Sarah Orne Jewett to Mary Rice Jewett
[ Winter 1902-3 ]*
Dear Mary
It is a gray morning but clearing as if it were not going to snow after all. I feel rather mindless about the weather as I dont want to go out, and rather tired too much after so much going on yesterday. Dr. Jelly* said the same things and warned me again that it was going to take a good while -- the only thing I suppose will be to find the place or keep on the place where I feel and make the least friction. I dare say if you dont feel it you arent so apt to make it, but it is a long drag. Part of the time I have been so glad to do nothing for I have been tired enough for years back. The only things [ so transcribed ] is to muster what patience I can and not to think about myself any more than I can help -- that's the poison of any life sick or well.
Notes
1902-3: This letter seems likely to have been composed during Jewett's months of confinement after her September 1902 carriage accident.
Dr. Jelly: It seems likely this is George F. Jelly, M.D. a Boston alienist who died in 1911. His son, Arthur C. Jelly followed him into the profession and was a fellow member of the American Medico-Psychological Association. Little more has been discovered about these two men, and it is not certain that either attended on Jewett after her carriage accident. Assistance is welcome.
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, Undated Letters, Folder 75, Burton Trafton Jewett Research Collection. For more information about the individual transcription, contact the Maine Women Writers Collection. Notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Adams Fields
[ 1 January 1903 ]*
[ A fragment with missing material at the beginning ]
can! I long to hear about what changes may be made today -- perhaps you haven't hit upon the right person -- I suppose Mr. Beal* will be making his new year call! I dont think that you need send The Week,* darling. You sent some things for us both, and perhaps you'll let me change that way and write some day in this one of mine that came from London -- Or if you have written in that, you shall have this.
Fanny Morse* seems to love the
[ Page 2 -- the top of the page
has been torn away ]
[ Manuscript breaks off. No signature. ]
Notes
Fields has drawn an X in pencil through the whole first page, corner to corner. Parenthesis marks in this manuscript were penciled by Fields.
Mr. Beal: Probably this is James Henry Beal, husband of Fields's youngest sister, Louisa Jane Adams. See Fields in Key to Correspondents.
The Week: While this is not certain, Jewett may refer to Mary Lodge's A Week Away from Time (1887). Annie Fields provided a "Poetical Prelude." See Blanchard, p. 225, for a brief description of the book.
Alice Meynell: For Alice Meynell, see Key to Correspondents.
During her 1902 American tour, one of the lectures in Meynell's repertoire was "Dickens as a Man of Letters." See Sarah Orne Jewett to Sara Norton, 20th March [1902]. Her essay, "Charles Dickens as a Man of Letters," appears in Atlantic 91 (Jan. 1903): 52-59.
Miss Prestons: In the same issue with Meynell's piece on Dickens appears Harriet Waters Preston, "The Latest Novels of Howells and James," pp. 77-82. 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. 185.
I long to know if you have read dear Alice Meynell's paper in the "Atlantic." She has changed it in places from her lecture to an essay, and I can't find just the places where she laughed aloud and all the audience with her; but what a rich bit of writing it is -- and of such depth and such inexhaustible charm!
Sarah Orne Jewett to Lilian Woodman Aldrich
January 5th [ 1903 ]*
South Berwick.
Maine.
My sister Mary* wrote many of my Christmas notes for me but I wish to write you myself and I am sorry that so many days have gone by. I thanked you so much for your dear note and for the beautiful little pin -- Theodore* looked at it with such admiring eyes that I had to say he
might wear it until his aunt could make a proper show of it in something better than a Kimono! (He is such a careful person, Theodore! and with a great sense of what is exactly smart). I think that the company of that pin in his cravat lent a glory to this Christmas vacation beyond others, and he was so nice and companionable -- I do want you to see him again as a grown person!
--- But dear Lilian you
were so kind to think of me ^in^ that hurrying and anxious time before Christmas. How many Christmas [ so spelled ] we have kept together! -- For twenty years I have not missed spending part of the day at 148, and for a long time in the autumn I clung to the hope that I should still get to town by that time but my broken head* seems to mend very slowly and I still have attacks of pain when the back of my neck feels as if it were hurt only
a day or two ago -- and I can really do very little though I get down stairs for the afternoons and often a [ good piece ? ] of the evening. You cant think how happy it makes me to think of Miss Vauchel's* being with our dear A.F.* and she writes so happily and in such a different tone. I really feel better myself for I could not help worrying; she felt very lonely and was so eager to be free from the other arrangement.
I wish that I could know how you found Charley -- and if you went for your dear old New Year week to New York you and T.B.* together -- But I shall
be hearing of you, I hope through A.F. With love and thanks I am ever yours and T.B.'s affectionate "Sadie."*
Tell T.B. to keep strong [ there ? ] up at 4 Park St.* about his new book
and then across the top margins of pages 2 & 3 ]
Notes
sister Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
Theodore: Theodore Jewett Eastman. See Key to Correspondents.
broken head: Jewett suffered severe head and neck injuries in a carriage accident on her birthday, 3 September 1902.
T.B.: Thomas Bailey Aldrich. See Key to Correspondents.
The Aldriches' twin sons, Talbot and Charles were born in 1868. Charles was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1902, and he died two years later in March 1904.
Vauchel's ... A.F.: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Miss Vauchel may be LucyVoshell. According to Paula Blanchard, Fields had a minor stroke in the fall of 1902 and continued unwell through much of the winter 1902-3 (pp. 349-50) During an illness a few years later (1906-7), Fields's friend, Julia Ward Howe, was attended by Lucy Voshell: "This nurse was known to others as Lucy Voshell, but her patient promptly named her 'Wollapuk.' She was as merry as she was skillful, and the two made much fun together. Even when the patient could not speak, she could twinkle. As strength gradually returned, the ministrations of Wollapuk became positively scenes of revelry; and the anxious guardian below, warding off would-be interviewers or suppliants, might be embarrassed to hear peals of laughter ringing down the stair." The Thomas Bailey Aldrich collection at the University of Virginia, includes letters from Lilian Woodman (Mrs. Thomas Bailey) Aldrich to Lucy Voshell regarding Aldrich's twin sons. That Lucy Voshell nursed two close friends of Fields suggests that she may have cared for Fields as well.
Sadie: One of Jewett's nicknames. With the Aldriches, this would have been Sadie Martinot, after the actress of that name. See Key to Correspondents.
4 Park St.: Location of the offices of Houghton Mifflin. Jewett goes on to complain about "The House," or Houghton Mifflin, for deficiencies in marketing, particularly of her final novel, The Tory Lover (1901).
Jewett may refer to Ponkapog Papers (1904) as Aldrich's new book, about which he may have been negotiating with Houghton Mifflin. Or, perhaps she speaks of his most recent title, A Sea Turn and Other Matters (1902), if the issue is marketing.
something: Jewett underlines this word twice.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Thomas Bailey 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: 2758.
Alice Meynell to Annie Adams Fields
47,
PALACE COURT,
W.
[ End letterhead ]
[ 1903 ]*
My very dear Friend
The year will not be very old when these good wishes of mine reach you. May the year be happy for you, and may you be well and full of blefsings.
It was dear, indeed, and like you, to send me your book.* I have already read the whole -- it is so delightful. I had a specific interest in the chapter on Mrs. Beecher Stowe,* not because I
I admire her writings very much, but because I do [ unrecognized word sense ? ] her character. I think I did not tell you that in the summer I had the great pleasure of making Mrs. Whitman's* acquaintance; a great and real pleasure this was to me. I am sorry not to have seen her again. I called
when she had left her hotel only a few hours.
All goes well here. My eldest daughter's* marriage will not take place for some time; meanwhile the society of my future son in law is a great delight. Amongst other good things, he is a fine musician.
I should love to be remembered to
anyone who will accept [ and ? ] my very kind regards, especially to Mrs. Bull and Mrs. Howe.* To my dear Mifs Jewett* I send my love.
Alice Meynell
Notes
1903: This date is supported by the date of the marriage of Meynell's eldest daughter. See notes below.
book: Fields seems to have send Meynell a copy of Authors and Friends (1896).
Beecher Stowe: Harriet Beecher Stowe. See Key to Correspondents.
Mrs. Whitman: Sarah Wyman Whitman. See Key to Correspondents.
eldest daughter's: Meynell's eldest daughter, Monica (1880-1929), married English physician, author and eugenics supporter, Caleb William Saleeby (1878-1940) in June 1903.
Mrs. Bull and Mrs. Howe: Though the transcription of "Bull" is uncertain -- it could be "Bell" -- probably Meynell refers to Sara Chapman Thorp Bull. Likewise, Meynell could refer to any of several of Fields's friends named "Mrs. Howe," but probably she means Julia Ward Howe. See Key to Correspondents.
Jewett: Sarah Orne Jewett. 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 47: mss FI 3321, Folder 1. Archivist notations on this letter have not been transcribed. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Adams Fields
Saturday morning. [ January 1903 ]
And now the ball is over, and I suppose a tired hostess, and the chairs all going upstairs again, and the dear room will look like a green garden that no wind ever blows over! I do so long to hear if it went off to your mind, and if the company liked the singing, and where it was you hung the lantern! and oh, dear! a thousand questions!
Yesterday afternoon I amused myself with
Miss Austen's "Persuasion."* Dear me, how like her
people are to the people we knew years ago! It is
just as much New England before the war -- that is,
in provincial towns -- as it ever was Old England. I
am going to read another, "Persuasion" tasted so
good! I haven't read them for some time.
I long to know if you have read dear Alice Meynell's paper in the "Atlantic."* She has changed it in places from her lecture to an essay, and I can't find just the places where she laughed aloud and all the audience with her; but what a rich bit of writing it is -- and of such depth and such inexhaustible charm!
Somebody sent me the other day a pamphlet
with an address about Count Rumford, and, best of
all, stuck on a fly-leaf is a cutting from an old
newspaper with the list of their household goods,
which were sold at auction in Brompton when the
countess left London. It mentions five lofty,
four-post beds, which pleases me much. This
was a kind of man who had seen in a newspaper that I
was going to write about the Rumfords,* and I thank
him very much for his pamphlet!
Notes
Miss Austen's "Persuasion": Jane Austen (1775-1817), Persuasion (1818).
Alice Meynell: See Key to Correspondents.
paper in the "Atlantic": During her
1902 American tour, one of the lectures in Meynell's
repertoire was "Dickens as a Man of Letters."
See Sarah Orne Jewett to Sara Norton, 20th March
[1902]. Her essay, "Charles Dickens as a Man
of Letters," appears in Atlantic 91 (Jan.
1903): 52-59.
Count Rumford ... I was going to write about:
Jewett was working on a |"paper" on the Sarah
Thompson, Countess of Rumford as early as 1890; see
Sarah Orne Jewett to Louisa Dresel, November 28,
[1890]. Richard Cary, in notes for that
letter, says: "Among Jewett's papers in the Houghton
Library is an unfinished holograph manuscript of
some twenty-five odd sheets, the ink and handwriting
testifying that they were written at different
intervals, with plethoric alterations, entitled 'The
Countess of Rumford.' There is no evidence of a fair
copy or of publication."
Jewett became interested in Benjamin
Thompson, Count Rumford (1753-1814) in part because
his widow, Sarah, lived the end of her life in
nearby Concord, New Hampshire; she was a cousin to
Jewett's Aunt Lucretia. Though Jewett apparently did
not publish her work, the Countess may have
influenced Jewett's characterizations of eccentric
aristocratic women such as Lady Ferry and Miss
Chauncey (in Deephaven). See Paula
Blanchard, pp. 344-5.
It is not yet known in what newspaper
Jewett's acquaintance learned she was going to write
about the Rumfords, nor has the pamphlet she
received been identified.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Albert Bigelow Paine
[ 1903 ]*
South Berwick, Maine
The story you ask about -- A Bit of Colour* was afterward made longer and printed by messrs. Houghton Mifflin & Co. under the new title of Betty Leicester. I am afraid that another note of yours asking me about it has never been answered -- I remember it ---- but I had a bad carriage accident in early September from which I am
S. O. Jewett
Notes
1903: This year is implied in Jewett's reference to her recent carriage accident, which took place on 3 September 1902.
The specific project about which Paine inquires is not yet known.
In another hand beneath Jewett's signature on page 2 appears this parenthetical note: ( Sarah Orne Jewett ).
Bit of Colour: Jewett's story "A Bit of Color," appeared serially in St. Nicholas, April through June of 1889. Betty Leicester. A Story for Girls appeared in 1890; Betty Leicester's English Xmas: A New Chapter of an Old Story was privately printed in 1894, reprinted as a St. Nicholas serial in December 1895 through February 1896, and slightly revised for reprinting as a book by Houghton, Mifflin in 1899.
D. Lothrop Co.: Daniel Lothrop (1831-1892) was the originator of Wide Awake, a magazine for young readers, in which Jewett work appeared. A publisher of other juvenile magazines as well, Lothrop regularly issued books that collected selections from the magazines. Two Jewett pieces currently are known to have appeared in such books, "Town Clerks" (1885) and her narrative poem, "York Garrison, 1640" (1886).
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the Albert Bigelow Paine letters, 1875-1934, AP 887.
Elizabeth Cabot Cary Agassiz to Sarah Orne Jewett
Quincy Street.
Cambridge.
My dear dear Sarah
I send you my love and with it the best blessing of the Xmas and the New Year. I received your telegram on that beautiful day of my life which [ crowned ? ] me eighty* and found me so surrounded by children & grand-children and so enfolded
in the sympathy and kindness of friends and neighbors, that the whole experience still seems to me like a beautiful dream.
The day was ^made^ all the more dazzling by the fairy gift from Radcliffe which was dropped into my hand so unexpectedly as if from a source unseen, unknown. That is the way fairy gifts come you know!
You can imagine the happiness of the students
and my own in having this cherished plan of a "Students Hall"* -- fulfilled -- It will ^make^ an immense difference in the social and domestic life at Radcliffe for which we have never been able to provide suitably ----
Good-bye, -- you must not answer this because I know you ^are^ to be careful.
Good-bye -- in the old & beautiful sense of God bless you ---
Elizabeth C. Agassiz
Notes
eighty: Agassiz turned 80 on 5 December 1902.
hall: The Elizabeth Cary Agassiz House at Radcliffe College, Cambridge MA, was completed in 1904.
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 (2).
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.
Robert Collyer to Annie Adams Fields and Sarah Orne Jewett
201 West 55th Street
New York
[ End letterhead ]
Dear My Lassies
I will send along stories of the Craven Dales* in which you may find some amusement for spare moments.* These books can stay put until we foregather DV* in the summer on the Hill* or I come to Berwick or whatever seems easiest. I am glad Sister Sarah* is amending slowly it seems who may hasten by and bye so I hope and trust { -- } so do we all.
I am better of my cold and cough and have sworn off -- pills, sleep well o' nights and this morning enjoyed two lengths of [ Deerfat farm ? ] Sausage* "thems the jockies for me" as the guest exclaimed from whose mouth Coleridge* expected Chunks of Wisdom. They are our Saturdays delicatessen { -- } when I see that word in a store window I want to go in and buy things. What lovely bits -- pictures -- there are in the paper I sent on for New Years{!}
Notes
Craven Dales: Probably, Collyer has sent a copy of Chronicles and Stories of the Craven Dales (1881) by James Henry Dixon (1803-1876).
moments: Collyer often omits periods in this letter. I have supplied them where they seem necessary.
DV: Latin: Deo volente, God willing.
Hill: Fields's summer home in Manchester, MA, stands on Thunderbolt Hill.
Sarah: Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
Sausage: The transcription of "Deerfat farm" is uncertain, and so it is not clear exactly what sort of sausage Collyer so enjoys.
Coleridge: British author, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834).
Thomas Wentworth Higginson repeats this anecdote in Book and Heart: Essays on Literature and Life, p. 218.
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.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Reuben H. Hilton*
[ Begin letterhead ]
South Berwick Maine
January 15th 1903
To
Reuben H. Hilton Esqre,
My dear Sir
I am very
sorry that your first letter should have been
unanswered, but I had a very bad accident in being
thrown from a carriage several months ago, and I
still find it difficult to attend to letters that
come.
I am glad to do what you ask
and I hope that it will not matter too much that my
answer comes so late.*
Yours sincerely
Sarah O. Jewett
Notes
Hilton: Though there are records on-line of
at least two Reuben H. Hiltons living in the United
States in 1903, the identity of this person has not
been confirmed.
In light pencil, in another hand,
this note appears on the back of the page: "SARAH
ORNE JEWETT 1849-1909 Amer Story writer. Short
stories of New Eng. life".
New transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Annie Adams Fields to Robert Underwood Johnson
Jany 24th
My dear Mr. Johnson:
I am glad you like the little paper about Madame Blanc.* The photograph in the possession of Mr. Aldrich* is indeed the true thing to copy because it is ^from^ an early picture of her by the great Regnault.* The trouble is that I fear you can not get it -- Mr. Aldrich is in the Adirondacks and is not likely to know how to tell anybody else to find it -- but of course
we may always try!
As for sending the paper to her, pray do as you like, but in spite of the facts all being either in print or taken from her lips I presume she will alter and interline until you will be quite distracted! However the matter is in your hands. Pray do as you like and transfer the sentences as you wish{.}
With kindest regards to your wife from Mifs Jewett* and me
believe me most truly yours
Notes
1903: This date is supported by the publication that year of Fields's article on Madame Blanc. See notes below.
Blanc: Marie Thérèse de Solms Blanc. See Key to Correspondents.
Fields's "Notable Women: Mme. Blanc" appeared in Century Magazine in May 1903, pp. 134-9.
