate, or how grateful I am for all the help you have given me about my work, and seeing how carefully you do your work is ^always^ one of my best lessons. I cant help thinking how pleased Lilian* must be about this new book, and then I am pleased all over again!
Yours affectionately
S.O.J.
Notes
Wyndham Towers: Thomas Bailey Aldrich's poetry volume, Wyndham Towers, appeared in November 1889. It was dedicated to the American actor, Edwin Booth (1833-1893): "In offering these verses to you, I beg you to treat them (as you have many a time advised a certain lord chamberlain to treat the players) not according to their desert. Use them after your own honor and dignity; the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Aldrich alludes to Act 2, Scene 2 of Shakespeare's Hamlet, in which Hamlet instructs the chamberlain to see to the comfort of a troupe of actors.
Lilian: Lilian Woodman Aldrich. 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: 2712*.
Mary Mapes Dodge to Sarah Orne Jewett
[ Begin letterhead ]
170 WEST 59th STREET
[ End letterhead ]
Dec. 4. 1889
[ Miss so it appears ] dear Miss Jewett.
Your dainty and very pretty volume* lies temptingly before me, and I am waiting for a happy evening [ deletion ] which I may devote to its "expanded" contents.
Thanking you for you remembrance and wishing the charming story splendid success I am yours truly
Mary Mapes Dodge
Notes
volume: Almost certainly, Dodge refers to Betty Leicester: A Story of Girls (1890), which appeared at the end of 1889.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. bMS Am 1743 Box 1, Item 47 I. Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Andrew Preston Peabody to Sarah Orne Jewett
Cambridge
Dec. 4, 1889
My dear Miss Jewett,
When I receive from an author's kindness a book of doubtful complexion or promise, I send my thanks by the next mail, with the hope that I may be instructed or edified by the book. Not feeling that need with [ deleted letter, perhaps a "y" ] regard to your "Betty Leicester,"* I reserved my thanks till I had read the book; & I now render them most fervently. It is a story for young girls; but a man of nearly fourscore has been
[ Page 2 ]
instructed & impressed by it, & has read it with delighted interest. I have recently said to a graduating college class, that there is nothing that one can do "which does not admit of his putting into it all that is in him ofmindculture & character." Thus your story is such as a mere story-writer for young people could not have written. It reminds me of the time when that department of literature was adorned & enriched by such writers as Miss Edgeworth, Mrs. Barbauld, & Jane [ two words deleted ]
[ Page 3 ]Notes
Taylor.* There is in it a wealth of not common-sense, but such as ought to be common, of ethical wisdom, of instruction in what are [ miscalled ? ] minor morals, on which, more thanallon all things else, the happiness of home & society depends, that would be worthy of one who has lived twice your years. Then the character drawing is perfect. The types are all such as I can identify in vivid memory, if not in the young people immediately around me. The story charmed me all the more, because I am familiar with its
[ Page 4 ]
geography, can recall all the features of hill, valley & river &, I am quite sure can identify several of the spots specified, & one or two of the individual houses. Aunts Barbara & Mary* are among my familiar acquaintances & I should say that I had been at their house, were there not several not unlike houses in that region, in which I used to be intimate.
With heartiest thanks, believe me
Very truly yours,
A. P. Peabody.
"Betty Leicester": Jewett's novel was copyrighted 1890. The novel is recognizably set in Jewett's home town of South Berwick.
Miss Edgeworth, Mrs. Barbauld, & Jane Taylor: British authors Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849), Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743-1825), and Jane Taylor (1783-1824), the latter author of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." Wikipedia.
Barbara & Mary: Characters in Betty Leicester.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Miller Library, Special Collections, Colby College, Waterville, ME: JEWE.1.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Andrew Peabody
South Berwick, Maine
6 December 1889
Dear Doctor Peabody
I should be most ungrateful if I did not say at once how heartily I thank you for your kindest of letters. I had already a thousand good reasons for thanking you, but the things you say about my little story book* will be a continual
[ Page 2 ]
pleasure and inspiration.
I hoped that you might find some familiar glimpses of the old river towns that we both know and love, but I am sure that the reader brought more to the book than the writer; ^the one^ having so much more to bring than the other! and being a master of translation beside!
Believe me, with my best thanks
Ever most gratefully yours,
Sarah O. Jewett
Notes
book: Jewett responds to Peabody's praise of Betty Leicester (1890) in his letter of 4 December 1889.