Aldrich: Thomas Baily Aldrich. See Key to Correspondents.
Regnault: French painter, Henri Regnault (1843-1871). Biographers report that one of the last works of his life was a pencil sketch of Madame Blanc in about 1870-1. The portrait of Blanc that appears on page 136 of Fields's article is the same as the one that appears in her Wikipedia entry. In Century it is said to be from a photograph by François Touranchet.
Mifs Jewett: Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by The New York Public Library, Archives & Manuscripts, Century Company records 1870-1930s, Series I. General Correspondence 1870-1930, b. 33, Fields, Annie 1886-1912. http://archives.nypl.org/mss/504#detailed.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Wyman Whitman to Sarah Orne Jewett
[ 28 January 1903 ]*
Darling, I saw A.F.* for a dear visit this afternoon, & she was quite naughty and gay, and made me feel she would be driving out some day very soon now. -- Yet I was then seized with such a homesick wish to see you, and to have ^you^ in the familiar places, & on the River's Edge that I fell to wondering if my wish is not prophetic, & if the time is not nearly right for you to leave bucolic skies, & tread the "academy."* & how I hope and wish for it, and am practicing daily virtue so as to [ dress in ? ] Robust* [ fashion ? ], fit to protect: or better "to warm & comfort & command." --
[ Page 2 ]
I must tell you apropos to this writing, that my writing [ unrecognized word ] is the one most difficult to [ recover ? ] in all this curious illness. My Xmas* letters are not yet written -- nor stacks of others: & when I look at the directed envelopes, I feel a sort of terror at the thought of the replies they indicate -- So you
[ Page 3 ]
see I am still a miserable creature: yet
greatly better in some substantial ways. ----
There are, I will
add, 100.000 things I wish to discourse with you about
-- & so goodnight. Love to dear Mary,* &
salutation to the large landscape of Berks & its [
unrecognized word, environment ?].
Thine, dearest friend,
January 28. 1903 -------------------
Notes
28 January 1903: The envelope associated with this letter was cancelled on 29 January 1903 and addressed to Jewett in South Berwick.
A.F.: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
academy: At the time of this letter, Jewett continues confined to her home in South Berwick after her serious carriage accident the previous September. "The River's Edge," probably refers to Annie Fields's Boston home, which backs onto the Charles River. Having agreed to create a memorial window for Bowdoin College, Whitman hopes to visit the college soon in Jewett's company.
Robust: Whitman has written "Robust" in extra large letters. The transcription of this sentence is uncertain.
Madame Blanc: Marie Thérèse de Solms Blanc. See Key to Correspondents.
Xmas: Abbreviation of Christmas.
Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
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.
Louise Imogen Guiney to Annie Adams Fields
Dearest Mrs. Fields:
This is but a brief word to tell you my relief, after the long heart-corroding suspense, in hearing that you are gaining strength. You have no idea how I have been fighting with the grief of knowing you were so ill, and of knowing Miss Jewett was ill too. I did not write you, because I was a bit panic-struck at the sudden narrowing of my own wide noiseless world; and one never likes to utter anything until panic has abated. Last October, I lost my very dear contemporary and friend Lionel Johnson;* and I felt to the quick the wretched tragic way in which he died: such a fate for the whitest soul I ever knew among poets! (You may have seen, or heard of, an all inadequate Atlantic paper* in which I tried to give some sort of mental portrait of him.) Then,
in that same stormy month, my poor Aunty's* mind began to fail, and grew rapidly worse after my Mother joined us here. It was all heart-breaking. She seemed to keep well, physically. Suddenly, she had a paralytic stroke; lay nine days without pain, clear-thoughted, at peace, almost cheerful as ever at any time; and then, just after Christmas, she died. Like me (we always had shared most notions of the art of living and dying) she wished to be buried near, not carried home. And so it was done. There was Bright's disease,* often beaten back by a strong constitution, ^but^ chronic and invincible, for the last five years. I do not know how events could have been more mercifully disposed. But I miss her. All my life she was all love to me. I am glad to be in England, to
fight my fight alone. -- But I must not fill up with repinings, and melancholy subjects, what I meant to be a congratulatory greeting to my two dear friends. I keep ever on our little drawing-room mantel, in a pretty old daguerreotype frame, the lovely profile of you, done years ago, which Dr. Parsons* (I think) rewarded me with before I knew you; and I hope the loving looks which it gets go toward heartening you, over seas, and charming all your old energies back into your hands. My mother is ever so well ^and thinks of you tenderly;^ and the winter is most mild. I ^am wearing no black, and^ have gone back to the Bodleian* to work. Ever affectionately your,
57 S. John's Road, Oxford.
Notes
Miss Jewett: Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
Johnson: Lionel Johnson (1867-1902), British poet, essayist and critic. Wikipedia says: "Johnson lived a solitary life in London, struggling with alcoholism and repressed homosexuality. He died of a stroke in 1902, after either a fall in the street, or a fall from a barstool in the Green Dragon on Fleet Street."
Atlantic paper: Guiney's essay on Johnson appeared in December 1902 and was reprinted as the introduction to Some Poems of Lionel Johnson. Newly Selected (1912).
Aunty's: A sister to Guiney's mother was Elizabeth Doyle.
Bright's disease: Former name for kidney disease.
Dr. Parsons: Thomas William Parsons (1819-1892), American dentist and poet. He translated portions of Dante's Divine Comedy.
Bodleian: The Bodleian Library is the main research library of Oxford University.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields collection Box 26: mss FI 1635 . Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Wyman Whitman to Sarah Orne Jewett
[ 6 February 1903 ]*
I send this little note along, darling, because its so good & comforting: tho' we can imagine alas just how hard [ dear ? ] old Coolidge finds that colossal leg! First Coolidge and then Plaster must make truly the longest leg* in the modern world.
But its so much to have it over & the prospect fair and Lily* there. ----
I have had a day of successive events: none of them of my own election: & I am just wondering if it must be always thus. I contemplate a little innocent, personal S T R I K E !
______sw_______
Notes
6 February 1903: The envelope associated with this letter was cancelled on 6 February 1903 and addressed to Jewett in South Berwick.
leg: old Coolidge probably is Sarah Chauncey Woolsey, who wrote under the name Susan Coolidge. See Key to Correspondents. The transcription of this passage is uncertain, and Whitman's references mysterious.
Lily: Whether Whitman refers to a person is not clear. In other letters, Whitman mentions Lily Hoppin. See Key to Correspondents.
Evening Transcript: A Boston newspaper.
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. 109.
I have had a day of
successive events, none of them of my own election;
and I am just wondering if it must be always thus. I
contemplate a little innocent personal strike! So
watch the "Evening Transcript."
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Adams Fields
[ Winter 1903 ]
First I must tell a great tale of experience! When I was coming up to bed last night at half past seven (* "dark under the table!" I stopped out in the hall where the box is, and put my fingers in to get two pieces of that oat-cake. And they seemed to be a new shape and Bigger -- And they were cookies!! -- Oh it made a great party; Mary* had to come up the stairs to have some handed to her and Timmy* came galloping from somewhere -- and when he was told that he couldn't have any, said nothing but some minutes afterward I looked behind me as I was undressing, and there
sat Timmy waiting and looking with his little keen head as sharp as a bird's! So Timmy got a whole half of a cooky, for his deep appreciation! It made a great evening !! [ but corrected ] when I began to eat mine I felt a little homesick and they had to be just as good as they were to console my heart. I had been reading The Singing Shepherd* book in the parlour late in the afternoon, and I am always thinking a great deal about you and the dear house. I wish over and over again that I could come (-- it is so hard too to say no when you want anything! but I should be sure to be so tired for two or three days after the
[ Page 3 ]
little journey, and you might think it was worse than it is and worry and then you would be 'all tired out{'} and that would worry me anew -- oh no dear, we had better wait a little while longer -- I dont quite dare to try going out yet, and I begin to feel like it once in a while too, which I hadn't for a long time before. I get up at about noon, and sometimes I stay down stairs until after tea & into the evening, and sometimes I come up here and lie on the couch & go down to tea again. I think this is the best way. I walk about now and then and go to stand in the doorway to get a
[ Page 4 ]
good sniff of the snowy air. I wish you* had these easy stairs to get up and down. I am afraid that I shall boast of them more than usual -- but whether it was because I learned to go upstairs and down on them in infancy or not they always seem as if you came up without feeling half so much weight of yourself --
-- Tell me all the little news about you, dear -- that's what I am always wanting to know! Give my love to the girls ^Cassie & Mrs [unrecognized name]^* and tell them about [ one unrecognized word written over another ] cookies -- it was so funny.
P. L.*)
[ Up the left margin and partly
across the top margin of p. 1 ]
Mary just heard about Tosy and the
cookies -- and said "of course he waited; his aunt
Annie sent those cookies for him!*
Notes
Winter 1903: Fields penciled "1902" in the upper right of page 1, and this may be correct, but because Jewett clearly is still recovering from her September1902 carriage accident and says nothing about holidays, it seems more likely that this letter is from early1903.
Parenthesis marks in this manuscript also were penciled by Fields. Fields also has deleted "Annie" in the greeting.
seven (: Jewett may have written this parenthesis mark, as it appears to be in ink. However, there is no corresponding end parenthesis.
Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
Timmy: A Jewett family dog. Later she refers to him as Tosy.
Jewett has underlined the name twice.
Singing Shepherd: Annie Fields's The Singing Shepherd (1895).
you: Jewett has underlined the word twice.
Mrs. Cabot: Susan Burley Cabot. See Key to Correspondents.
Cassie: Presumably a Fields employee, probably a cook, as suggested in a letter to Carrie Jewett Eastman of 8 September 1895. No further identification has been found.
P. L.: Pinny Lawson (Pinny / Pin) was an affectionate nickname for Jewett, used by her and Annie Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
him: Jewett has underlined the word twice.
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.
Frances Rollins Morse to Sarah Orne Jewett
Feb. 13th 1903.
Dearest Sarah
I have thought of you so often today, that I am sure you must have given me a thought, too.
Wireless telegraphy* is one of the incredible things that are really very credible, don't you think so? for we are all conscious of its more or less imperfect working in daily life.
I went down the Harbor this morning to my dear Long Island, and the little voyage is one of the great delights of my life.
Today it was all a little hazy, with uncertain instances, gradually clearing as we went. There were more vessels than I have ever seen there, all either coal-laden, or having just landed their coal -- The great T-masted J. W. Lawson Schooner* was there, & twelve big schooners, all in the upper harbor while below were
lying the coal-
It always touches me
to see the women's names on ships -- I don't know anything that would make one feel more truly honored than to have one's name on the stern of a boat (and now I think of it I should like to go straight down to our dear Essex ship-yard, and have a beautiful ship built, & have her named The Sarah Orne Jewett -- )
I looked at a nice smutty little tug today, bearing the name of Ida M. Chase -- While a big schooner was the Eleanor Harvey of Bath -- a shabby iron-plated steamer with the Union Jack at the masthead was the Warrior from Whitby.
Goodnight, dear Sarah -- Esther* would send you so much love, but she is -- I hope -- asleep
FRM
Notes
wireless telegraphy: Wireless telegraphy via radio became known in about 1895, but was not very practical for communication until about 1910. Wikipedia.
J. W. Lawson Schooner ... Ida M. Chase ... Eleanor Harvey of Bath ... Warrior from Whitby: I have located no more information about these ocean vessels.
Esther: Esther has not yet been identified.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University: Sarah Orne Jewett Correspondence I, Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett.
Morse, Frances Rollins, 1850-1928. 3 letters, bMS Am 1743 (157).
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.
Robert Collyer to Annie Adams Fields
201 West 55th Street
New York
[ End letterhead ]
[ 14 February 1903 ]
Dear Friend
Someone sent me "A week in a french country house"* about New Years.* There was no script to tell me who but about midway in the volume the book was a ruin and I want to take it down to the MacMillans and get a sound one { -- } can you cast a ray of light on the sender by a stroke of that pencil if no more{?} I am thinking of you as [ ink mark ] almost well again. Mary* said some while ago you were better. I trust you have not gone back on this glint of light. I am quite well now{,} only cough o' mornings to clear the pipes.
Do you see the [ Edinburg so written ] Review{?} The new number contains the best review of Henry James* his books and genius I have ever seen and the most luminous. If you are up to reading a large paper you will like this { -- } it is written in an admirable [ spirit blotted and deleted ] spirit but I had to leave off in the club before the section was read of his last things which may not be so favorable.
Still I am sure it will be good. I had to rush home for my dinner. Gertrude* God bless her is a minute woman { -- } she accept{s} the axiom that punctuality is the soul of meal times.
Notes
years: Collyer omits many periods in this letter. I have supplied them wherever they seem necessary.
country house: Adelaide Kemble Sartoris (1815-1879) was an English opera singer, the younger sister of Fanny Kemble, actress and anti-slavery activist. She wrote A Week in a French Country House (1867).
Mary: While this is not certain, it is likely this is Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
Henry James: American author Henry James (1843-1916) published two books in 1900 and 1901, A Little Tour of France (1900) and The Sacred Fount (1901).
Collyer refers to "James's Achievement" in the Edinburgh Review 197 (January 1903), pp. 59-85.
Gertrude: Collyer's daughter-in-law. See Collyer in 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 10: mss Fl 1-5637. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
South Berwick, Maine
February 19, [1903]
Dearest Mrs. Perkins:
The flowers are most lovely -- a true spring
gathering, and yesterday was a winter day in Berwick, I
can tell you! -- but they came as warm as toast in their
box. As for the "basket to keep," it is a treasure indeed!
Mary* contemplated it with joy as if she meant to start
for the garden at once. How kind you were to think of me!
We were speaking of that charming luncheon only a day or
two ago, and ever since you came from Burlington I have
been wishing that I could see you, and following your gay
career and the gay buds in the newspapers as best I could
though Mrs. Cabot* has been as kind as she could be in
writing all winter.
I was amusing myself lately by thinking how much
I feel like one of those stupid old winter flies that
appear out of their cracks at this time of year, but I
know one thing -- how "sensible they are to kindness," as
my grandmother would say.
Next summer the trolley cars that go to York are
to have a branch line to Berwick1 (change at
Portsmouth Bridge!) and I shall hope that you can be
coaxed to take the journey. It is a pretty bit of country
from here to Little Boar's Head all the way.
Please give my love to all the Monday luncheoners
when you go again, and especially to Elsie2
next time you see her. I have thought about her a great
deal and such a charming letter that she wrote me
in the autumn.
Yours most affectionately and with many thanks,
Sarah O. Jewett
Isn't it good that dear Mrs. Cabot has kept so well all winter? I don't know what I should have done if she had fallen ill too!
Notes
1 The electric trolley lines of the
Portsmouth, Dover and York Street Railway were extended to
South Berwick during the spring of 1903.
2 Mrs. Perkins' daughter Elsie Alice,
wife of William Hooper, a Boston cotton mills, mining, and
railway executive. Alice Perkins Hooper maintained a home
in Boston and a cottage in Manchester-by-the-Sea, where
she entertained many of the women in the Fields-Jewett
circle. Helen Bell characterized her house as the only salon
in Massachusetts
Editor's Notes
Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
Mrs. Cabot: Susan Burley Cabot. See Key
to
Correspondents.
This letter is edited and annotated by Richard Cary in Sarah
Orne
Jewett Letters; the ms. is held by Colby
College Special Collections, Waterville, Maine.
Marie Thérèse de Solms Blanc to Sarah Orne Jewett
This message was composed in French; a transcription follows the translation. The message appears on a Russian picture postcard. The text encircles a photo of Sevastopol harbor in Crimea, which fills about 1/3 of the space on the message side of the postcard.
She was always concerned about your health, and she remembered you so fondly!
I will leave Paris for a few days. I can't bear to hear her talked of. Her husband is taking her body to Parays.
I embrace you with redoubled tenderness.
Oh what a loss this is, and what a sorrow to poor Thérèse who loved her so much! I was just sending off your letter when this came.
Notes
1903: This note was sent on a postcard addressed to Jewett in South Berwick. It was cancelled in Paris on 19 February 1903 and in South Berwick. The date stamp for South Berwick is less clear, but it may indicate a 9 March 1903 arrival.
Annie: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Gabrielle Delzant: Alidor (1848-1905) and Gabrielle Delzant (1854-1903) resided in Paris and at Parays (Lot-et-Garonne). He was a lawyer, a bibliophile, editor, and author and wrote, among other works, a biography of the brothers Goncourt.
Richard Cary notes that Gabrielle was cited by Violet Paget for the "admirableness of her brains" and her "extraordinary charm of high breeding." Madame Delzant, an aspiring author, compiled extensive memoranda and rough drafts of books on Port Royal and the Princesse de Liancourt but did not live to publish them. Her husband edited Lettres de Gabrielle Delzant (1906), for which Mme. Blanc wrote a preface.
See also "Paget in Parays" (1960) by Archille H. Biron.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields Papers and Addenda mss FI 1-5637, Box 5. Transcription, translation and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College, with essential assistance from Jeannine Hammond, Professor of French, Emerita, at Coe College.
Transcription
Chérie, Je ne veux pas que le terrible billet vous arrive sans un mot que vous communiquerez à Annie. Je perds ma fille d'adoption, une jeune soeur chérie, sur laquelle il semblait que je pusse m'appuyer jusqu'à mon dernier jour; en une semaine tout a été fini. Gabrielle Delzant n'est plus. ---
Elle était se occupée de votre santé, elle gardait de vous si bon souvenir!
Je vais quitter Paris [ pr q.q. for pour quelques ] jours. Je ne peux supporter d'entendre sans cesse parler d'elle. Son mari emporte le corps à Parays.
Je vous embrasse avec un redoublement de tendresse
[ On the address side of the card, in English and in another hand. ]
Oh what a loss this is, and what a sorrow to poor Thérèse who loved her so much! I was just sending off your letter when this came.
171
===
Marie Thérèse de Solms Blanc to Annie Adams Fields
This letter was composed in French; a transcription follows the translation.
Editor's note*
Meudon, Tuesday
[ 24 February 1903 ]*
Most dear Annie,
I won't speak of my pain at the loss of the friend who, for thirty years of unblemished friendship, gave me every sign of growing affection. The love that binds you and Sarah* means that you, better probably than anyone else, can understand the cruelty of my loss.
I had hoped that Gabrielle,* being much younger than I, would care for me in my last days and would close my eyes. God took her back; the terrible embolism extinguished her in one night, in the moment when we thought she had turned toward recovery. I cannot bear to listen to all of our dear friends ceaselessly talking over this horrible event, -- and suffering even more
[ Page 3 ]
can be deeper even than many family bereavements. The passing of my own brother, at almost this time a year ago, did not create the void in my life that I feel today. After two months of illness, I remain weak in every way, and it seems as if my world is disappearing, but that is wrong, for I still have perfect friends, I still have the two of you, inseparable, to whom my thoughts reach out. In my room at Meudon, almost as austere as a Carmelite cell, but which opens out upon the already spring-like horizon
of this world [ unrecognized words ]. M. Delzant has fled to Italy with his children, where they are guests of Vernon Lee,* who is perhaps more afflicted than everyone else together. She adored Gabrielle, who knew how to cultivate empathy in an intellectual spirit. In her last letter to me, she says "Take me to America. I need to renew myself, to rekindle myself." And I replied from the depth of my own sorrow: "Yes, we will go." I tell you this to show in what direction our two broken hearts are turning
from the valley of the Loire. I have read your lovely article about my patron saint.* I am so grateful to you for making this grand person as interesting to Protestants as she is to Catholics, for her virtues transcend all differences in dogma.
_____
St. Theresa, with her natural genius, was of course one of the theological "doctors" of our church, but she belongs, apart from her mysticism,
to all Christians, to all humanity. [ Unrecognized words ] and you have done it admirably, with the great power of empathy you possess.
One of the last things Gabrielle told me was that she wanted to write to you; she always wanted to hear the news about both of you. During her terrible hemorrhage, when she bled from the phlebitis caused by an undetected [ clot or tumor ? ], she told me: “Here I am, like Seneca.* Well, this is as it should be,
as long as it conforms fully with God's will.” She surrendered her life with a smile, and left us an example disheartening in its perfection, but which still will make each of us a little better. Never has one seen such unanimity in grief. A force for good disappears,
one that twice over has lifted me above myself. May God bless her, God bless you, too.
Th B
We find this part mostly unreadable.
We have translated the words we can make out. ]
Notes
Editor's note: This document was added to the Sarah Orne Jewett Text Project or revised after June 2022. At that time it became necessary to change format, mainly to eliminate nearly all links to other documents. As a result, this letter differs in format from most others in the collection.
1903: Huntington Library archivists have assigned this date, which almost certainly is correct. Blanc reported the death of Gabrielle Delzant (1854-1903) in a postcard to Sarah Orne Jewett of 19 February 1903. If this date is correct, Blanc would have composed this letter about that death the following Tuesday.
Sarah: Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
Gabrielle: According to the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Alidor (1848-1905) and Gabrielle Delzant (1854-1903) resided in Paris and at Parays (Lot-et-Garonne). He was a lawyer, a bibliophile, editor, and author.
In Sarah Orne Jewett Letters, Richard Cary notes that Gabrielle was cited by Violet Paget for the "admirableness of her brains" and her "extraordinary charm of high breeding." Madame Delzant, an aspiring author, compiled extensive memoranda and rough drafts of books on Port Royal and the Princesse de Liancourt but did not live to publish them. Her husband edited Lettres de Gabrielle Delzant (1906), for which Mme. Blanc wrote a preface.
See also "Paget in Parays" (1960) by Archille H. Biron, Colby Quarterly 5 (June 1960), pp. 123-7.
sister's death: While visiting at Mme. Blanc's home in 1898, Fields learned of the death in Rhode Island of her older sister, the painter, Elizabeth Adams.
Vernon Lee: Pen name of British author, Violet Paget. See Key to Correspondents.
patron saint: Fields's "Saint Theresa" appeared in Atlantic Monthly (March 1903) pp. 353-63.
Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582) was a Spanish noblewoman who entered a Carmelite convent, a mystic, theologian, and religious reformer. Wikipedia.
Seneca: The Roman Stoic philosopher and author, Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger ( c. 4 BC - 65 CE). He is remembered in part for his calmness in the face of death, when forced to commit suicide during the reign of Nero. Professor Hammond points out that Delzant's quotation rhymes, suggesting that she is repeating something she has read or heard.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields Papers and Addenda mss FI 1-5637, Box 5. Transcription, translation and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College, with essential assistance from Jeannine Hammond, Professor of French, Emerita, at Coe College.
Transcription
Blanc sometimes abbreviates "pour" to "pr" and "vous" to "vs." Such instances in this letter are rendered as "pour" and "vous."
Meudon, Mardi
Bien chère Annie,
Je ne vous parlerai
pas de la douleur
que me cause la
perte de l'amie qui
depuis trente ans d'une
liaison sans nuages
m'a donné toutes
les marques du plus
constant d'avancement.
L'affection qui vous
unit à Sarah vous
permet de comprendre
mieux que personne
peut-être la perte cruelle
Gabrielle étant beaucoup
plus jeune que moi
qu'elle aurait soin de
mes derniers jours et
me fermerait les yeux.
Dieu l'a reprise; la terrible
embolie l'a asphyxiée
en une nuit, au
moment où on la
croyait sauvée. -- Ne
pouvant supporter
d'entendre tous nos
amis connaissances
revenir sans cesse
sur cet événement
horrible, -- et souffrant
bien plus encore de
comme vous en [ envoie ? ]
le monde (qui trouve
[ tant ? ] exagéré en fait
le sentiment), je suis
venue m'enfermer
ici dans ma solitude
de Meudon où je
vis avec mes souvenirs{.}
J'essaye de me rappeler
votre courage, votre
oubli de vous-même
à La Ferté quand vous
avez appris la mort
de votre soeur. Mais je
n'ai pas votre force d'âme,
et puis je crois que certains
deuils du coeur peuvent
encore que beaucoup
de deuils de famille. La
disparition de mon frère
lui-même, l'an dernier, presque
à pareille époque, n'avait
pas creusé dans ma vie
le vide que je sens aujourd'hui.
Après deux mois de maladie,
je suis faible de toutes manières
il me semble que tout
m'échappe et c'est mal
car j'ai encore des amies
parfaites, je vous ai encore
chères inséparables que ma
pensée va si souvent chercher.
A Meudon dans ma chambre
presque aussi austère qu'une
cellule de Carmélite, mais
qui donne sur
l'horizon déjà [ printanier ? ]
[ unrecognized word ]. M. Delzant
est enfui avec ses
enfants en Italie où
Vernon Lee les reçoit.
Elle est, pauvre Violet Paget,
plus affligée peut-être
que tous les autres ensemble.
Elle adorait Gabrielle qui
avait su ajouter un
coeur à son cerveau.
Dans la dernière lettre
elle me dit -- Emmenez-
moi en Amérique. Il
faut que je me renouvelle{,}
que je me [ retrempe ? ].
Et je lui ai répondu
du fond de ma propre
douleur: -- Oui, [ nous irons ? ].
Je vous dis cela pour vous
montrer de quel côté deux
coeurs désolés se tournent.
Loire. J'ai lu votre
délicieux article, [ concernant ? ]
à ma sainte patronne.
Comme je vous sais
gré d'avoir d'avais dégagé de cette
grande figure ce qui
peut la rendre intéressante
aux yeux des protestants,
comme à ceux des
catholiques, parce que ce
sont les vertus au-
dessus de toutes les
différences du dogme. --
___________
Ste Thérèse par son génie
naturel fut certainement
l'un des docteurs de notre
église, mais elle appartient
mysticisme à part, à
à l'humanité. [ Tout / Vaut entière ? ]
et vous l'avez fait admirablement
sentir avec la large puissance
de sympathie qui est en
vous. --
L'une des dernières choses
que m'ait [ dites ? ] Gabrielle
c'est qu'elle voulait
vous écrire; elle s'enquérait
sans cesse de vos nouvelles
à toutes deux. Pendant
l'affreuse hémorragie qui
faisait couler tout le
sang de ses veines, car
la phlébite avait pour
cause un fibrome
inconnu, elle m'a
dit: -- Me voilà comme
Sénèque. Eh bien ce n'est
rien ou plutôt tout est
soit en parfaite conformité
avec la volonté de
Dieu. -- Elle a fait
le sourire aux lèvres
le sacrifice de sa vie,
et nous a laissé
un exemple presque
décourageant -- par
sa perfection, mais
qui rendra cependant
un peu meilleur
chacun de nous.
Jamais on n'a
vu pareille unanimité
de regrets. C'est une
force bienfaisante
qui disparaît [ et ? ]
moi -même. Que Dieu la bénisse{,}
que Dieu vous bénisse [ aussi ? ] {.}
[ spontaneously ? ]
[ Trave or Trove ] [ houser or hunter ? ] a [ unrecognized word ]
pour [ unrecognized words ]. -- L'Amérique, c'est
vous, c'est Sarah, c'est la forte influence qui
Sarah Orne Jewett to Marie Thérèse de Solms Blanc [ Fragment ]
… complain no more, this letter is dull enough without that!
I wonder if it is too late to make a change or two in the French edition of my Tory Lover?* -- On the 23rd page, for example, where (3rd line from foot) I say Prince of Conti, I should like to say Duke of Berwick, and ^on^ page 154 is a gap in the edition I sent Mlle Douĕsnel,* and in your first edition a great mistake on the middle of the page! I said Duke de Sully at a venture and* never corrected it until the second edition where the whole phrase was cut out -- that should be Duke of
Berwick too or read ^thus^ = "added the old Irish rebel, who had been like a son to his father's friend the great Duke of Berwick, Marshal of France."* If there is a second edition I should like to have the first of these corrected in the plates (Prince of Conti ^erased^ for Duke of Berwick.)*
I had a note of sympathy for my illness from the translator, but I fear that you have had a very trying and tiresome [ work ? ] in supplementing hers.
Please give my affectionate homage to Madame de Beaulaincourt{.}*
It is delightful -- the success of Monsieur 'Ski.'* -- I should like to send a new message of thanks for the postcards, which renew the delight of my day's visit -- I do not forget a moment that I spent at Acosta. Under your French skies the violets will soon be blooming again there, with the new Spring.
My sister* sends you her love. She has had a busy winter, as you will* know, and Theodore* has been working hard at his professional school. Timmy looks old, but his heart is ever young and a little affair of honour with dogs of the village sends him home wounded but
victorious from time to time. I wish that you were here my dear friend in this bright winter weather. I do not know if I have told you that our good John* has died -- it was in December, and from the effects of his army wound. You will know how much we miss that good friend and servant of nearly thirty years.
There is everything to say, and I have said nothing! I remember in this moment to ask you if you are really translating Lady Rose's Daughter* for the Revue as our newspapers say? I have been looking over the letters of Mlle de Lespinasse* -- the story has curious unlikenesses of character with likeness
of plot. Whatever one may say it seems so far as I have read, a great story and far beyond her others.*
Yours with
unfailing love
S. O. J.
Notes
1903: The letter's content supports this dating of the letter. See notes below.
Tory Lover: Jewett's The Tory Lover (1901).
Douĕsnel: Mlle H. Douĕsnel translated The Tory Lover as Le Roman d'Un Loyaliste (1905).
and: Jewett sometimes writes an "a" with a long tail for "and." I render these as "and."
of France: Jewett has made a large period after "France" and circled it.
Berwick: Richard Cary notes:
On page 154 of the first edition of The Tory Lover (first state of text, red binding), lines 16-17 read: rebel, who had seen with his own eyes the great Duke / de Sully, Marshal of France. In the 1901 reprint (second state of text, blue binding), the sentence is curtailed after rebel and a two-line blank follows. Prince of Conti was not corrected on page 23 of the reprint.Beaulaincourt: Sophie de Beaulaincourt. See Key to Correspondents. Jewett and Fields visited de Beaulaincourt at Le Château d'Acosta during their 1898 trip to France.
This also remains unchanged in the 1905 French edition (page 34), and a compression in the translation (page 200) eliminates all reference to Duke and Marshal.
In the English edition (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1901), Prince of Conti is retained (page 20), as is the full sentence concerning Duke and Marshal (page 136).
"Ski": Cary writes:
'Ski' is the diminutive of Viradobetski, the Polish sculptor and dilettante of "tous les arts" in Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. Miss Jewett is referring to the original of this character, a lifelong friend of Proust, Frédéric de Madrazo. A dabbler in singing, composing, and painting, he was a favorite in salons like that of Madame de Beaulaincourt (1818-1904).Cary does not explain how he knows this is the intended reference.
sister: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
will: Jewett appears to have superimposed two words, "will" and "well." I have accepted Cary's decision as to her final intention.
Theodore: Theodore Jewett Eastman. See Key to Correspondents.
John: John Tucker. See Key to Correspondents.
Daughter: Mary Augusta (Mrs. Humphry) Ward's Lady Rose's Daughter (1903). See Key to Correspondents.
Cary says that Blanc's translation, La Fille de Lady Rose, translated by Th. Bentzon, "appeared in seven installments in the Revue des Deux Mondes, n.s. XVII, from September 15 through December 15, 1903."
Lespinasse: Cary notes:
Julie Jeanne Eléanore de Lespinasse (1732-1776) presided over one of the more famous salons in the Paris of her day. Her death is said to have been hastened by the marriage of Count de Guibert to another woman. The Lettres écrites de 1773 à 1776 by Mlle de Lespinasse contains a record of this unrequited love. First published by the count's widow in two volumes in 1809, it went through several editions, then was issued in 1893 with an introduction by Sainte-Beuve. The edition Miss Jewett probably read is the translation of this text by Katharine Prescott Wormeley, distributed by the Boston firm of Hardy, Pratt & Company in 1901, 1902, and 1903. In the Introduction to Lady Rose's Daughter -- volume XI, the Autograph Edition of The Writings of Mrs. Humphry Ward (Boston, 1910) -- Mrs. Ward reveals that she "saw the germ of a story" in "Sainte-Beuve's study of Julie de Lespinasse."others: Cary says:
With this opinion the translator took strong exception. On March 14, 1903, Miss Wormeley wrote to Miss Jewett: "With regard to the book I feel vexed with Mrs. Ward for having degraded Mlle de Lespinasse into an adventuress. I don't think she had the right to take a real person and insult her memory." (Houghton Library, Harvard)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.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Adams Fields
[ Late Winter 1903 ]
I was so glad to get your little letty -- The telephone loses value if you cant go to Hear it yourself. I miss you dreadfully but I feel very comfy and happy at home and it is wonderful how much of you seems to be left in your room! I continue to sleep nicely [ but corrected ] I am disappointed about being able to get up and about the house a [ little ? ]. I have
[ Page 2 ]
Notes
Late Winter 1903: This letter shows several signs of being composed in the months following Jewett's serious carriage accident of September 1902, including erratic handwriting, in which she is unable to maintain straight lines of script. A number of the words in this transcription are actually guessable scrawls in the manuscript.
Given Jewett's reference to bird song and a "still" wintry sky, it seems likely she wrote this in the late winter of 1903.
story "Cornhill": Presumably, Jewett means not the British literary magazine named Cornhill, but The Cornhill Booklet, published in Boston, 1900-1914, which in its Autumn 1902 issue, reprinted Jewett's essay, "A Plea for Front Yards."
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.
Katharine Prescott Wormeley to Sarah Orne Jewett
March 14
1903
My dear Mifs Jewett,
I am so deeply grieved at the long and grievous results of you accident.* I had no idea it was anything so serious. I have asked Mrs Fitz* twice to find out how and where you were -- and I have written you twice and directed to North Berwick.*
I directed that paper the other day to South Berwick thinking I should find out thus if I had been directing wrong.
I cant think how you can have been so injured as to be [ unrecognized words ] in recovering -- -- But I wont worry you with questions.
It must have been such
a sad lonely winter for you -- and grievous for your sister* -- remember me to her with great sympathy. ^Perhaps^ [ deleted word, possibly if ] you have hardly been able safely to write, and that would add to the distress, for you must have been thinking things in [ your mind ? ] all along.
I sent you that paper with the review by the literary editor of the Tribune,* [ more ? ] as it were, tentatively, to see if it would bring me a letter -- and it has!
With regard to the book I feel vexed with Mrs Ward* for having degraded [ Mlle corrected ] de Lespinasse into an adventuress -- I dont think she had the right to take a real person and insult her
memory. I have always noticed in Mrs Ward a certain English middle class snobbishness; which is a thing that does not exist in this country, and therefore Americans do not, as a rule, [ perceive ? ] it.
I feel a little vexed, personally about this affair, because I am afraid the publishers of my translation of Mlle de L. are going to make profit out of it. Heineman cabled for 1000 copies to be sent to him at once -- and this seems to have stirred ^up^
I hope you will know and feel that I have nothing to do with such things. I sold my rights of [ every- so written ] kind when I translated that (and all my other books) and I know ^nothing^ about their publication, I have [ no not with deleted t ] profit from it.