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. This new transcription with revised notes is by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Harriet Jackson Lee Morse*
South Berwick Maine
9 December 1889
Dear Mrs. Morse
How charmingly kind you are to have sent me this dear letter about Betty!* I am so glad that you like her for I confess to having [ become corrected ] much attracted to her myself and I sent her forth to the "reading public" with near as ^much*^ fond hope and anxiety as if she had
[ Page 2 ]
been my first book instead of my eleventh -- As for the dedication I grieve to say that our dear friend only could be told of [ that ?] and never has been able to turn a page of the little book itself [ about corrected ] which we talked so much in its beginning -- Some how the idea pleased her a good deal last spring and she liked to be told how it
[ Page 3 ]
was getting on. -----
I shall go to town in about a fortnight now and I shall hope to see you before long. This note carries my best thanks to one of my kindest readers -- and I am ever hers most affectionately
Sarah O. Jewett.
The anemone is all tucked up for the winter with a leaf coverlet and a pine bough atop!
Notes
Morse: See Frances (Fanny) Rollins Morse in Key to Correspondents.
An envelope associate with this letter is addressed to Mrs. Morse at 12 Marlborough St., Boston. The barely readable cancellation on the back may read in part, "Dec 1889."
Betty: Jewett's Betty Leicester (1890) appeared at the end of 1889. It was dedicated to Jewett correspondent Mary Greenwood Lodge (M.G.L.), who was fatally ill when the book appeared, dying on 21 December 1889.
much: This word may be deleted, but it may only be smudged.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. bMS Am 1743.1 (123) Box 4, II. Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Annie Adams Fields to Sarah Orne Jewett
SaturdayDearest - our Katherine* has been here today -- her address is C' of W. C. Loring 20 Hereford Street -- Will you write and make an appointment to meet her here at any hour you wish on the 12th{.}
[ Before 12 December 1889 ]*
[ Page 2 ]
She has no engagements for that day now. She has brought you a dear little picture and to me a lovely dish{.} I was so taken up with her that I forgot to thank her -- will you say so? Your
A.F.
Notes
1889: This year in brackets is penciled here in another hand. Its source and authority are unknown, but it being the only clue to a date for this letter, I have accepted it. The bringing of gifts suggests the season is Christmas.
Katherine: Katharine Loring and her father. Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Sarah Orne Jewett Additional Correspondence, 100 letters from Annie Adams Fields, bMS Am 1743.1 Box 1, Item 33.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Annie Adams Fields to Sarah Orne Jewett
Pages from letters of December 1889
These pages appear together in Folder 1 of Sarah Orne Jewett Additional Correspondence, 100 letters from Annie Adams Fields, bMS Am 1743.1 Box 1, Item 33, at the Houghton Library of Harvard University. While all probably were composed in the last weeks of 1889, I am not able to determine how many different letters there are, whether any is complete, or the proper order of the selection of pages. I suspect there are at least 3 letters. Below I have transcribed and annotated each page.
[ Page A ]
Just one word of love, dear, with all the uninteresting things which I enclose -----
Everything to tell you dear and yet with a stack of letters to write and the morning slipping so fast that I might not --
[ In the margins of page A ]
Have not been able to open our packages yet!
Your own A.F.
[ Page B ]
I am looking for them today of course.
The little dinner was very pretty I thought -- the two Hales* were both interesting in their various ways and Lord and Lady Meath* kindly and talkative; but they are not people of distinction intellectually though very good and kind -- more when we meet --
I am glad you will stay over Monday for the ladies --
Notes
Hales: Edward Everett and Ellen Day Hale. Key to Correspondents.
Meath: Reginald Brabazon, 12th Earl of Meath (1841-1929) was an Irish politician and philanthropist. His wife was Lady Mary Jane Maitland. He was particularly interested in public parks.
[ Page C ][ Before 17 December 1889 ]*
Dear Pin: I fear we cannot do anything about a special offering to "thy friend".* I should so like to do it and yet I do not think we ought to use the [ money ? ] for it this year. However we will talk of this at once and at any rate go to his birthday --
I feel so pleased to have sent off our foreign packages -- I got a dozen B.L's* and have been sending those chiefly -- but not to those dear folk you have sent to --
Notes
Pin: A nickname for Jewett.
friend: John Greenleaf Whittier, whose birthday was 17 December. Key to Correspondents.
B.L.'s: Jewett's novel "for girls," Betty Leicester (1890). Though the copyright date is 1890, the book was available for purchase in December 1889.
[ Page D ]
Tuesday morning
A bright beautiful day and more promising "pour les cochons" -- dear me! what a French Pinny!