This hot weather has proved too much for me, and I go Monday for a few weeks to Newport for a breath of sea-air.
I have been busy this winter building a house here for a friend. It has been a great amusement, although I am [ wofully so spelled ] disappointed that after designing the hall and staircase for panelling, she wont have the panelling done, and prefers to paper its dreary length, with a picture-ruin paper! -- one piece on top of the other! -- awful! ---
Dear friend, I hope that open air will revive you altogether. Confinement is an evil in itself -- I do hope and pray you may soon be your own self again --
K.P.W
Notes
accident: Wormeley refers to the September 1902 carriage accident which brought an end to Jewett's publishing career. Wormeley more than once expressed the hope that Jewett would be able to resume writing fiction.
Mrs. Fitz: Mrs. Fitz appears in several of Wormeley's letters as a close friend and traveling companion. She may be Henrietta Goddard Wigglesworth Fitz (1847-1929).
North Berwick: Jewett's home was in South Berwick, not far from North Berwick, ME.
sister: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
literary editor of the Tribune: This item has not yet been identified.
de Lespinasse: French author and salonnière, Jeanne Julie Éléonore de Lespinasse (1732-1776). Wikipedia.
British novelist Mary Augusta Ward (see Key to Correspondents) was thought to have modeled Julie Le Breton in Lady Rose's Daughter (1903) on Lespinasse.
Wormeley's Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse, With Notes on her Life and Character, was published in Boston in 1902, and then by Heineman.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University in Sarah Orne Jewett, Correspondence, MS Am 1743, Item 245, Wormeley, Katherine Prescott, 1830-1908. 7 letters. This transcription is from a photocopy held by the Maine Women Writers Collection, The Burton Trafton Papers, Box 2, Folder 98. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
An envelope associated with this letter is addressed to Jewett in South Berwick, canceled in Jackson, NH, on 14 March 1903. Written above the address in a different hand is the note: Miss Wormeley on Mrs Humphry Ward.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Adams Fields
Sunday
[ March 1903 ]*
Dearest Annie
(Wasn't it interesting that I
should have been so concerned about your having a
cold? I am sorry enough that my visions proved true --
oh do be careful dear! but Miss Voshell* will know
what to do for you. This is the time in winter when
people get tired and have the grippe, but I do believe
that we ought to be 'smoked' after we have had it --
it is so contagious and may make so much trouble for
others .---- I was very sorry that I laid blame in the
wrong
[ Page 2 ]
quarter (if there were blame!)* about Rosalie -- but I
did feel so for poor little Eppie.* What fun it would
be to have her in the south room at Manchester if you
were well! Dear little thing!) ---*
What do you think I read yesterday
but a good piece of The Tory Lover!* You know how long
it takes before you can sit down to a book of your own
with any detachment -- as if somebody else had written
it? I have taken it up now and then and [ found corrected
] that it only worried me but yesterday was different
-- it seemed quite new and whole! and I really
was delighted with my piece of work. I have never
succeeded
[ Page 3 ]
in doing anything except the Pointed Firs* that comes
anywhere near it -- my conscience upholds this happy
belief, and whether it was a hundred years ago or now,
is apart from the question altogether. The book of
Ruth was ^was^ is [so written]
an historical novel in its day.* The French Country
House is no more real to writer or reader because Mrs.
Sartoris* had made the visit & imagined she made
some episodes a few summers before ---- I cant think
what people are thinking of who didn't like the T. L.
as much as some of my books of slight sketches which
-- are mostly imaginary! or even as well as the
Pointed Firs -- but as Brother Robert* frankly
remarked "They don't!" ---- I can't help being
[ Page 4 ]
sure that somebody now and then will like it.
( and if H. & M.* were as good publishers as they
are printers it would have been done better -- )
However it did very well and lets not grumble about
any thing. I think it wasn't very well fitted for a
Serial -- I am sorry for all that part of it, and for
the foolish exhausting hurry I was led into.
---- ( Yesterday Mrs. Perkins
(Edith)* sent me some flowers too in the dearest
little flat basket which will be lovely to carry to
the garden this summer. I wonder if yours was like it?
And a nice dear note. I am going to send you
Mary Garrett's* letter which is a satisfaction. Please
send it back{.} She is really affectionate and so
kind. I wish you could whisk through the air to [
Baltimore ? ]
[ Up the left margin and then
across the top margin of page 1 ]
[ Up the left margin and then across the top margin of page 2 ]
for Christmas. Goodbye darling {
-- } everything is going well and I shall be down
today.
Your own
Pinny.
Notes
March 1903: That Jewett has been
re-reading The Tory Lover, that Annie Fields
is ill and under the care of Lucy Voshell, and that
Jewett cannot go to her points to this tentative date,
after Fields's possible minor stroke in the fall of
1902, following Jewett's serious carriage accident in
September of 1902.
Most, but not all, parenthesis
marks in this letter were penciled in by Fields.
Mrs Voshell: Mrs. or Miss Voshell seems to be
Annie's nurse. According to Paula Blanchard,
Fields had a minor stroke in the fall and continued
unwell through much of the winter 1902-3 (pp.
349-50) During an illness a few years later
(1906-7), Fields's friend, Julia Ward Howe, was
attended by Lucy Voshell: "This nurse was known
to others as Lucy Voshell, but her patient promptly
named her 'Wollapuk.' She was as merry as she was
skillful, and the two made much fun together. Even
when the patient could not speak, she could twinkle.
As strength gradually returned, the ministrations of
Wollapuk became positively scenes of revelry; and the
anxious guardian below, warding off would-be
interviewers or suppliants, might be embarrassed to
hear peals of laughter ringing down the stair."
The Thomas Bailey Aldrich collection at the University
of Virginia, includes letters from Lilian Woodman
(Mrs. Thomas Bailey) Aldrich to Lucy Voshell regarding
Aldrich's twin sons. That Lucy Voshell nursed
two close friends of Fields suggests that she may have
cared for Fields as well.
blame): Parentheses around this phrase
are by Jewett.
Rosalie ... Eppie: The identities of
these people is unknown. Assistance is welcome.
thing!) ----: This parenthesis mark,
like most of the others in the letter is by
Fields. Between this line and the next, Fields
has inserted in pencil: "begin here".
The Tory Lover: Jewett's last novel was
serialized in Atlantic Monthly, beginning in
1900 and appeared as a book in 1901.
Pointed Firs: Jewett's The Country of the
Pointed Firs (1896).
book of Ruth ... in its day: The Book of Ruth tells the Old
Testament Biblical story of a woman of Moab who
converts to Judaism and adopts the Israelites as her
people. It seems likely that Jewett is thinking
of what Henry James wrote to her in his letter of 5
October 1901: "The 'historic' novel is, for me,
condemned, even in cases of labour as delicate as
yours, to a fatal cheapness, for the simple reason
that the difficulty of the job is inordinate &
that a mere escamotage, in the interest of
each, & of the abysmal public naïveté, becomes
inevitable. You may multiply the little facts that can
be got from pictures, & documents, relics &
prints, as much as you like -- the real thing is
almost impossible to do, & in its essence the
whole effect is as nought."
Mrs. Sartoris: Adelaide Kemble Sartoris
(1815-1879) was an English opera singer, the younger
sister of Fanny Kemble, actress and anti-slavery
activist. She wrote A Week in a French
Country House (1867).
Brother Robert: Robert Collyer. See Key to Correspondents.
H. & M.: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Jewett's publisher.Mrs. Perkins (Edith): Edith Forbes Perkins. See Key to Correspondents.
The parentheses around "Edith" are by Jewett.
Mary Garrett's: See Key to Correspondents.
Helen Merriman: See Key to Correspondents.
Hymettus honey ... some: It is not perfectly clear that Jewett has underlined this word; she may have meant to cross a T in the following line.
Mount Hymettus is near Athens in Greece.
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.
Sarah Wyman Whitman to Sarah Orne Jewett
[ 25 March 1903 ]*
Darling: after much searching and [ learning ? ] of trains, I have evolved a bold plan! which is to move on Brunswick* so that I lunch there, and have two hours for general inspection & then reach South Berwick about 7.30 if your dear sister Mary* will
[ Page 2 ]
I feel several different forms of ardor as I think of this & our [ two unrecognized words ] with great love
March 25th. 1903
Notes
Brunswick: Whitman plans a quick trip to Bowdoin College to prepare for designing a memorial window there, in honor of Jewett's father. Jewett is not able to join the trip as she continues confined to her home after her serious carriage accident the previous September.
Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
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.
Richard Malcolm Johnston to Sarah Orne Jewett
March 27, 1903.
My dear Mifs Jewett:
Your delightful letter would have been answered sooner, but that I was away when it came and for some time afterwards. It tends to relieve me of some of the grief I had from missing the sight of you and Mrs. Fields* while you were in Baltimore. I would have remained after the other guests went away that [ Sunday ? ] as I was invited by Mifs Adams* to do: but I had an engagement to go only a little later
Well, well! to think of it! To be disappointed in what would have given me so much pleasure! Of course the women and men who delayed could not have done otherwise with two such women. But they might have been a little lefs exacting, and let an old man have at least a little bit of your society.
But I thank you for your good letter and Mrs Fields for her kind words. I shall hope to have better luck the next time, if I live to
I have always remembered with much pleasure that brief visit I made to Boston, especially the evening at Mrs Fields'. It seems hard that I who, all my life had desired to see that famous town, could see, in the [ old ? ] times, only the Parker House and the Museum, being [ unrecognized word ] both by delay in the coming of my baggage, and an engagement to go to Philadelphia. But saw you and I saw Mrs Fields! and I would be willing to [ swear ? ] that there wasn't any better thing in all St. Botolph's Town.* That
I would! And so, when you two fine women visit again, give a thought to me, to the pleasure it was to me to know you, to my disappointment of meeting you [ here corrected ], and accept an old man's [ unrecognized word ].
R. W. Johnston.
Mifs [ Sarah ? ] O. Jewett.
South Berwick.
Maine.
Notes
Fields: Annie Adams Fields. Key to Correspondents.
Adams: Annie Fields's sister, the painter Elizabeth Adams. See Fields in Key to Correspondents.
St. Botolph's Town: This transcription is uncertain. If it is correct, Johnston may refer to the legend that Boston in Lincolnshire, UK, was named from the tower of St. Botolph's Church, a landmark named "Boston Stump" by sailors. Wikipedia.
Johnston seems to place possessives and contractions partially in superscript. I present these as is currently conventional.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. bMS Am 1743 Box 3, Item 119 I. Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Lilian Woodman Aldrich
South Berwick, Maine.
I have been wishing to write to you for so many days -- ever since I knew that Mrs. Richardson's* long siege of suffering was over -- but I knew that you would understand why I did not, and ^know^ that I thought of you very often. I have loved to remember how kind she was that autumn when A.F.* and I were at Martinsville. I came really to know her there
and we had such pleasant times together before she went away to town -- We always talked about it afterward and I never shall forget it -- I wish that you would send my love to Mr. Richardson when you write, and tell him that I feel the truest sympathy for him -- it is such a hard time
all the memories of happiness and pleasure. Thank Heaven that it is so! -----
You will be sure that I am always longing to get to town to be with dear A.F. but it is no use to think of it (for both our sakes) until I am much stronger. I keep having returns of the pain and dizziness in my head, but now these only last for a day or two and come further and further apart -- By and by the doctors are sure that I
shall miss them altogether! I am not very strong yet but I stay 'up' all the afternoon now and get down to luncheon & to tea, too -- with Mary* which is
quiet and save up! I hope that you have good news from dear Charley? Yours with much love and many wishes
Notes
1903: Jewett indicates that she has nearly recovered enough from her September 1902 carriage accident to be able to look forward to leaving home to visit Annie Fields in Boston, making it very likely that his letter is from early 1903. However, it is possible that the letter comes from late in 1902.
Mrs. Richardson's: According to George Carey's "The Rise and Fall of Elmore," The William Richardsons at Seawoods and the Aldriches at the Crags were neighbors during summers at Tenants Harbor, ME. See Key to Correspondents.
A.F. : Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
T.B.: Thomas Bailey Aldrich. See Key to Correspondents.
The Aldriches' twin sons, Talbot and Charles were born in 1868. Charles was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1902, and he died two years later in March 1904.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Thomas Bailey 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: 2764.
Sarah Orne Jewett probably to Mary Rice Jewett
Tuesday morning [ 1903 ]
South Berwick, Maine
……………Dont hurry back, we are getting on “soberly, righteously and godly” -- (I used to think it was soberlily neighborlily and Godlily!) Timmy* is as well as can be.
With much love
Sarah
Notes
The line of points presumably indicates an omission from the manuscript.
Timmy: This Jewett dog appears in her letters in 1899 and is reported as old but vigorous in 1903. It seems likely that this letter is from closer to 1903. Therefore, I have tentatively placed it in that year.
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, Undated Letters, Folder 75, Burton Trafton Jewett Research Collection. For more information about the individual transcription, contact the Maine Women Writers Collection. Notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Adams Fields
[March, 1903]*
Thursday
Dearest Annie
My window is open and the children are all in the streets going to school, it is so spring-like somehow and if I shut my eyes I might think it was Napoli there is such a racket! I never thought until this minute that all the French children may make a difference it didn’t it wasn't quite ^so^ racketty (like a town of English sparrows.) once it seems to me. Perhaps you will say that it is this Pinny and her old cracked head. I begin to think that this old head is never going to mend either. Sometimes I feel better and then I get very hopeful -- In the early winter I used to talk about getting to town, and Mary* ^or^ the doctor would say what was quite true, that she was afraid that jolting in cars would be too much, or I should want to see everybody when I got there - and I used to cry out Oh do let me have my hopes about things! I am so tired and it has got to be so long now that I cant help snatching at a little hope when I see it, but they dont fly by very often! Fuff* to have patience with such a poor thing ---- Oh when I think that if I were well how I could go and get you and take you to some nice place where you could get out, you and Miss Voshell* ^too^ so you could be nice and comfortable. I wouldn't go off and leave you! Silver vases indeed for that grabbing old Jew, but I pray Heaven never to owe them a cent or to have you, either!* Oh if I only could get well enough to take the dearest care of you! Nobody knows what a hard, anxious winter this has been. aching and worrying over and over. but we must be be [repeated word] thankful that we were at home where we could get the [little / better] comfort there ^is^ to be [unreadable word] had -- and not away in some unloved desolate places.
I feel as if the one thing you did want me to do had failed you, dear, but it wouldn't do to try that chilly wooden house now early in the season -- you know what it would be to try the Manchester house in March & April, even with coal enough. In summer it would be so different. Dont try to look ahead and worry dear ^and worry other people?^ -- lets wait until ahead gets here and then do the best we can.
Mary sends you much love, she keeps well and cheerful so far, and drives a good deal [cross-written on page 1] because the horses must be used, and it has been so good for her. Forgive anything wrong in this poor letter, and remember that I love you dear. And we are going to be well again, but it is very hard now.
Yours always,Pinny*
[Cross-written on p. 4:] I don’t want to see
the Howells letter, his last Easy Chair was so hateful in
its spirit that I cant get over it. So hateful and
sneering at other people’s work*
Notes
March 1903: This date is uncertain, but
likely. Jewett suffered her carriage
accident on 3 September 1902. In Sarah Orne
Jewett, Paula Blanchard reports that Jewett was able
to go to Boston again for the first time after the
accident in April of 1903 (pp. 349-50). This
information suggests that this letter likely was written
in early spring, probably March of 1903. Though the
letter could not have been written in 1904, because Fields
was in Europe that spring, it is possible this letter
comes from 1905 or 1906. It would help if one could
discover the Howells piece to which Jewett refers in her
post script. See note below.
Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key
to
Correspondents.
Fuff: A Jewett nickname for Annie Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Miss Voshell: Mrs. or Miss Voshell seems to
be Annie's nurse. According to Paula Blanchard,
Fields had a minor stroke in the fall and continued unwell
through much of the winter 1902-3 (pp. 349-50)
During an illness a few years later (1906-7), Fields's
friend, Julia
Ward
Howe,
was attended by Lucy Voshell: "This nurse was known
to others as Lucy Voshell, but her patient promptly named
her 'Wollapuk.' She was as merry as she was skillful, and
the two made much fun together. Even when the patient
could not speak, she could twinkle. As strength gradually
returned, the ministrations of Wollapuk became positively
scenes of revelry; and the anxious guardian below, warding
off would-be interviewers or suppliants, might be
embarrassed to hear peals of laughter ringing down the
stair." The Thomas Bailey Aldrich collection at the
University of Virginia, includes letters from Lilian
Woodman (Mrs. Thomas Bailey) Aldrich to Lucy Voshell
regarding Aldrich's twin sons. That Lucy Voshell
nursed two close friends of Fields suggests that she may
have cared for Fields as well.
Silver vases indeed for that grabbing old Jew:
This
reference
is
obscure.
Pinny: One of Jewett's nicknames. See Key to Correspondents.
the Howells letter, his last Easy Chair was so hateful:
William
Dean Howells, editor at Harper's Magazine
from 1886, began in 1900 the Editor's Easy Chair column,
which appeared near the end of each issue. These
columns generally were genial and rarely named living
authors. It is not clear which column Jewett found
so hateful, nor has another Howells piece appearing after
1902 yet been located that Jewett might have found
"hateful and sneering." Assistance is welcome.
The manuscript of this letter is at the University of New
England, Maine Women Writers Collection,
Jewett Collection correspondence corr056-soj-af.05
Transcription and notes by Terry & Linda Heller, Coe
College.