Note
les cochons: French, the pigs.
[ Pages E and F are on the same sheet ]
[ Page E ]
Mrs Houghton* has her poor little baby after a great deal of suffering and [ our ? ] Dr. not with her.
The ^R.C.^ church will give her one dollar a week! and with the Provident we must pull through till [ Jany ----
[ Page F ]
I am going about today to see if I can pick up new workers. Mary Andress* [ made ? ] about $2500 for her little [ dear ? ] children. Mr. Winch* sang delightfully and I accompanied him! though not on the piano! He looked for you-- They sent Alice Howe* in a [ covered ? ] [ handsome so spelled ] which was the least they could do--
Dearest M.G.L.* had a very bad night
Notes
Mrs. Houghton: Almost certainly this is not Fields's friend, Mrs. Henry Oscar Houghton, or any member of her family, but another, impoverished Mrs. Houghton who apparently depends upon Associated Charities and a local Roman Catholic church for support.
Mary Andress: This person has not yet been identified.
Winch: William J. Winch (1847- was a Boston-based tenor who performed locally, including with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Alice Howe: Alice Greenwood Howe. Key to Correspondents.
MGL: Mary Greenwood Lodge, who died on 21 December 1889. Key to Correspondents.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Houghton Mifflin & Company
South Berwick Maine
9 December 1889*
Messrs Houghton Mifflin & Co.
Gentlemen
Will you please send six copies of Betty Leicester* to Mrs. Whitman* 77 Mt. Vernon St. (marked "From Mifs Jewett, for the Fair" --) and charge them to my account.
Yours truly
S. O. Jewett
Notes
1889: Near the upper right corner of page 1, in another hand: "Sarah O. Jewett 12/9". In the upper left corner is a Houghton Mifflin date stamp: 10 December 1889, To the right of the stamp in blue ink: "c645 cw: After the word "send" in the first sentence, is a check mark in the same blue ink. After "Yours truly" on p. 2 is a mark that looks like "Y." or perhaps "M."
On the back of the page is another date stamp from Riverside Press, with the same date, but also giving the time, 5 p.m.
date are underlined initials that may read: OBM.
A penciled line has been drawn vertically down the center page 1, a similar two part line appears on page 2.
Betty Leicester: Betty Leicester is Jewett's 1890 novel "for girls."
Mrs Whitman: Sarah Wyman Whitman. See Key to Correspondents.
Among Whitman's regular volunteer activities was an annual Sunday school fundraising fair during the month before Christmas.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University in Houghton Mifflin Company correspondence and records, 1832-1944, Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. 68 letters from; 1870-1907 and [n.d.]. MS Am 1925 (962). Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Louise Imogen Guiney to Annie Adams FieldsThe manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields collection Box 25: mss FI 1591 . Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Dec. 9th 1889.
Dear Mrs. Fields:
This is just to send you and Miss Jewett* the merriest Christmas to be had for love and wishing. I should have told you before that I had a delightful little call on Miss Hogarth,* who is good enough to bid me back again. What a neighborhood that Chelsea house has! elbowed everywhere by Carlyle, George Eliot, Rossetti, Leigh Hunt, and Sir Thomas More,* too! And itself is like an altar. I have much to thank you for: but that is no new saying, nor feeling.
I am extremely busy at the Museum and everywhere, but I do no 'dedicated work', to use a euphemism. My newpaperisms are a necessity, and they have the knack of absorbing whatever else I would do. We are perfectly well and content in our pleasant lodgings in Thackeray's Vanity Fair* neighborhood. I roam about like a blown leaf, into every open door, and every blind alley, and really begin to know my London, after six month's hard study. Mr. Gosse* says I am as bad as Branwell Brontė, hav-
[ Page 2 ]
ing spent the major part of my valuable life in handling maps and 'such'; and having been stopped the second week of my stay, at the Abbey* door, to furnish information to two old ladies. Whew! wasn't I proud? for I happened to know.
Three days ago I had the prettiest letter from Mrs. Cowden-Clark,* a sort of standing denial of her eighty years; in it she had charming things to say of you. One of my schoolmates, and my old friend Mr. Day* were both with us during this stay in England (though they both went much farther, and fared little worse): now both have gone home. If Mr. Day sees you, he will tell you how excited we ^both^ were over letters from Keats' 'little' sister Fanny.* And what riches he, not I, rescued from an auction sale of treasurables.
There has been no fog yet, perhaps because I watch for it. One snowfall there was, which set thousands of poor little yellow-headed infantry wild with joy, at every street-corner.
Happy New Year! [ Give ? ]
Yours always
Louise Imogen Guiney
3 Upper Bedford Place, Russell Sq., W.C.
Notes
Miss Jewett: Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
Miss Hogarth: Georgina Hogarth, (1827-1917), "the sister-in-law, housekeeper, and adviser of English novelist Charles Dickens and the editor of two volumes of his collected letters after his death."
Carlyle, George Eliot, Rossetti, Leigh Hunt, and Sir Thomas More: All were authors, Thomas Carlyle (1795-1861) Scottish, the other three British: Mary Ann Evans / George Eliot (1819-1880), Leigh Hunt (1784-1859), Sir Thomas More (1486-1535).
Thackeray's Vanity Fair: British novelist, William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) set his best-known novel, Vanity Fair (1847-1853), mainly in London. In 1889, Guiney lived with her mother in London.
Branwell Brontė: The troubled brother of the British authors, the Brontė sisters
Mr. Gosse: British poet, Sir Edmund William Gosse (1849-1928).
Abbey: Probably Westminster Abbey in London.
Mrs. Cowden-Clark: Mary Victoria (Novello) Cowden Clarke (1809-1898) was a British author and Shakespeare scholar.
Mr. Day: Frederick Holland Day. See Key to Correspondents.
Keats' 'little' sister Fanny: Frances Mary "Fanny" Keats (18031889) was the younger sister of British poet, John Keats (1795-1821).
An envelope addressed to Sarah Orne Jewett
[ 10 December 1889 ]*
The envelope appears in a folder with letters from Annie Adams Fields to Jewett, and it seems likely the envelope was used by Fields. The stamp has been removed. The postmark is from Boston at 1:15 p.m. on 10 December 1889.
On the front, are many notes, presumably in Jewett's hand. Most are ornate presentations of Jewett's name and initials. Underlined in very large script at the bottom is: "Write or telegraph Edwina." Edwina Booth (1861-1938), daughter of American actor, Edwin Booth (1833-1893). She, as well as Fields and Jewett were close friends of Mary Greenwood Lodge, affectionately known as Marigold, who was near death, dying on 21 December. Key to Correspondents.
On the back side appear a few more renditions of Jewett's name and a doodle. Also there is this note, probably written by Fields:
I have written to Katherine to ask her for the Kendals -- in which case I will get off from the R.T.C.The Kendals acting company, headed by Dame Madge Kendal (1848-1935) were performing at Boston's Hollis Street Theatre at this time in 1889. Wikipedia.
Probably the R.T.C. was the Round Table Club.
This manuscript is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Sarah Orne Jewett Additional Correspondence, 100 letters from Annie Adams Fields, bMS Am 1743.1 Box 1, Item 33.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman to Sarah Orne Jewett
Randolph, Mass --
Dec. 10th -- 1889 --
My dear Miss Jewett,
You are early to like my Ann Lizy* and tell me so. These realistic children's stories are rather a new field for me, and I am delighted to have anyone say I do it well. Really when I was a little girl, my
[ Page 2 ]
father found a panel of patchwork squares, and brought them to me to put in my quilt. I think that put the story into my head. I suppose it seems to you as it does to me that everything you have heard, seen, or done, since you opened your eyes on the world,comesis coming back to you sooner or later, to go into stories and things. And I never knew it at the time, and I think there is something rather awful about it, as if I had been scudding all the time before [ stray mark, like a comma ] a high
[ Page 3 ]
wind, instead of walking my own gait, as I thought. But I dont believe I am making you know what I mean.
I think your old sea captain* in Harper's, is beautiful. You wrote him just right. I believe I like that kind of a man.
I fear I cannot be much in Boston this winter, I am going to Chicago, then down to Virginia, I expect, but if I am, I shall make it known to you, for I would like to see you, and [ have a talk ? ].*
I am very truly yours --
Mary E. Wilkins.