Sarah Wyman Whitman to Sarah Orne Jewett
[ 1 April 1903 ]*
Darling I [ had corrected ] meant to write last night also: but the day was longish, & my little Victor* had come to spend the night, & [ we conversed ? ] in matters of the Universe in general, and rabbits in particular at such a rate that I felt correspondence under such circumstances would
[ Page 2 ]
[ Page 3 ]
[ With ? ] the comfort of having
seen you, comes a [ minor ? ] & very tender
gladness in thinking of George Howe's release* from that
ever narrowing prison. -- I have not seen Alice* today,
but it is well [ with ? ] her I am sure.
This is but one line as you see, with love & gratitude to two such hostesses -- so please say to your dear Mary* a recurring memory of the [ little ? ] tasseled white curtains! How good it all was.
Yours
_S_
Notes
1 April 1903: The envelope associated with this letter was cancelled on 1 April 1903 and addressed to Jewett in South Berwick. On the front of the envelop are penciled notes: "1903" and "Talk with Victor" and "visit to S.B."
Whitman has recently completed a quick trip to Bowdoin College to prepare for designing a memorial window there, in honor of Jewett's father, followed by a night in South Berwick. Jewett was not able to join the trip as she continued confined to her home after her serious carriage accident the previous September.
Victor: Victor almost certainly is Victor Whitman Knauth (1895-1977), Whitman's grand-nephew, a twin son of her husband's niece, Mary Iles Whitman Knauth, daughter of Henry Whitman's brother, Alfred.
A.F.: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
George Howe's release: George Dudley Howe, husband of Whitman and Jewett's close friend, Alice Greenwood Howe, died on 31 March 1903. See Key to Correspondents.
Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
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 Emily Marshall Otis Eliot
Thursday April 2nd [ 1903 ]*
Dear Mrs. Eliot
I can hardly tell you how much pleasure your kind remembrance and these lovely spring flowers have brought me. Indeed you are very kind! I am getting better and such a pleasure counts double -- I was thinking very lately about you and especially about the day when I saw you in Newport at Miss Ticknor's* I wonder if you will not remember it? I have missed so much my winter visits in town and especially being with Mrs. Fields.* I can hardly wait to get to her: you will know how hard it has been to be away.
With love and thanks for your dear kindness believe me ever
Sarah Orne Jewett
Notes
1903: This probable date is inferred from Jewett reporting that she has been seriously ill and has not seen Annie Adams Fields in Boston since before the previous winter. Her carriage accident of September 1902 kept her in South Berwick until late in April of 1903. April 2 fell on a Thursday in 1903.
Miss Ticknor's: Carlock has left this name blank in the transcription and revealed it in a note. It is not clear why.
Richard Cary identifies Anna Eliot Ticknor (1823-1896). The eldest daughter of the American historian George Ticknor, she consorted with Jewett in Boston and in the Northeast Harbor-Mt. Desert region on the Maine coast. Miss Ticknor was one of the editors of Life, Letters, and Journals of George Ticknor (Boston, 1876), and sole editor of Life of Joseph Green Cogswell (Cambridge, Mass., 1874).
Note that at the presumed time of this letter, Miss Ticknor has been dead for about seven years. Assuming these various facts are accurate, Jewett apparently refers to a meeting a considerable time in the past.
Mrs. Fields: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
This transcription appears in Nancy Ellen Carlock's 1939 Boston University thesis, S.O.J. A Biography of Sarah Orne Jewett. Carlock says that the manuscript of this letter is held by the Boston Athenaeum, and, in fact, the Athenaeum catalog indicates that the letter is in the Emily Marshall Otis Papers: .L140. Notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Annie Adams Fields to Isabella Stewart Gardner
and Mary E. Garrett* to Annie Fields
appears this note to Gardner. written around the letterhead
and main letter opening. ]
Dear Mrs. Gardner; The best thing I can do is to send this long note to you at once. Yours, with every good wish in this season,* and with unforgetting affection
top left are superimposed initials: MEG ]
Baltimore, Maryland.
April 12, 1903
Dear Mrs. Fields,
I am going to write this evening to ask whether it would be possible for you to do something for me, in the confidence that you will without a moment's hesitation write me that you would rather not do it if you would in the least prefer not to.
The date of the annual meeting of our Naples Table Association,* which is to be held at Northampton at Smith College* this year, has been
changed from the 25th April to the 18th, so that I expect to spend next Friday night there and to reach Boston sometime late Saturday afternoon -- Miss Thomas* ^[Prest of Bryn Mawr in A.F.'s hand]^ will spend Saturday night at the hotel there with me but is obliged to return to Bryn Mawr [by corrected ] Monday, so that she would either have to leave on Sunday during the day or take the through night train -- What I wondered was whether there would be any possibility, if you were willing to ask her, of Mrs. Gardner's giving permission to see her "palace"* on Sunday -----
I get to Boston so seldom to my great regret & Miss Thomas so much less often even{,} that so far it has not been possible for us to see it, and my trip last week was
unexpected,
I enclose your little note as I was able to get my note ^delivered^ to Mr. Sargent* without using it, and was afraid, that if I sent it in, without [ absolute corrected ] necessity, Mrs. Gardner might suspect me of trying to get into the galleries --- ^[ !!!!!! "Did not know you! A.F." in A.F.'s hand and in blue ink.]^ It was so good of you to give it to me.
I am looking forward to really seeing
you this next time, as I hope to be in town for four or five days -- I do hope your English guest did not tire you, and that you are very soon going to have Sarah*--
Miss Thomas who is spending the Easter holiday with me here, asks to be most kindly remembered.
Notes
Mary E. Garrett: The identity of this person actually is not certain. Mary Elizabeth Garrett (see Correspondents) was a close friend of Fields and Jewett. The letter seems clearly to be on her letterhead, but her address is that of the Garrett Jacobs Mansion in Baltimore, MD, the home of the wife of her deceased brother, Robert Garrett (1847-1896) and Mary Sloan Frick Garrett (later Jacobs, 1851-1936). Both Marys were connected with Bryn Mawr College. Other transcribers have read the middle initial in her signature as "S," though it could be "E."
Probably the letter was written by Mary Elizabeth Garrett, but it is possible the author is Mary Sloan Garrett.
this season: In 1903, April 12 was Easter Sunday.
Holland House: Garrett writes from the Holland House Hotel at 30th St. and Fifth Ave. in New York City.
Naples Table Association: In 1897, the American physiologist Ida Henrietta Hyde (1857-1945) founded the Naples Table Association to promote women's participation in scientific education and research.
Smith College: Smith was and remains a women's college in Northampton, MA.
Thomas: Wikipedia says: Martha Carey Thomas (1857 - 1935) "was an American educator, suffragist, linguist. She was the second president of Bryn Mawr College" (1894-1922).
Mr. Sargent: American artist John Singer Sargent (1856-1925). Though his residence and main studio were in London, he often worked in Boston and New York at the turn of the 20th century. In Isabella Stewart Gardner and Fenway Court, Morris Carter notes that in the winter of 1903, Sargent was using the Gothic Room at Fenway Court as his studio (p. 201). His 1888 portrait of Gardner is well-known.
Mrs. Gardner ... Palace: Morris Carter says "Fenway Court was first opened to the public on Wednesday, February 21, 1903. The price of admission was one dollar; the number of tickets was limited to two hundred, and they were sold at Herrick's Ticket Office" (p. 202).
Sarah: Sarah Orne Jewett suffered a near-fatal carriage accident on 3 September 1902. She was not able to visit Fields in Boston until April of 1903.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Fenway Museum, Papers of Isabella Stewart Gardner, Fields, Annie (Adams) (Mrs James T. Fields) 1882, 3 M letters, n.d., 1909, and letter from Mary S. Savell [Mary E. Garrett] to Annie Fields, 1903. 1915.
Dates in the manuscript are inconsistently presented: "th" and "st" sometimes are underlined; they always are in superscript. I have followed Garrett in underlining, but I have not use superscript.
Fields made notes on the letter in addition to the note at the top of page one. These all are in blue ink, in contrast to the black ink of the letter as a whole.
New transcription and annotation by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Sara Norton
South Berwick, Thursday. [April 1903]
I have been hoping to write to you, but, oddly
enough now, when I am supposed to be better, it has grown
a great deal harder either to read or write. But I shall
not let you go away without a word to say how much I love
you. I am glad you liked that little book of Mrs.
Meynell's. There is something so charming to me in the way
she arranged it -- the harmony -- and the inevitableness
of her own choice and good taste have done that perhaps. I
had a little hope that you might carry it with you;
sometimes it has been the only book that I could read for
days. I was so sorry that I sent it away with such smudgy
fly-leaves, -- you might take an idle day on shipboard and
make it clean again! I have a bad habit of writing in my
books as if no one else were ever going to read them.
Notes
This letter appears in Annie Fields, Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett (1911), Transcribed by Annie Adams Fields, with notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Ellen Chase
[April 1903 or later]*
This year she wrote in the spring to her friend Ellen
Chase:
"Did you hear all the song-sparrows as they came by on their way to Berwick?
"I have been ill, but you will tell me if the
'Pointed Firs' look all right this year, won't you?"
Notes
April 1903 or later: Fields implies that the letter containing these lines was written in the same year as the previous undated letters in her collection. The last previous letter in this collection is dated in 1902. But Jewett's 1902 accident was in September. If, as seems likely, this letter comes after the accident and was written at a time when Jewett believes she'll not be able to spend time Down East in the following summer, the earliest possible date would be the spring of 1903.This item appears in Annie Fields, Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett (1911), Transcribed by Annie Adams Fields, with notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Robert Collyer to Annie Adams Fields
201 West 55th Street
New York
[ End letterhead ]
Dear and ever Dear Friend
When any word of your welfare reaches me it is to the good -- Mary* is my "best holt" but I listen for any rumors, and whispers, and trust they are all true gospel -- And that when you climb Thunder hill* on your own feet [ way ? ] along in the summer you will be as ever, or as Dr Furness* said to me after an illness I am better than I was before [ short deletion ] fell sick. I am well and busy -- go to Philadelphia on Monday to attend the celebration of the 100th year since he was born and touch some old memories of our long and loving companionship. And on Monday May 19th I shall come on to Boston to the fellowship meeting of the Committee* on Hospitality where Brother Hale{,} myself and Mr Eliot* will shake hands at the Vendome with all the saints greeting who come there -- Also I shall come in to see you the first spare moment on Tuesday and sit an hour if you do not say git out at the end of half an hour.
yours
Notes
Dr. Furness: American clergyman and reformer, William Henry Furness (20 April 1802 - 1896).
companion: Collyer omits some periods in this letter. I have supplied them where they seem necessary.
Committee: Collyer have have spelled this "Comittee."
Brother Hale ... Mr Eliot: Edward Everett Hale. See Key to Correspondents.
Mr. Eliot probably was American Unitarian minister, Samuel Atkins Eliot II (1862-1950).
Mary: Probably this is Sarah Orne Jewett's sister, Mary Rice Jewett. 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 10: mss Fl 1-5637. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Wyman Whitman to Sarah Orne Jewett
[ 15 April 1903 ]*
O darling are you really here? This is too splendid: & makes me feel quite foolishly glad. Now somebody will be better, & the spring will lend her sap. Bless you & dearest A.F.* together.
[ There is a postscript that I am unable to transcribe. It looks like: Mlle her pinans was/has gone to Mrs Sluicenian, tell the Ladies. ]
Notes
15 April 1903: The envelope associated with this letter was cancelled on 15 April 1903 and addressed to Jewett at 148 Charles Street, Boston. The occasion of this letter is Jewett's first visit to Boston after her serious carriage accident on 3 September 1902.
A.F.: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
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 Mary Frances Parker Parkman
Thursday morning
[ April 15 1903 ]
Behold my present address and come to see a friend the first time you pass this way, like a good child! I came to town on Monday afternoon and yesterday, I spent in bed but the great adventure of coming seems to have gone off very well, though I shall
have to keep pretty still I dare say.
You cant think how I wish to see you!
Notes
April 15 1903: This date is penciled in brackets below the return address on page 1. This date is supported by a number of other letters from this time indicating that Jewett has come to Boston for the first time since her carriage accident of September 1902. With this letter in the Houghton Library folder is an envelope addressed to Mrs. Parkman and cancelled on 15 April 1903.
Mrs. Fields: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. 17 letters to Frances Parkman; [190-]-1907. Parkman family, Edward Twisleton, and Sarah Wyman Whitman additional papers, 1763-1917 (inclusive) 1850-1907 (bulk). MS Am 1408 (214-230). Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Mrs. Edith Forbes Perkins
Wednesday morning
[ April 1903 ]*
Dear Mrs. Perkins
You were so kind to send me these
lovely flowers -- they are as bright as a little spring
bonfire this gray rainy morning! It is very pleasant to be
in town again, I can tell you! and to find dear Mrs.
Fields so much better --
Sarah O. Jewett
Notes
April 1903: Richard Cary places this letter in spring of 1903. This is a reasonable guess if there is any evidence that it was composed in 1903. Blanchard in Sarah Orne Jewett (1994) says that after her accident, Jewett was first able to visit Boston in April 1903 (p. 350).
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 additional notes is by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Mary Rice Jewett
[Monday morning]
[ 1903 ]
Tomorrow I shall have a good day I do hope, and in the afternoon her rubbing friend* comes. I shall be very careful of such a little handling of my neck goes a great way and I had a very great misery all day and night afterward -- though both were kind and thought they were careful. I wont go into long stories but it is no use to get laid up this week! though I think Mrs. Cave* had good points in what she said -- and I believe in the principle. I do think that as she said it is a question whether it isn’t too late to get rid of the thickening where the hurt was, if that’s what it is. They gave me enough iodide of potash* to float a man of war* thinking that was going to absorb it. I d’know! as Uncle Will* says and leaves the question open but I hope to get round to a good days work tomorrow. I went out today awhile -- and found Miss Grace Norton* here when I got back, which is always a great pleasure.
Notes
This letter seems closely related to Sarah Orne Jewett to
Mary Rice Jewett, Friday night, [ 1903
]. Handwritten notes with this text reads [to
Mary] [Monday Morning].
her rubbing friend: Probably referring to Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents. The "rubbing friend" is more obscure. Jewett seems to imply in this letter that Annie Fields's rubbing doctor from the "Friday night" letter is also the "rubbing friend" of this letter and that her name is Mrs. Cave. It is remotely possible that this is the wife or sister of Francis A. Cave, an Osteopathic physician practicing in Boston early in the twentieth century. Assistance is welcome.
iodide of potash: Potassium iodide is a chemical
compound with multiple medical uses. How it was
meant to function in Jewett's case is not clear, unless,
perhaps, Jewett's caretakers were treating her swelling as
if it were a goiter. Wikipedia lists these common
side effects of ingesting the compound: vomiting,
diarrhea, abdominal pain, rash, and swelling of the
salivary glands.
man of war: a heavily armed warship, which
would displace a good deal of water.
Uncle Will: Uncle Will is Dr. William G. Perry
(1823-1910), husband of Lucretia Fisk Perry. See Key
to
Correspondents.
It seems likely that Uncle Will's phrase "I
d'know," means "I don't know."
Grace Norton: 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
74, 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.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Mary Rice Jewett
[ 1903 ]*
I got some letters written this morning, but it makes the back of my neck ache to write, and I have had a peaceful (and idle!) afternoon.
Notes
1903: A transcriber's note with this text reads: [ to Mary ]. The rationale for the transcriber identifying the letter as from 34 Beacon St., the address of Susan Burley Cabot, is not given. If Jewett's sore neck is a result of her 1902 carriage accident, then she would not be writing any earlier than April 1903, when she first returned to Boston after that accident.
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, Undated Letters, Folder 75, Burton Trafton Jewett Research Collection. For more information about the individual transcription, contact the Maine Women Writers Collection. Notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Mary Rice Jewett
Wednesday morning
[ April 1903 ]*
Dear Mary
You mustn't keep worrying about me. I have really done better even with all the anxiety, for I have seen so few people and talked so little or been talked to! Sometimes I believe that I shall do better at the mountains if I go to just be alone. I know well enough what tires me and isn't the right thing, but all the time it has been so hard to avoid such things -- the temptation is always coming up to do what will satisfy the other person. I had rest enough for months and months, it isn't that kind of rest, and I believe I should like to do what I could without a nurse or anything, just as when I spent the fortnight at Mouse* with success; though the case now is some what different it might be cured with the same cure.
Notes
1903: Jewett's reference to having enforced rest for months indicates that she is writing after her 1902 carriage accident, and it seems likely she writes home during her first visit to Boston after the accident, which was in April of 1903.
Mouse: Jewett spent a couple weeks alone at Mouse Island, near Boothbay Harbor, ME, in 1899.
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, Undated Letters, Folder 75, Burton Trafton Jewett Research Collection. For more information about the individual transcription, contact the Maine Women Writers Collection. Notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Roger Livingston Scaife
Monday ----
[ 20 April 1903 ]*
Dear Mr Scaife
I think you very much for your kind note and for Mr Wasson's book* -- I had read some of the stories, ^with pleasure^ but Deacon Spurshoe's Jonah seems to me to go quite beyond the rest, with imagination, and a subtle touch of pathos in its humour. The book is quite a gold mine for
the Dialect society! -- I do not believe you can hear so many interesting survivals of ancient ^English^ speech anywhere in this country as in that corner o Maine -- Crom (or crawm as Mr. Wasson writes it) was a favorite word with an old servant of ours who was born in Kittery. I never heard anyone else use the word.
-- Thank you very much for such kind remembrance
and believe me ever
S. O. Jewett
Notes
20 April 1903: This letter seems to have been composed during Jewett's first visit to Boston after her September 1902 carriage accident, which left her incapacitated for the rest of her life. Her stay lasted through last two weeks April of 1903. I have given this letter the date of the first of the two Mondays of her stay, but it is quite possible, she wrote it on the second Monday, 27 April.