Notes
Ann Lizy: Wilkins Freeman's "Ann Lizy's Patchwork" appeared in St. Nicholas 17 (November 1889) and was collected in Young Lucretia and Other Stories (1892).
captain: Jewett's "The Taking of Captain Ball" appeared in Harper's Magazine in December 1889.
a talk: I am unable to make out what Wilkins Freeman wrote here. I defer to the transcription by Brent Kendrick in The Infant Sphinx: Collected letters of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (1985) pp. 98-9.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Miller Library, Special Collections, Colby College, Waterville, ME: JEWE.1. New transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
John Greenleaf Whittier to Annie Adams Fields
Amesbury
13/ 12th Mo 1889*
My dear friend
I found myself hardly fit for Birthday receptions,* and came up here yesterday where I hope the day will pass quietly. I do not know how long I may stay here -- perhaps for a month, or
[ Page 2 ]
more. As life draws nearer the close, one feels desirous to be near the old home & the unforgotten landscape of youth,* and to muse by the same fire-side where our dear ones used to sit. I can do little but muse now -- I can read only with difficulty, and I cannot walk much. I have read, however, Sarah's* very charming "Betty"La perfect picture of young girl
[ Page 3 ]
hood. I have a pleasant call from Sara Bull & Mr Clifford the artist this week -- who could tell of Father Damen and Genl Gordon.*
I send by this mail two pictures, one from a portrait painted by old Dea. Peckham, a farmer, {who} sometimes tried his hand at painting. It is said 'tis a good likeness of me at the age of 21. The other has only just
[ Page 4 ]
been taken, so there are 60 years between them.
A great strong man has left [ us ? ] in Robt Browning, -- but he was not Wordsworth!*
I shall hope to see thee & our dear Sarah here or at Oak Knoll{.} I long to look in your faces again. God keep you!
Ever affectionately
John G Whittier
Notes
1889: Penciled at the top center of page one is: 11.
receptions: Whittier's birthday is 17 December.
of youth: A penciled "x" appears in the left margin at this point.
Sarah's: Sarah Orne Jewett. Her "story for girls" Betty Leicester (1890) appeared in time for the 1889 Christmas market.
Sara Bull ... Mr Clifford the artist this week ...Father Damen and Genl Gordon: For Sara Chapman Thorp Bull, see Key to Correspondents.
Edward Clifford (1844-1907) was a British author and artist. He became interested in Father Damien (1840- 15 April 1889), a Belgian Roman Catholic priest, then famous for his work with lepers in Hawaii. Clifford published Father Damien; A Journey from Cashmere to his Home in Hawaii (1889).
Clifford produced a portrait of General Charles George Gordon in 1882. See a pencil sketch for this portrait.
British Major-General Charles George Gordon (1833 -1885). Whittier's admiration for Gordon probably was influenced in part by his efforts to suppress the slave trade when he was Governor-General of Sudan during the 1870s
Dea. Peckham: Deacon Robert Peckham (1785-1877) painted a portrait of Whittier in 1833. The photograph Whittier mentions second probably is the portrait that makes the frontispiece of John B. Pickard's volume 3 of The Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier.
Browning ... Wordsworth: British poets, Robert Browning (1812 - 12 December 1889) and William Wordsworth (1770-1850).
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields collection: mss FI 72-4841. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Thaxter to Annie Adams Fields
47 State St. Ports
13th Dec. (89
My dearest Annie:
I'm so sorry you too are under the weather! Do, do be careful! Those terrible colds! I am thankful to be able to sit at my desk again, it is days since I had enough life to do it. I dont see why I should be so good-for nothing!
How kind, how thoughtful, how dear you are to remember me always & ask me to come to you, & how I should love to! but dearest, I can't leave Karl -- Yesterday I found him stretched out on the stairs, quite
[ Page 2 ]
cold & white, unconscious. When he came to himself he had not the power of speech for a long time, it seemed a kind of paralysis -- he could not move: the tears crept slowly down his poor face. Fortunately my brother Oscar was here & we got his dead weight off the stairs & down into my room upon my bed, where I banked him up with hot water bottles & applied hot things within & without, & he slowly revived -- But oh with what a strange expression, his pale lips drawn so curiously, -- poor fellow -- poor fellow -- I cant go away from him except in a case of life & death. I never
[ Page 3 ]
know what may happen from day to day & hour to hour -- You know there is nothing in the world I should love so much as to go to you, dear -- but I cant. When you are well enough you'll come to me, I know. I long to see you.
Isnt it beautiful to have the lovers so happy! Mrs. Fiske kindly asked me to her house to meet Agnes Repplier -- of course I could not go -- Poor Rose Terry Cooke! What a shame! You say nothing of Mary Lodge.* I look in the Transcript every night expecting to see her name.
[ Page 4 ]
My love to dear Pinny* -- tell her to come & see her [ Sandpiper corrected; S written over C], do. She is so near.
Prang* has taken my Xmas card for next year. Dear Annie do let me hear soon that you are up & well, [ or corrected ] if not, do send me a pencil word again, I shall be anxious to hear.
Your lovingest
C.T.
Bradford Torrey* sent me his book "A Rambler's lease --" the dearest book! Do get it dear Annie & read it, if you have it not.
[ Added to the top margin of page 1 ]
The Transcript just comes with news of Robert Browning!* To think of it! I wonder if Mr. Thaxter & he will find each other in some other world!
Notes
Karl: Thaxter's disabled son.
Mrs. Fiske ... Agnes Repplier ... Rose Terry Cooke ... Mary Lodge:
Jewett and Fields knew Gertrude Hubbard Horsford (Mrs. Andrew) Fiske and also Jewett's relatives, Ruth Tucker (Mrs. William Perry) Fiske, and Abigail (Mrs. Frank) Fiske. Of these three, Gertrude Fiske seems most likely to be also acquainted with Thaxter and Agnes Repplier.
Probably, Thaxter refers to Agnes Repplier (1855-1950) an American author, noted for her essays.
American author and poet, Rose Terry Cooke (1827-1892).
For Mary Langdon Greenwood Lodge, see Key to Correspondents. She died on 21 December 1889.
What unfortunate event has befallen Cooke is not yet known.
Pinny: Thaxter is using intimate nicknames shared among Jewett, Fields and herself. Pinny is Jewett; Flower is Fields; Sandpiper is Thaxter. See Key to Correspondents.
Prang: Boston printer/publisher, Louis Prang (1824-1909) is known as the inventor of the Christmas card. His Christmas card business began in about 1873.
Bradford Torrey: American ornithologist Bradford Torrey (1843-1912) authored Birds in the Bush (1885) and A Rambler's Lease (1889).
Robert Browning: British poet Robert Browning (1812 - 12 December 1889). Thaxter's husband, Levi Thaxter (8124-1884), was a noted oral interpreter of Browning's poems. Thaxter has seen the announcement of Browning's death in the Boston Evening Transcript.
Thaxter showed varying degrees of interest in Spiritualism during the 1880s; this letter seems to reflect her continuing belief in an afterlife where the dead can meet in their recognizable earthly identities.
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 6 (250-269) https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/qb98p6845
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
John Greenleaf Whittier to Annie Adams Fields
Amesbury
Dec 15 1889
My dear Friend
If thee and Sarah Jewett should happen to step into the cars for Amesbury on the 17th* at 10 o clk, you would reach here at 12; and return at 3 o clk by the B & M. R.R. Eastern Division. Of course, as I have run away from my birth-day, I don't invite you, but it would be "unbeknownst."
[ Page 2 ]
You know I [ shuld meaning should ] be glad to see you, especially if nobody else comes. I shall look for you.
always yours
John G. Whittier
Notes
17th: Whittier's birthday is 17 December.
In a letter to Celia Thaxter of 11 January 1890, Whittier reports that Fields made him a brief visit on his birthday. See John B. Pickard, The Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier v. 3, p 575.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields collection: mss FI 72-4838. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Death of Mary Greenwood Lodge
21 December 1889
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Adams Fields
Fragment
[ 22 December 1889 ]*
in a letter full of praise of the Robesons* that she let me read -- that Marigold* herself after all was a mixture of such gifts though unconscious of everything but the gifts of others. She said it so tenderly and charmingly I hoped I should remember the exact words, but that is near it -- Marigold was filled with pleasure at the sight of you the other evening and had such a lovely little time of it and was so pleased
[40 circled in another hand, bottom left corner of page 2]
[ Page 3 ]
because I said you were pleased at Mrs. [Jack's corrected ]* gift and wrote me about her leaving it. She said you looked so lovely too, like the blessed damosel,* and I wanted to hug a white dressed Fuffy* right away then -- and I daresay rumple her all up. ---- I am pretty tired today -- but it is a good tiredness. Good bye my own dear dear beautiful [darling corrected]
ever your own Pin !
Notes
22 December 1889: This date is a fairly wild guess, based upon one reader's sense that Jewett's topic is the recent death of Mary Greenwood Lodge, who died on 21 December 1889.
the Robesons ... Marigold: Marigold is a nickname for Mary Greenwood Lodge. See Key to Correspondents.
Lodge could have known some prominent Robesons in Boston through her connection with the Boston Athenaeum, particularly William Rotch Robeson (1814-1892) and his wife, Anna Rodman Robeson (1817-1895). However, it is by no means certain that these are the people mentioned here.
Jack's: Mrs. Jack is a nickname for Isabella Stewart Gardner. See Key to Correspondents.