In the upper left corner of p. 1, stamped in red ink, an oval containing the initials HPM. Two holes are punched in the right margin.
Mr Wasson's book: Cap'n Simeon's Store (1903) by American novelist and painter, George Savary Wasson (1855-1932). During his adult life, he resided at Kittery Point, ME. Jewett also would note that this book was illustrated by her friend, Marcia Oakes Woodbury. See Key to Correspondents.
crawm: A digital search of on-line texts did not turn up this word in Wasson's book, but such searches are not perfectly reliable. Jewett's "crom" in this context is likely to mean bent or curved, with origins in Old English and Irish.
Page 3: Jewett has turned her sheet 90 degrees counter-clockwise to write on this page.
Mrs. Fields: Annie Adams Fields. 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 Mary Rice Jewett
Dear Mary
I went to see old Helen’s* house yesterday and I think it is so pleasant and so handsome and befitting its owner! She came after me, and I stayed in the house a while and saw the first two stories, and then we [ skippit so spelled ] off to drive and had a lovely time. Dan* was preaching in Newton . . . .
Mary ^Garrett^* had come to early
dinner instead of in the evening when she was going else-where -- She comes again tonight but is going back tomorrow -- I saw the pigeon holes for shoes, so now I am as good as others who have boasted --. I do hope that dear little Helen will have all the comfort she ought in that house, for it really is delightful. I had forgotten how charming S. W.'s old portrait of Roger* is, not so the portraits of Dan & Helen -- the colour of Helen's, I think Abbott Thayer*
-- It was really springlike and lovely -- We drove round Jamaica Pond.* On Saturday A. F.* & I had a nice drive too in the same direction, and who
do you think came in a little while before we were starting but Grace! She doesn't look well at all -- Ellen Mason had said she didn’t, and that it tired her to come into town so that I thought the more of the visit which I enjoyed very much. -- She was so nice. When you come perhaps you can go out to see her. I was rather tired when she came as I hurried to finish dressing myself to get down stairs to see her but I had a delightful call from her [ . -- ? ] I have just been reading your Saturday letter which did not arrive until now though the stamp of arrival
noon*
Saturday afternoon [ are so written ] all right -- Sister is sending the envelope to the Postmaster for this is a little too much delay. It is a very agreeable letty -- and I am pleased that they [ made corrected ] you the President as far as [ they corrected ] could -- and I think you would have been a good and pretty one but since you "felt unworthy" I am glad that Helen Sewall* is put. How we should like to speak of these things !! but I hope we soon shall -- Oh no, the Gilmans* wont be starting yet so you must make your own plans. Perhaps you had better speak with
Miss Parsons* by telephone within a day or two -- She will know whether they are apt to delay much -- I am doing well -- I really think the change was a great thing, and A. F. was out in the garden a good while yesterday morning. I think she is better than when we came. We are going to drive at noon, as usual -- it looks like a lovely day. There are those who have got a seamstress, Mary!
With much love
Sarah
Oh think of Coolidge!!* Down with tyrants!!
I shall send the papers to Mrs. G.* -- I did last week!
Notes
27 April 1903: A penciled note in another hand at the top center of page 1 reads: Boston, Apr. 27, 1903. While this date is possible, the rationale for it is not known, and there is some reason for skepticism. April 1903 was Jewett's first visit to Boston after her September 1902 carriage accident. In other letters to Mary from this month, she nearly always reports on her delicate health and on treatments she received. That this letter is filled with activities and says little about her health suggests that it may come from another year.
In this letter, Jewett sometimes shortens "and" to an "a" with a long tail. These have been rendered as "and."
old Helen's: Helen Bigelow Merriman. See Key to Correspondents.
Dan: Daniel Merriman, spouse of Helen B. Merriman. See Key to Correspondents.
Mary Garrett: Mary Elizabeth Garrett. See Key to Correspondents.
S. W.'s old portrait of Roger: Sarah Wyman Whitman. Roger is the son of Helen and Daniel Merriman. Whitman's portraits of Daniel and Roger Merriman have not yet been located. See Key to Correspondents.
Abbott Thayer: American artist, Abbott Handerson Thayer (1849 - 1921) painted an oil portrait of Helen Bigelow Merriman in 1890.
Jamaica Pond: Wikipedia says that Jamaica Pond, in Jamaica Plain, is part of the Emerald Necklace of parks in Boston designed by Frederick Law Olmsted.
A.F.: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Grace: Grace Gordon Treadwell Walden. See Key to Correspondents.
Ellen Mason: See Key to Correspondents.
noon: It is not clear why Jewett wrote this word at the top of the page.
Helen Sewall: Probably Jewett refers to a South Berwick neighbor, Helen Drummond Sewall (1845-1922), who was sister to Jotham and Jane Sewall. Her parents were Rev. David B. and Mary Drummond Sewall. See Pirsig, The Placenames of South Berwick, p. 75, and The Congregationalist 107 (1922) p. 722.
Gilmans: There are too many people to whom Jewett may refer. Presumably, these Gilmans are one or more of the families to whom Jewett was related on her mother's side. See Charles Jervis and Alice Dunlap Gilman in Key to Correspondents.
Miss Parsons: The identity of this person is uncertain, but she may be Mary Sabra Parsons, daughter of Theophilus Parsons. See Key to Correspondents.
Coolidge: If the letter date is correct, then Jewett probably refers to Sarah Chauncey Woolsey, whose pen name was Susan Coolidge. See Key to Correspondents.
Mrs. G: The identity of this person is not known. Addressed as such, she probably is not a member of the family; therefore the likely candidates are Sophia Hayes Goodwin and Isabella Stewart Gardner. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the University of New England Maine Women Writers Collection: Jewett Correspondence MWWC0196_02_00_070_01.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Mary Rice Jewett
Monday night
[ April 1903 ]*
Dear Mary
I am ever so sorry about Mr. Brown* -- he was a good kind little man. I send you my letter from Theodore.* It was a cold damp day to get to Cambridge yesterday so that he must be really all right. Poor Aunt Mary Bell* -- it looks as if she would hardly pull up from such a long winter’s siege. I have wished that Uncle Will* had her to take care of -- he has such a gift with “old cases” -- but of course he is old now, and perhaps they dont get on with him as we do, happily. I have very little to tell -- it was such a bad wet day that I didn’t try to go out again as I meant to do. Mary Perkins* was here, as dear as a young girl as she was as a child, and Lucy Rantoul & her little girl and Rosamond.* I had a great half an hour’s sleep or more this afternoon, and I have felt better. I have been awake at night, and then waked up with (?)* pains in my head lately but now I have got righted perhaps. Frances Parkman* was here this day but Mrs. Cabot* got all the call as I was or had been rubbing.* Good night with love from Sarah
Notes
April 1903: A handwritten note on this
transcription reads: 189-. However, the letter seems to
have been composed after Jewett's 1902 carriage
accident. Late spring of 1903, when Jewett first
returned to Boston after the accident seems a likely date
for this letter.
Mr. Brown: While this could be J. Appleton
Brown who died in 1902, the context suggests this Mr.
Brown was a resident of South Berwick or at least, someone
about whom Mary would hear before Sarah. And the
date of this letter probably is 1903 or later.
Assistance is welcome.
Theodore: Theodore Jewett Eastman. See Key to Correspondents.
Poor Aunt Mary Bell: See Key to Correspondents. Mary Bell died on 3 February 1904.
Uncle Will: Dr. William G. Perry (1823-1910), husband of Lucretia Fisk Perry. See Key to Correspondents.
Mary Perkins: Almost certainly, Mary Russell Perkins (1883-1970),
the youngest daughter of Edith Forbes Perkins. See
Edith Forbes Perkins in Key
to
Correspondents. Mary Perkins "lived much of
her life in California. She was an amateur historian who
was interested in George A. Custer and the history of
Western America. Mary Perkins died May 31, 1970, in Santa
Barbara, California." She is buried in Milton, MA.
Lucy Rantoul & her little girl and Rosamond:
Lucy Sanders Saltonstall (1871-1947)
married Neal Rantoul (1870-1956). They had two
daughters, Josephine Lee (1894-1962) and Lucy Saltonstall
(1913-1958). Mrs. Rantoul's sister was Rosamund
Saltonstall (1881-1953); she married Charles Crook
Auchincloss (1881-1961) in about 1906.
with (?)* pains in my head: The parenthetical question mark probably is the transcriber's note rather than a part of the text. This detail suggests that the letter is from a time after Jewett's September 1902 carriage accident.
Frances Parkman: Mary Frances Parker Parkman. See Key to Correspondents.
Mrs. Cabot: Susan Burley Cabot. See Key to Correspondents.
rubbing: In an undated letter thought to be from
1903, Jewett reports from Boston to Mary Jewett a visit
from Annie Fields's "rubbing doctor."
Sarah Orne Jewett to Mary Rice Jewett
Friday night
[ April 1903 ]
Dear Mary
I have received your letter (contents noted!) and
now write a word before I go to bed after an active day
with many tired spots in it of discouragement but on the
whole a good day and some few bundles added to those that
shall be sent. I went to Miss Kiff,* and she was a
mother to me. I begin to understand Emily’s*
feelings entirely. She thinks that there was some
thing settled from the bruise when I twisted my neck, for
she could plainly feel it, and thinks she can make it
depart and not only rubbed it (A Treatment!)* but used a
“mild current of electricity to the scalp” and I felt very
much strung up and stepped round to old Helen’s* on the
way home and also rang for Josie Dexter in my pride and
saw neither but Dan* for a minute going to Worcester, but
on the way home I felt as if I were scattered all over the
“road”, and made of cork below my collar when I went into
the Ludlow to see how sister Sarah* was. She looked
so ill yesterday -- and found her more flourishing and
nice than I can now describe. Sarah Cabot made other
arrangements. She had forgotten she was going to see
her niece poor Mrs. Sam Cabot, so I stayed quiet here at
lunch and felt quite poor in my health.
Later in the afternoon Mrs. Field’s rubbing doctor* came
-- a nice woman -- and I was kindly invited in and she
felt of my neck and said the two top bones had ‘got out of
line['] when I fell and now had got fixed and set so they
interfered with the flow of blood to the brain with their
crookedness when anything happens to get more tired or
“congested” -- that is her word! She made me
feel to see that the two sides of my neck were not even --
and she also could feel with her fingers -- and was
interesting because she told what this state of things
would be likely to do, and it was just what it has done
the ‘crowding’ feeling & lack of balance etc.
etc. She said she had just such a patient once who
was thrown from a horse -- but she took that one very soon
after & wished she could have seen me as soon etc.
etc. I had a good little talk about Mrs. Fields with
her. Then I rested awhile and afterward did my
bundles, and at seven I went and had supper with Alice
Howe who had telephoned and her Mary begged me so to come
that I was glad not to refuse. We had the dearest
time together, and she read more of the story and it was
so quiet and nice. I was doubly glad I went and glad
to get home to dear A.F. and the Kitty. I write all
these particulars for you to search out the needle in the
bundle of straw. You needn’t send the book unless
you think it would make a beautiful present for Dan to
[illegible] I might pass it on as I dont care to keep
it. How good about Katy.* Give my love to Susy
if she comes, and to Katy. No more at present from
Sarah
April 1903: It seems almost certain that this letter was composed after Jewett's September 1902 carriage accident, from which she suffered for the rest of her life. The earliest date by which she could have kept social engagements and sought medical help in Boston would have been the late spring of 1903, and this letter may come from a later date.
Miss Kiff: This is very speculative, but it appears Miss Kiff may be an early practitioner of the new chiropractic treatment developed by Daniel David Palmer at the turn of the twentieth century.
Emily's: This is likely to be Emily Tyson. See Key to Correspondents.
a treatment: Jewett seems to be referring to her carriage accident of September 1902.
old Helen's: Richard Cary identifies "Old Helen" as Helen Bigelow Merriman. See Key to Correspondents.
Josie Dexter ... Dan: Josephine Anna Moore (1846-1937) was the second wife of Chicago lawyer Wirt Dexter (1832-1890). She returned to her Boston home after her husband's death, where she died, though she was buried with him in Chicago.
Dan probably is Rev. Daniel Merriman, spouse of "Old Helen" Merriman. See Key to Correspondents.
sister Sarah: Annie Adams Fields's sister, Sarah Holland Adams (see Fields in Key to Correspondents) resided at the Ludlow Hotel in Boston after her return from many years residence in German.
Sarah Cabot ... her niece poor Mrs. Sam Cabot: These references are mysterious. Jewett, of course, was close to Sarah Cabot Wheelwright. See Key to Correspondents. Mrs. Wheelwright's brother, Dr. Samuel Cabot, married Hannah Lowell Jackson (1820-1879). She had a number of other brothers, but no nephew has yet been found who was named Samuel and whose wife was living after 1900. Jewett may refer to a different Sarah Cabot, but this person has not been identified.
Mrs. Field’s rubbing doctor: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents. It is remotely possible that Jewett refers to the wife or sister of Francis A. Cave, an Osteopathic physician practicing in Boston early in the twentieth century. Assistance is welcome.
Alice Howe ... and her Mary: Alice Greenwood (Mrs. George Dudley) Howe. The identity of Mrs. Howe's "Mary" has not been determined. Assistance is welcome. See Key to Correspondents.
Katy: Katy Galvin. See Key to Correspondents.
Susy: Though there are some other possibilities, it is likely Jewett refers to Susan Marcia Oakes Woodbury. 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 74, 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.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Mary Rice Jewett
Friday morning
[ April 1903 ]*
Dear Mary
"Those steamers are small; I couldn't help wishing Susy* a fair day for the passage. And she has seen Nelly Bell & "Mrs. Bikélas….* My! how I begin to wish to shake out dear A. F.'s* little pockets to hear things! --- I am doing well. I think that if I stole something big enough to merit solitary confinement it would be as cheap and good a cure as any, but I was glad to see Josie D."*
Notes
April 1903: The earliest reference to Josie Dexter in other letters is in 1900, so it seems likely that this letter was composed in 1900 or later. That Jewett speaks of being cured by solitary confinement suggests that it goes with other letters from around April 1903. Therefore, I have tentatively placed it with those letters.
The quotation marks in this text seem uncharacteristic. It is not clear why they are present.
Susy: This may be Susan Hayes Ward (See Key to Correspondents) or Susan Travers. The New York Times (December 8, 1904) p. 9, reports the death of Miss Susan Travers of Newport, RI on 7 December. According to the Times (December 11, 1904) p. 34, She was the daughter of William R. Travers. Her sister, Matilda, married the artist, Walter Gay. Though a biographical sketch is difficult to locate, Internet searches indicate that she was an art collector and a patron of the Boston Museum of Art, the New York Botanical Garden, and various philanthropic organizations. She assisted Sarah Porter (1813-1900) in founding the Farmington [Connecticut] Lodge Society to bring 'tired and overworked' girls from New York City to Farmington during their summer vacation." This would likely have interested Annie Fields in relation to her work with the Associated Charities of Boston.
Nelly Bell & Mrs Bikélas: Jewett knew several people named Helen / Nelly Bell. Without further information, it is difficult to determine which she means. Perhaps she refers to the daughter of the politician Charles H. Bell, Helen (Mrs. Harold North) Fowler (1848-1909). Mrs Bikélas has not been identified.
A.F.: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Josie D: Josephine Anna Moore (1846-1937) was the second wife of Chicago lawyer Wirt Dexter (1832-1890). She returned to her Boston home after her husband's death, where she died, though she was buried with him in Chicago.
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, Undated Letters, Folder 75, Burton Trafton Jewett Research Collection. For more information about the individual transcription, contact the Maine Women Writers Collection. Notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Robert Collyer to Annie Adams Fields
201 West 55th Street
New York
[ End letterhead ]
Dearest Friend
I will come gladly to my other home. You are ever and always so kind and I feared you might not yet be able to have me stay with you so I would put up ^at^* and put up with the Vendome. I cannot stay over Sunday but must return Friday or Saturday coming back from South Berwick* to Boston on Thursday on an afternoon train. This is the way I am planning now but am open to correction except the return here by Sunday. I trust you are growing strong again as ever. We cannot have you otherwise. I had a good time in Philadelphia last Monday when the 100th birthday of our dear my dear Father Furness* was kept in the church. Sent on the ms of my brief discourse to the Register* where I guess it will be printed this week.
You must keep this dear little letter!*
Notes
home: Collyer omits many periods in this letter. I have supplied them wherever they seem necessary.
at: This insertion and the underline of "with" appear to be in pencil.
Berwick: Home of Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
Furness: American clergyman and reformer, William Henry Furness (20 April 1802 - 1896).
Register: The Christian Register (1821-1957), a weekly publication of the American Unitarian Association. Collyer's "Some Memories of Dr. Furness," appeared in the issue of Thursday 30 April 1903, pp. 314-318.
letter: This note appears at the top right om the back of page 1. It is in blue ink, while Collyer almost always uses black, and it is not in his handwriting.
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.
Houghton Mifflin & Company to Sarah Orne Jewett
| CHICAGO OFFICE 378-358 WABASH AVENUE. |
BOSTON OFFICE, 4 PARK STREET. |
NEW YORK OFFICE,
85 FIFTH AVENUE. |
Miss Sarah Orne Jewett,
Dear Miss Jewett:
In sending you our check for $173.83 in settlement of the accompanying copyright statement, we wish again to express to you our sympathy in your recent prolonged illness, and the sincere hope that you will be out and about before very long and with your accustomed vigor, and that we may be privileged to see you at the Park Street office,* where your visits have been greatly missed during the past year. With all good wishes, believe us,
Notes
1901: The date was typed in.
office: The comma was added her by hand. Jewett's long illness was the result of her 1902 carriage accident that ended her publishing career.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University: Sarah Orne Jewett Correspondence I, Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett.