Fuffy: One of Jewett's nicknames for Annie Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
blessed damosel: "The Blessed Damozel" was well-known, both as a poem and as a painting by British poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882). The poem depicts a deceased woman in Heaven longing to be reunited with her beloved.
Pin: One of Jewett's nicknames. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. 40 letters to Annie (Adams) Fields (no date). Sarah Orne Jewett additional correspondence, 1868-1930. MS Am 1743.1 (117). Transcribed and annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Louisa Loring Dresel
Saturday
[ After Christmas 1889 ]*
Dear Loulie
I am grieved to think that you haven't had one word from me about your dear kindness and the most charming of cups and such* a spoon! I thought that I might see you yesterday but I had news in the morning that made me change all my plans and gave me
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a long hurrying day. I shall not try to see you now until I come up again within ten days and then I shall say many things. I was so sorry to miss you{.} I wanted the cup and you too, and I have such growing pleasure in what you wrote about Betty.*
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I can only send this line but there is much more love that later you must remember.
Yours faithfully
S. O. J.
Notes
After Christmas 1889: In another hand in the upper left corner of page one appears: October (?) 1889. While the rationale for this date is not clear, it is a reasonable speculation, except that there is a letter from Jewett to Dresel dated First of November, 1889, that suggests Dresel has not yet read about Betty Leicester. See the notes below. Furthermore, this letter also suggests that Jewett and Dresel have exchanged Christmas gifts. For these reasons, I believe the letter was composed near Christmas of 1889.
such: Jewett has underlined this word at least three times, and has drawn beneath the last partial underline a line of dots and other marks town to the bottom of the page.
Betty: It seems likely that Dresel has written to her about Jewett's character, Betty Leicester. Jewett first presented this character in "A Bit of Color," a serialized story in St. Nicholas magazine, in April, May, and June 1889. This story developed into Jewett's 1890 novel, Betty Leicester: A Story for Girls, which actually appeared for the Christmas trade late in 1889. This letter combined with that of First November 1889 suggests that Dresel first read of Betty Leicester in the novel rather than in the magazine serial.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Columbia University (New York) Library in Special Collections, Jewett. Transcription from a microfilm copy and annotation by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Celia Laighton Thaxter to Bradford Torrey
47 State St., Portsmouth, December 27, 1889.
Thank you for the second beautiful book* which came on Christmas Day. I am reading it very slowly, because I enjoy it so much, and go back and read over again, and am miserly about the pleasure of it, and make it last as long as I can, and after it is all done what a lovely mood it leaves one in! There are few books, in these latter days at least, that I wish to take up again and again for the refreshment they bring; and it is the finest kind of a compliment that can be paid to a writer, this of real love for his work, -- a wish to make a companion of it, and to keep it always at hand for the pure enjoyment of it. I heard the hermit thrushes in South Berwick woods. Sarah Jewett drove me down into the woods just after sunset, and we sat in the carriage and listened. I had never heard them before. What an experience it was I leave you to guess. What you say about them is most interesting, and how true it is that a single movement of Beethoven's is better than a whole world of Liszt's transcriptions! I don't know the brown thrush's song, at least as such. Does n't Burroughs say somewhere that the jay has a delicious love song?* Do you know it? I have not yet come to it, perhaps.
Notes
the second beautiful book: Bradford Torrey's (1843 -1912) published four titles that might have qualified as his first and second "beautiful" books for Thaxter: Birds in the Bush (1885), A Woodland Intimate (1887), A Rambler's Lease (1889), and, perhaps available in time for Christmas of 1889, June in Franconia (1890).
a single movement of Beethoven's ... Liszt's transcriptions: In Birds in the Bush (1885), Torrey says: "Regarded as pure music, one strain of the hermit thrush is to my mind worth the whole of it; just as a single movement of Beethoven's is better than a world of Liszt transcriptions" (118-9). Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) "was a German composer. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers." Franz Liszt (1811-1886) "was a prolific 19th-century Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor, music teacher, arranger, philanthropist and Franciscan tertiary" (Wikipedia).
Burroughs .. the jay has a delicious love song: John Burroughs (1837-1921) "was an American naturalist and nature essayist, active in the U.S. conservation movement" (Wikipedia). The source of his statement about the jay love song is not yet known.
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.
Celia Thaxter to Sarah Orne Jewett
47 State St. Portsmouth N.H.
Dec. 31st (89
My dear Pinny:*
Thank you as well as Flower for telling me all about Marygold's flowers & all -- that was lovely wasnt it! I wonder where she is & what doing!