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., firm, publishers, Boston. 6 letters; 1891-1904.. (101).
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 Wyman Whitman to Sarah Orne Jewett
[ May 1903 ]*
Dear, if you are out this morning, will you look in at the Studio where I shall be till 2. I think I'll bring the drawing at about six, to 148, if possible for me to get there.
Yours in the haste of a leisurely May morning
Notes
May 1903: This speculative date is based upon this note's possible relation to other correspondence between Whitman and Jewett in early May 1903 regarding Whitman's work on a memorial window for Jewett's father at Bowdoin College.
This page was folded, and on the reverse side addressed to Jewett at 148 Charles Street.
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 Sarah Wyman Whitman
South Berwick, Maine
[ End letterhead ]
Thursday
[ May 1903 ]
Dearest S. W.
I was so sorry that I could not get to the Studio. I mean to say ^first^ that I could not see you again, -- and you will be sure too that I think a great deal about the window . . I hope that it gets on without too much trouble to you? You must tell me when you wish to know what to put on it! but
but [ repeated ] I dont know that there need be anything but the name Theodore Herman Jewett Class of 1834,* and I have thought beside of the Four Commands that Hippocrates gave to the great [ deleted word ] profession: Learning, Sagacity, Humanity, Probity* (or Integrity, if you like the word better.{ ) } All this I meant to talk about -- perhaps we shall have a chance yet.
or you will tell me if you think of anything else --
I am certainly no worse for the great adventure of going to town and indeed better, with something new to think about, but I was pretty tired for a few days ^after getting back^ -- in ^the^ morning I stay in bed and in the afternoon I sit in the garden under an apple tree -- and make believe read. It is a hurried and exacting life.
S. O. J.
Notes
May 1903: This date is based upon the fact that Whitman is working on the memorial window that Jewett commissioned to honor her father at Bowdoin College, which Whitman completed in 1903. Jewett seems to make clear that she has been very ill, as she was after her September 1902 carriage accident, which left her unable to travel away from home until April of 1903.
Class of 1834: What text, if any, accompanies the window Jewett commissioned to honor her father at Bowdoin College has not been discovered. The window cannot be examined except from the outside as a result of repurposing the interior space of Memorial Hall.
Four Commands that Hippocrates: Hippocrates of Kos (c. 460 - c. 370 BC) was a Greek physcian of the classical age, often called "the father of medicine," perhaps best remembered for his statement of medical ethics, "The Hippocratic Oath." The source of these "commands" has not yet been identified, but it is often repeated in medical literature of the 19th century that Hippocrates thought these qualities "indepensable in every good physician."
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University, Cambridge. MA: Whitman, Sarah (Wyman) 1842-1904, recipient. 25 letters; 1892-[1900] & [n.d.]. Sarah Orne Jewett additional correspondence, 1868-1930. MS Am 1743.1 (126). Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Wyman Whitman to Mary Rice Jewett
[ 3 May 1903 ]*
Dear Miss Jewett:
You dont know how much I thank you for the [ last ? ] report which came this morning: for I was so afraid the dear invalid was not quite solid enough for the journey. But if anything could help toward re-habilitation it would be the [ indoor ? ]
comfort of the old house at Brunswick, and the outdoor loveliness which I know is now flooding the New England country from end to end. Bay* and I thought this morning, like the starling,* that we must "get out" and into it all: but a voice Known as Duty's said otherwise! So have been grappling with Mrs Bullock's* [ velors ? ] and laces, and constructing tombstones, and playing that I have forgotten how to wander as "lonely as a cloud"* . --
But you and Sarah will perhaps
[ Page 3 ]
And you will rule The Authoress with a rod of Iron will you not? and believe in spite of this exultation of [ princesses ? ], very affectionately yours & hers
Studio. May 3.
Notes
1903: Whitman's references to Sarah Orne Jewett being an invalid and to a planned trip to Brunswick, ME, indicate that this letter was composed in the spring after Jewett's September 1902 carriage accident and while Whitman was at work on a memorial window for the Jewett sisters' father at Bowdoin College.
Bay: Whitman's tom-cat. See Letters of Sarah Wyman Whitman, pp. 174-5.
starling: Whitman alludes to the starling that appears in Irish author Laurence Sterne's (1713-1768) A Sentimental Journey (1768), in the chapter entitled "The Passport." The narrator is moved by the caged bird speaking to him, repeating "I can't get out."
Mrs Bullock's: One might speculate that Whitman was painting a portrait of Mrs. Bullock, but whether such a portrait exists is not yet known. Though there were several Mrs. Bullocks in the Boston area in 1903, a likely subject for a portrait would have been Mary Chandler (1845-1934), wife of Augustus George Bullock (1847-1926). They were wealthy patrons of the arts in Boston. His father was Alexander Hamilton Bullock (1816-1882), who served as governor of Massachusetts just after the Civil War.
a cloud: From British romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850), "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud."
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 Mrs Cole*
Saturday 16th May
[ 1903 ]*
My dear Mrs Cole
I shall accept with great pleasure your kind invitation on behalf of the New England Women's Club* to a Breakfast in honour of Mrs. Ward Howe* at the Hotel
Vendôme* on May 23d -----
Mrs. Cole: The identity of this person is not yet known. A Mrs. E. B. Cole is known to have served as president of an off-shoot of the New England Women's Club, the Wednesday Morning Club in Boston, during 1893-1895. However, it has proven difficult to further identify her or to learn more about her. She may be Ellen Standley Gale Cole (1859-1944), but this has not been established.
Another possibility is Mrs. Otto B. Cole, a Boston folklorist and translator active in woman's suffrage at the turn of the 20th century. Her given name may be Mollie R.
1903: This date is probable, but not certain. The New York Times (26 May 1907, p. 3) reports an annual birthday breakfast for Julia Ward Howe at the Hotel Vendôme, sponsored by the New England Women's Club. The most recent year in which May 16 fell on a Saturday was 1903. If Jewett has dated her letter correctly, then almost certainly she accepted this invitation for the 1903 celebration. Though Jewett was still weak from her September 1902 carriage accident, she was able to visit in Boston in the late spring of 1903. However, her letter of 23 May indicates that she was finally unable to attend.
New England Women's Club: This club was established in 1868. Julia Ward Howe was among its founders. Run by women, with suffrage as a main cause, the club admitted men as members.
Mrs. Ward Howe: Julia Ward Howe. See Key to Correspondents. She was born 27 May 1819.
Hotel Vendôme: A Boston luxury hotel opened in 1871.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Small Library, University of Virginia, Special Collections MSS 6218, Sarah Orne Jewett Papers. The microfilm image of this note indicates that it was written on both sides of a card. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Adams Fields
[ 23 May 1903 ]*
Dearest Annie
I quite feel like missing you -- all gone away to make a visit! Little F.* to be good! but then there is nothing so
I cant think just when I shall get back -- perhaps not until Tuesday at noon! but we'll see!! I feel as if we had both been away a great while. And I shall have a lot to do. I forgot that I had promised (for [ deep ? ] interest's sake) to go to the Breakfast for Mrs. Howe to day but I sent a telegram early this morning. The real birthday
is on Wednesday -- I wonder if Alice* sends flowers or 'does' anything, or isn't it one of her observances? I forget how much she cares .. You were going to see about a [ Cake ? ]. I have remembered that I settled upon the Gilbert Murray book [ faded, unreadable words -- Thank you ? ] for the letters -- with ever so much love
Notes
23 May 1903: This date is strongly supported by Jewett's reference to a birthday celebration for Julia Ward Howe that probably took place on this date. See notes below.
little F.: For Fuff, a Fields nickname. See Key to Correspondents.
Exeter: Jewett's maternal grandparents resided in Exeter, NH.
Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
Breakfast for Mrs. Howe: Though this has not been confirmed, probably the annual birthday breakfast for Julia Ward Howe took place in Boston on Saturday 23 May 1903. Jewett wrote a letter of acceptance for this event that, probably on 16 May 1903. At this time, Jewett was continuing a slow and never completed recovery from her September 1902 carriage accident. Her continued ill-health seems to have prevented her actually attending the Howe birthday breakfast.
Alice: Probably this is Alice Greenwood Howe. See Key to Correspondents.
Gilbert Murray book: Australian-born British classical scholar, Gilbert Murray (1866-1957), remembered especially for his translations of classical Greek drama, as well as his historical and literary books on ancient Greek culture. Which of his many books Jewett thought of as a gift is not yet known.
P.L.: Pinny Lawson, a Jewett nickname. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields papers: mss FL 5566. This manuscript has been damaged by water, making parts of the transcription less than normally certain. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Wyman Whitman to Sarah Orne Jewett
[ 4 June 1903 ]*
Darling I have your letter. I at once wrote to Miss Crawford* that she could see the window almost any day. Yes it is now a-getting done, & I guess its pretty heavy work not having the beloved Donor* round; to complain & dictate, & all the rest.
And O darling to hear you have more headaches* is too hard: but dont believe they are not going away. Its only that one does not get well all over at once -- & I too have cause to know it. Old Fitz* can
[ Page 2 ]
And I do hope you will have those days with A.F.* soon: for as you say, she is getting ahead -- & so Alice* also testified when I was there to dine with her last Tuesday.
This is a message, not a letter: but you will have this from me when I have cleared up my garden patch a little! Getting things here ready for repairs, & there
[ Page 3 ]
ready for occupancy is a new kind of Fox,
Goose, & Bag of Corn* mentioned in ancient literature.
Therefore it is that this
is all tonight from your ever devoted
Love to dear Mary* and that beloved friend
SOJ.
Notes
4 June 1903: The envelope associated with this letter was cancelled on 4 June 1903 and addressed to Jewett in South Berwick.
Miss Crawford: Miss Crawford has not yet been identified. However, if Jewett and Whitman are in communication with someone in Brunswick, ME, about the window Whitman is designing as a Bowdoin memorial to Jewett's father, then perhaps
Whitman refers to Grace Crawford (1881-1976) of Brunswick, who married John Albert Robinson (1880-1966.)
beloved Donor: Almost certainly, Whitman means Jewett, as donor for the memorial window at Bowdoin College.
more headaches: Though Jewett's carriage accident took place the previous September, she continues to suffer its debilitating effects.
Old Fitz: This may be Dr. Reginald Heber Fitz (1843-1913), a prominent Massachusetts physician and a professor of Medicine at Harvard University. However, Whitman and her friends also were acquainted with Walter Scott Fitz (1838-1900). Find a Grave.
A.F.: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Alice: Probably Alice Greenwood Howe. See Key to Correspondents.
Fox, Goose, & Bag of Corn: A famous old riddle. In one variation: Once upon a time a farmer went to a market and purchased a fox, a goose, and a bag of beans. On his way home, the farmer came to the bank of a river and rented a boat. But crossing the river by boat, the farmer could carry only himself and a single one of his purchases: the fox, the goose, or the bag of beans.
If left unattended together, the fox would eat the goose, or the goose would eat the beans.
The farmer's challenge was to carry himself and his purchases to the far bank of the river, leaving each purchase intact. How did he do it?
Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
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.
Annie Adams Fields to Lilian and Thomas Bailey Aldrich
June 14th, 1903
When the weather is warmer and you are in need of change or a half=way house may I not hope to see you here?
The old hill top is no younger but it is lovelier than ever, the mistress is strange enough to think and she* is much better. Pray let me hear some day of your dear boy* and the whole household circle.
Annie Fields.
Shall you be thinking of "The Harbor"?* In any event this would make a good halfway station{.} Pray think of it -----
above all, come!
Notes
she: Probably Fields refers to Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents. Though still quite weak from her September 1902 accident, Jewett was able to make some visits in the later spring of 1903.
dear boy: The Aldrich's son, Charles, at this time was seriously ill with tuberculosis, and would die in the following year.
"The Harbor": Tenants Harbor, ME, where the Aldriches had a summer home.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University: Thomas Bailey Aldrich Papers, MS Am 1429, Box 6, Items 1446-1538. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Annie Adams Fields to Alice Meynell
Manchester by Sea, Mass
And so you did not come to America at all this spring! Let it be only a happiness stored up for the near future.
It is lovely here by the sea in this month and those which are to follow. I wish you and Mr. Meynell could have been in Boston (and here) during the past month especially
to have some part in the general tributes to Emerson and Channing.* Almost by accident as we say the Centennials fell in the same week. (It was the hundredth anniversary
Will you not come over this summer? I am much better and shall find it a true pleasure whenever you care to see your way clear to return. It is a joy to know your young people are happy{.} I hope they will not be obliged to wait too long to be married.* There is such a [ thing ? ]. The not waiting however often means a retarding of development* ---- Sarah* & I are both better and yet both far from well -- that will come for her later. We keep the Flower of the Mind* by our side.
Notes
American Unitarian preacher and theologian, William Ellery Channing (1780-1842). His monument, erected in 1903, stands in the Boston (MA) Public Garden.
For an account of the centennial of Emerson's birth in Concord, MA, see The Centenary of the Birth of Ralph Waldo Emerson: As Observed in Concord, May 25, 1903.
Fields refers to Emerson's poem, "The Rhodora," from which was taken the epigraph for the booklet on his centenary in Concord.
development: The transcription of this sentence is uncertain, as is its meaning.
Sarah: Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
This manuscript is held by the Greatham Library, in West Sussex, UK, owned by Oliver Hawkins, great grandson of Alice Meynell. A copy has been provided by independent scholar and editor of The Selected Letters of Alice Meynell, Damian Atkinson. Transcriptions and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
William DeWitt Hyde to Sarah Orne Jewett
Bowdoin College,
Brunswick, ME
[ End letterhead ]
The window* is lovely, and a delight to all who have seen it. As the hall was in constant use, it was not put in place until
yesterday.
Please accept once more our heartfelt thanks for this beautiful gift* from our only well beloved daughter.
I have asked Mr. Lewis to take good care of Mr. Eastman while he is here.
Professor Chapman* will receive the window for the College and Dr. Lewis will present it.
The mottoes* are admirably chosen: and as medicine is just now the favorite profession with Bowdoin men, it is especially appropriate.
I trust your health* will soon permit you to come and see for yourself how beautiful you have made our Hall, and how happy we all are to have this memorial of your father's virtues, Mrs. Whitman's taste, and your own generous heart.
Notes
gift: Jewett gave to Bowdoin College a stained-glass window to honor her father, a Bowdoin alumnus and professor in the School of Medicine. The window was designed and built by Sarah Wyman Whitman. See Key to Correspondents.
What text, if any, accompanies the window has not been discovered. The window cannot be examined except from the outside as a result of repurposing the interior space of Memorial Hall.
Lewis ... Eastman ... Chapman: For George Lothrop Lewis and Theodore Jewett Eastman, see Key to Correspondents. Henry Leland Chapman (1845- 1913) taught Latin, Rhetoric, and English Literature at Bowdoin College.
mottoes: While this is uncertain, Jewett told Whitman in a letter of May 1903 that she believed she wanted her father's name and "the Four Commands that Hippocrates gave to the great profession" on the window.
health: Jewett had been in poor health since her September 1902 carriage accident.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University: Sarah Orne Jewett Correspondence I, Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett.
Hyde, William DeWitt, 1858-1917. 3 letters; 1901-1903. (108).
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 Wyman Whitman to Sarah Orne Jewett
_____June 21st
[ 1903 ]*
Darling I have been that foolish that I have waited for business facts, before writing an answer to your dear letter! But you will have to forgive: and it is now that I send this unkempt page still ignorant! But after all though mathematics is difficult facts is plain! And if the window passes the great Fire of Criticism you will owe me $400 -- minus the costs at Brunswick.
[ Page 2 ]
You see I am here: having come down in a storm & lived
[ Page 3 ]
[ lived repeated ] in one [ two
unrecognized words sour guise ? ] -- &
today it rains from Tubs. Yet last night I
did go & have a lovely dinner with A.F.* & the
Sullivans -- AF looking really just herself, &
so [ sweet ? ] & becoming. It made a dear
evening: and there are great anticipations of better yet
to come.
Twins in good shape:
& Alice to go to the Cliffs now for 3 days -- &
then comes Cory!*
Love to dear Mary --
& I am yours
Notes
1903: The envelope associated with this letter was cancelled on 22 June 1903 and addressed to Jewett in South Berwick. Whitman appears to have superimposed a one over the zero when writing her date.
Mr. Hyde: Wikipedia says: "William De Witt Hyde (September 23, 1858 - June 29, 1917) was an American college president, born at Winchendon, Mass.," and educated at Harvard University and Andover Theological Seminary. He was the seventh president of Bowdoin College (1885–1917). After she received her honorary degree from Bowdoin in 1901, Jewett made arrangements for Whitman to design and build a memorial window at Bowdoin to honor her father.
Mary's: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
A.F.: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Sullivans: These dinner guests of Annie Fields have not yet been identified.
Twins ... Alice ... the Cliffs ... Cory!: Which twins Whitman refers to is uncertain. It is somewhat likely that she means her grand-nephews: Felix and Victor Whitman Knauth, born in 1895.
Alice Greenwood Howe. See Key to Correspondents. The Cliffs was her summer home in Manchester-by-the-Sea, MA.
Cory has not yet been identified.
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.
Robert Underwood Johnson to Annie Adams Fields and Sarah Orne Jewett
My dear Mrs. Fields and Miss Jewett:
Having lately spent four months in Italy (with Mrs. Johnson) I have had you much in mind, though the multiplicity of duties has prevented me from writing to you. I hope you are both now thoroughly restored. Will you kindly let me know.