I hope you & Flower are well & not in the clutch of the Russian influenza --* Tell [ Flower corrected ] do* be careful! So careful of this strange thing -- Wasnt it awful about poor Mr.
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Walker at Hovey's!*
Dear Pinny did you ever hear of a queer old Spanish physician, Dr. Osorio,* who lived & practised, most successfully here in Ports. & diedherehere, years ago? I have got an old prescription of his that is quite magical, & I really begin to have a little hope of getting well: the medicine I have been using only just keeps me from being actually ill & flat on my back, but this thing, I think, will really cure -- I only began it yesterday but I do feel better already! It is
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a queer little dry powder of which you take only as much as you can hold on the point of a pen knife every day, three times.
I heard from Rose Lamb* today, a word, & Xmas cards from Cannes, & from the Ross Turners* in Florence -- they have been ill & under a cloud ever since landing in Antwerp, & mean to come back in the spring --
Dear Pin when you asked me so kindly had I shopping, could you get patterns for Sandpiper, I thought of nothing then, but since you went, I have thought how lovely it would be if sometime when you are down among the shops, you would perhaps look up some patterns
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of silver grey stuffs for summer. I never can live without a grey gown again! Something that wont fade, some sort of mohair or alpaca stuff, strong & useful & not very expensive & ask them to mark prices & widths on the stuffs. Often one finds such things cheaper in winter, & as I must make it myself, I like to get it early & have plenty of time --- If mohairs couldn't be found I dare say some light quality of cashmere might do -- I cant find any thing here that I want.
"Betty"* was lovely & dear as she could be & my Champernowne turkle doves carried her off before I had quite finished her! Do get Bradford Torrey's* "A Rambler's Lease" & "Birds in the Bush", they are lovely. He sent them to me -- You & Flower to love them as Sandpiper does. Happy New Year & no end of love to Flower & Pinny from
Sandpiper
When is Flower coming? Soon, I hope.
Notes
Pinny: Thaxter is using intimate nicknames shared among Jewett, Fields and herself. Pinny is Jewett; Flower is Fields; Sandpiper is Thaxter. Marigold/Marygold is Mary Langdon Greenwood (Mrs. James) Lodge. See Key to Correspondents.
Russian influenza: In 1889-90, there was a pandemic of Asiatic or Russian Flu in the northern hemisphere.
do: Thaxter underlines this word twice.
Mr. Walker at Hovey's: C. F. Hovey and Company was a dry goods store on Summer Street in Boston, from 1848 until well into the 20th Century. Edward P. Walker, who worked for the firm, committed suicide in December of 1889. See the New York Times of 29 December 1889, p. 3.
Dr. Osorio: This transcription is uncertain. Town history sources place a Dr. Norberto Osorio in practice in Hampton, NH in the 1870s, but little more has yet been discovered about him.
Rose Lamb: See Key to Correspondents.
Ross Turners: Ross Sterling Turner (1847-1914) "was a painter, watercolorist, and illustrator, active in the Boston area, known for his landscapes and floral subjects. ... Loosely associated with the 'Duveneck boys' after about 1879, Turner painted in Venice and Florence, and he also worked in Rome. In 1882 he settled in Boston, exhibiting more watercolors than oil paintings."
Thaxter took some painting lessons from him.
"Betty" ... Champernowne turkle doves: Jewett's novel, Betty Leicester. A Story for Girls (1890), was released for the Christmas season of 1889. See John Thaxter in Key to Correspondents. In 1889, her only grandchild was Roland Thaxter's son, Charles Eliot (1883-1906), who was just 6 and not a likely reader of Jewett's novel. Probably, then, she refers to her nieces, the daughters of Cedric Laighton.
Bradford Torrey's: American ornithologist Bradford Torrey (1843-1912) authored Birds in the Bush (1885) and A Rambler's Lease (1889).
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 6 (250-269). https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/qb98p6909.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Undated Letters possibly from 1889
Sarah Orne Jewett to Lilian Woodman Aldrich
[ 1889 ]*
Dearest Lilian
I send you the ticket tonight as you will marshal the 'heft' of the party. I am going too -- you needn't think Sadie* denies herself the pleasure of a show
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and in such company!
Yours always
S. O. J.
Notes
1889: This date appears top right on page one, penciled in another hand, presumably a Houghton Library archivist. However no rationale is provided. I place the letter in 1889 based on this hint, but without any other support.
Sadie: Sadie Martinot was a Jewett nickname with the Aldriches, presumably after the American actress and singer, Sarah/Sadie Martinot. 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: 2711.
Edited by Terry Heller, Coe College.
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