I am sure you will be interested in a movement which I set on foot in Rome this year on the anniversary of Keats's death to buy the house on the Piazza di Spagna in which he died and make of his apartment a Keats-Shelley museum.* The movement was quietly begun by eight* American writers then in Rome, under the chairmanship of Sir Rennell Rodd, who you may know, twice saved the grave of Keats from desecration, once by enlisting the intervention of Queen Victoria. We have organized three committees, that in America consisting of Mr. Stedman as chairman, myself as secretary, with those who were present as charter members, so to speak, many others to be added when the time comes. The committee in England consists of H. Buxton Forman and Sidney Colvin, with George Levinson Gower as secretary,with the hope of adding Lord Crewe and Robert Bridges. Of the Italian committee the chairman is Sir Rennell Rodd and the secretary Harry Nelson Gray, a fellow of Harvard, whom you may know, with the idea that others will be added when we are ready to begin operations.
It is proposed to organize an association to take charge of the house and museum therein, but also to insure in perpetuity that the proper care shall be given to the graves of the two poets and their companions, and to defend the graves against desecration or, in the case of Keats, possible removal. Of the governing board of this trust the England and American ambassadors might be members ex-officio.
Mr. Sebasti, the banker of Rome, after making inquiries, informed us that the property, which now pays six
or seven per cent. on the investment, is in litigation on account of mortgage and that it could be had for $18,000. Our idea would be to raise $25,000., distributing the subscription among the three countries, probably raising the bulk over here. We cannot yet open the subscription or publicly announce the project for fear that the price my be advanced upon us. I was in hopes that an advance of $500. or $1000. would secure the option on the property at the above price, but it seems that it is necessary for us to deposit with the court $18,000. before we can make sure that the property will be ours when the subscription is raised. I have not the slightest doubt that it will be easy to raise the amount by subscription. The problem therefore is to find some one or more persons who will advance the $18,000. as against the subscription. At the same time, even this must be done quietly, since if it is known that the amount has been advanced by a friend or friends it would, perhaps, deter some people from subscribing who otherwise would be glad to do so. I am impatient to make the announcement of the subscription, and I am therefore making efforts in several directions to obtain such an advance. There can be no risk to anybody in making this advance, for it can be virtually a purchase, the property, as Mr. Sebasti says, already realizing a handsome interest on the investment. I should be glad if you could make any suggestion which would be of use to the cause.
We propose to establish in the rooms where Keats and Severn lived a museum which shall include all the editions of Keats and Shelley, all the portraits, either in the originals or in reproductions, that can be procured, the life mask of Keats, autographs, correspondence, etc., so that in the atmosphere of Rome, so identified with those two men, one can study at leisure the life and works of these two great English poets. As soon as the house is arranged for, I shall ask Mr. Carnegie if he does not want to furnish this library, that being in his line, but I fear he might fly the track if we asked him to advance the purchase money.
I wonder whether Mrs. Gardiner (or some other person in Boston) would not feel like standing in the breach for a year or two until the money can be had. Should the subscription lag I will undertake to get up a series of authors readings in New York in the interest of the project. You may recall that we made $4200. for the copyright cause under my management as impresario some years ago, and I believe we could approach that sum.
[ No signature ]
Miss Sarah Orne Jewett.
Notes
museum: The Keats-Shelly Memorial House in Rome was purchased in 1906 and opened in 1909.
For an account of the history of John Keats's grave in the old Protestant cemetery in Rome, see: "The Grave of John Keats Revisited" by Nicholas Stanley-Price, The Keats-Shelley Review 33:2 (2019), pp. 175-193.
eight: Johnson has inserted the asterisk here, pointing to a list of the authors at the bottom of the page: Miss Agnes Repplier, Mrs. Edith Wharton, Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull, Miss Martha Gilbert Dickinson, Herman Hapgood, James Herbert Norse, Harry Nelson Gay, and R. U. Johnson.
Several other persons are named in this letter. All are identified here in alphabetical order.
Robert Bridges: British poet and physician, Robert Seymour Bridges (1844-1930).
Mr. Carnegie: American industrialist and philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie (1836-1919).
Sidney Colvin: British critic and author, Sir Sidney Colvin (1845-1927).
Lord Crewe: Probably British politician Robert Offley Ashburton Crewe-Milnes (1858-1945).
Miss Martha Gilbert Dickinson: American poet Martha Dickinson (1866-1943), niece of Emily Dickinson.
H. Buxton Forman: British bibliographer Henry Buxton Forman (1842-1917).
Mrs. Gardiner: Probably Isabella Stewart Gardner. See Key to Correspondents.
George Levinson Gower: British politician Sir George Leveson-Gower (1858-1951).
Harry Nelson Gay: American historian and author, H. Nelson Gay (1870-1932).
Norman Hapgood: American author and journalist, Norman Hapgood (1868-1937).
John Keats: British poet, John Keats (1795-1821).
James Herbert Norse: American author and poet, James Herbert Morse (1841-1923)
Miss Agnes Repplier: American poet Agnes Repplier (1855-1950).
Sir Rennell Rodd: British diplomat, poet, and politician, James Rennell Rodd (1858-1941).
Mr. Sebasti: N. Sebasti & Co. was a major international bank in Rome, established in 1893.
Severn: Joseph Severn (1793-1879) a British painter, was a friend of John Keats.
Percy Bysshe Shelley: British poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822).
Mr. Stedman: Probably Arthur Griffin Stedman, but possibly his father, Edmund. See Key to Correspondents.
Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull: American novelist, Francesca Hubbard Litchfield Turnbull (1845-1927).
Queen Victoria: Alexandrina Victoria (1819-1901) was Queen of Great Britain (1847-1901).
Mrs. Edith Wharton: American novelist, Edith Jones Wharton (1862-1937).
A blue carbon-copy of this typescript is held in the Robert Underwood Johnson papers. Manuscripts and Archives Division. The New York Public Library. Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations, v. 42. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Julia Ward Howe to Susan B. Travers
[ 6 Old Elm ? ]. Melville Station
Newport, R. I.
July 14th 1903.
My dear Mifs Travers,
It will give me great pleasure to lunch with you on Thursday 16th, and to meet Mary Jewett.* I hope that she will bring good news of
dear Sarah.*
Notes
Mary Jewett: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
Sarah: Sarah Orne Jewett was very slowly recovering from her injuries in a September 1902 carriage accident.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University: Sarah Orne Jewett Correspondence I, Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett.
Howe, Julia (Ward) 1819-1910. 8 letters; 1901-1905 & [n.d.] (103).
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 Frances Rollins Morse
[ 22 July 1903 ]*
Maine.
[ End letterhead ]
Dear Fanny
The catalogue has been delightful. I was at it again yesterday. Mrs. Fields* must show you a gold coin of Cyprus that we both love when you go to see her. I know just enough to take immense pleasure in this handbook -- nobody I
do believe, would have thought to send it but you! -- This is only half a note for you -- the rest is to send love to your mother* and* [ to corrected ] ask her if she doesn't think I am just like Miss Louisa Musgrove in Persuasion*
when she tumbled off that Cobb at Lyme -- Only there seem to be no Captains ^(, R.N.)^ to make gay the scene! (There* used to be plenty of captains in Berwick in old times, of the other sort, plain "merchantmen", but no less enchanting to me. With much love always
Notes
1903: Penciled in another hand, top left of page 1: July 21 -- 1903. This cannot be exactly correct, for 21 July fell on a Tuesday in 1903. In the absence of any other evidence, I have accepted this date, correcting it to 22 July.
Fields: Annie Adams Fields. Key to Correspondents.
What catalog Morse has sent Jewett is not yet known. It would appear to be an international catalog of rare or historical coins.
and: Sometimes in this letter, Jewett writes "a" with a long tail for "and." I give these as "and."
mother: Harriet Lee Morse. See Frances Morse in Key to Correspondents.
Persuasion: Persuasion (1817) by British novelist Jane Austen (1775-1817). In that novel, the foolish Louisa Musgrove is seriously injured when she playfully falls off a wall, expecting a Royal Navy captain to catch her. Jewett would have liked a captain to catch her the previous September, when she was thrown from a carriage and seriously injured.
(there: Jewett does not close this parenthesis.
The manuscript of this letter is 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).
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Edward William Garnett to Sarah Orne Jewett
Kent Hatch
No Edenbridge
Kent.*
Dear Madam,
Messrs Duckworth have placed in my hands your letter of June 25th. Years ago I had, as 'reader' to T. Fisher Unwin, the pleasure of advising him to publish over here "The Country of the Pointed Firs",* & this year I was very pleased
to see an opportunity present itself for "The King of Folly Island.."'s introduction to English readers.
I have had the temerity to write a slight critical estimate* of your stories, which was printed in The Academy of July 11th. Probably some friend has sent you a copy, but I am asking Messrs Duckworth to forward
it to you.
You will see that I have spoken of "thirty short stories" in my paper. I should much like to see some day these thirty stories, published by Messrs Duckworth, in 3 volumes* -- if the [ unrecognized word ] could be arranged. Is there any chance of Messrs Houghton Mifflin preparing such an edition on your side? for
in the present arrangement of the stories, one has to content oneself with examining, weighing, & laying aside a good deal of 'material' which I think obscures your highest quality as artist.
Pray pardon the impertinence of these observations. I am such an admirer of "The Country of the Pointed Firs" & of the thirty stories in question that I should
like, later on, to send you an approximate list of the contents to a Selected Edition, if the idea pleased you.
yours very truly
Edward Garnett
Notes
Kent: This return address appears on a page with a deleted letterhead. The letterhead reads:
DUCKWORTH & Co., Publishers |
Telegrams: "DUCTARIUS,
LONDON." Cable Address: "GERWADUCK, LONDON." Telephone 3423 Central 3. HENRIETTA STREET COVENT GARDEN, W.C. |
Pointed Firs: Garnett mentions two Jewett volumes, The King of Folly Island (1888) and The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896).
estimate: "Miss Sarah Orne Jewett's Tales," Academy and Literature 65 (July 11, 1903): 40-41. Reprinted in Richard Cary, Appreciation of Sarah Orne Jewett.
volumes: Worldcat lists only one Jewett publication by Duckworth & Company: The King of Folly Island and Other People (1903).
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University: Sarah Orne Jewett Correspondence I, Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett.
Garnett, Edward. 1868-1937. 2 letters; 1903-1905. (74).
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 Wyman Whitman to Sarah Orne Jewett
August 2, 1903.
Dear old fellow, I live in a semi-detached
condition, and do or do not as my demon bids, having an
almost fierce predetermination to do as nearly as I can
"what seems best." The result, if I dare speak of results
at all, is that I keep a little work going, fling an
occasional small sop to the social Cerberus,* read a
little (which I have not done for many years), write only
when I can't help it because that nerve seems the most
"chawed up" of all, and pray to be forgiven! No wonder
that under these conditions my hope of heaven seems small.
. . .
Notes
Cerberus: In Greek mythology, a three-headed, dragon-tailed dog that guarded the entrance to Hades.
This transcription appears in Letters, Sarah
Wyman Whitman. Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press,
1907, "Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett: 1882-1903," pp.
61-109.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Sarah Wyman Whitman
South Berwick, Maine
Dear old fellow
Who should drive up to this door yesterday but old Helen!* -- Mary had gone to the Junction to meet Theodore* at the express train and Helen hopped out of one car -- he from another -- and was promptly sent afoot across Fife's lane to avail himself of the trolley car. Helen meant to walk up to the village, and she was amazed to find Mary waiting -- I was amazed to
[ Page 2 ]
see a smart hat -- when Timmy* and I were
expecting a plain straw hat as we sat at the window. She
was just as you said, and had one of those days of looking
quite splendid (that's not the word but we have often
speaked together of the moments.) And travelled north by
the afternoon express: it did this dull heart good to see
her, and to hear about you and the Mexican drawn-work,*
and a quiet hour such
[ Page 3 ]
as was to be long treasured. I had a sense of being
replete with unanswered questions as soon as she had gone,
-- I begin to feel a little like my poor Joanna on the
Shellheap Island* but please forgive the allusion. I have
always seen my story people after they are written,
so here's me! I always love to remember that you
liked that chapter, and wrote the dearest letter ----
I had a great pleasure in Mr
Garnett's*
paper in the Academy lately. The least
significant paragraphs were copied into the Tribune
= but one does so like to have somebody (who knows)
speak seriously of ones work and stick fast to a point of
view. He liked the Hiltons Holiday* which I always call your
story because of ^kind^ words.
The whole thing made one feel as if perhaps the old inkbottle might be needed again, after all, one of those days, but it is strange how all that strange machinery* that writes, seems broken and confused -- one ought not to expect to write forever
but I seem never to be thinking about anything now = it's
very dull! -----
Yesterday my dear old uncle* came for
a visit and I stop now and then as I write to hear
Theodore's* loud discoursing voice -- they talk about
college and the medical profession as if they were exactly
the same age -- one twenty-four this day and the other
eighty last week, and not a bit the matter with either
body or mind but a sad deafness. I love his dear gentle
ways -- last
[ Page 6 ]
night one of T's compeers (a charming young fellow -- but
caught in the nets of a poor foolish little bride) came
^up^ here from the shore -- when they were saying good
night I heard the boy's [ deleted word ] voice and
then Uncle Will's "Good night, Sir!"* like
an old Virginian. [ The corrected ] ^tone^ was
enough to make that sort of boy feel suddenly as if he had
gone from private to Captain -- I could hear it all down
in the hall, and somehow -- perhaps it was the Southern
touch of
it! made me think of you.
-- I should love to get you a pair of Rocky
mountain ponies used to steep inclines -- so that you
could 'rise' Thunderbolt Hill* at will! Dear A. F.* has
such beautiful times with you this summer, and I hear
about you. She writes very dear letters that give one a
sense of being with her as one reads. I shall try again
for a few days visit by and by, but I dread the trains
still almost too much. Dear fellow I think of you a great
[ Page 8 ]
deal. I pray heaven to make you stronger -- not overdoing
is the only real tonic! -- So no more at present from
yours with love and pride S. O. J.
The garden is so nice -- [ deleted word ]
old fashioned indeed with pink hollyhocks and tall blue
larkspurs -- you might make a sketch with [ but ?
] slight trouble, with figures of ^old^ ladies wearing
caps in the long walks.
I seem to [ deleted word ] confuse your art with Mr. Abbey's!!*
Notes
1903: Colby Library archivists have assigned the
date "c. 1903," and this probably is correct, since Jewett
seems to have read recently Edward Garnett's July 1903
article. See notes below.
Old Helen: Helen Bigelow Merriman. Key to
Correspondents.
Mary ... Theodore: Mary Rice Jewett and Theodore Jewett Eastman. Key to Correspondents.
Timmy: A current Jewett family dog.
Mexican drawn-work: This allusion is obscure.
Shellheap Island: See chapters 13 and 15 in
Jewett's The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896).
Mr. Garnett's: Edward Garnet. Key to
Correspondents.
Richard Cary notes that his article
was, "Books Too Little Known: Miss Sarah Orne Jewett's
Tales," Academy and Literature, LXV (July 11,
1903), 40-41; collected in Friday Nights (New
York, 1922). "In Garnett's opinion Miss Jewett 'ranked
second only to Hawthorne in her interpretation of the
spirit of New England soil'."
the Hilton's Holiday: Jewett's story appeared in
Century 46 (September 1893), 772-778 and was
collected in The Life of Nancy (1895).
strange machinery: Jewett has been unable to
write fiction since the September 1902 carriage accident
that permanently ended her professional writing career.
old uncle: Richard Cary identifies Dr. William
Gilman Perry. Key to Correspondents.
Sir: Jewett has underlined this word twice.
Thunderbolt Hill: A.F. is Annie Fields.
Key to Correspondents. This hill is the location of her
summer home in Manchester by the Sea, MA.
Mr. Abbey's: Richard Cary identifies Edwin
Austin Abbey (1852-1911), who "started as an illustrator
of books and magazines but became internationally known as
a painter of historical and literary murals. Essentially a
portrayer of happy moods, he specialized in scenes of
delicate lyrical sentiment."
Jewett reviewed Abbey's Old English
Songs in The Book Buyer 5,11 (Dec 1, 1888),
pp. 466-8.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Harriet Jackson Lee Morse*
[ 1903 ]*
[ End letterhead ]
Dearest Mrs Morse
I had an envelope all directed and* was going to write you about your first dear letter, when the second came this morning! I feel as if we had had two nice talks now, and I was delighted to hear how beautifully the Medea* went off. I wish that I could have seen
Gwen* and the others.
You are so kind to think of me, as I am getting on in the same slow fashion -- the bad attacks of pain in my head* come much less often -- but the last one was pretty bad and lasted longer than seemed at all reasonable. However I creep a little way up hill in spite of everything, and begin to look forward to autumn weather, and having a free foot sometime or other. It
very nice to hear of all the pleasant things at the shore -- and to know that dear Mrs. Fields* is really so much better. Yes, I did see the paper in the Academy and I have had a delightful letter from Mr. Garnett* who wrote it, though I had meant to write to him first! It gave me a real pleasure -- one likes to have such a long row of books { -- } There must [ be corrected ] some dull ones for every
reader. I was so glad that he liked the Hiltons Holiday* among the stories. Mrs. Whitman* always liked that and I always remember how kind you and Mr. Morse were about the Marsh Island!* Give my love to Fanny, and to all [ you so it appears ] children at home. Dr Morse was so kind in knowing that I cant write as much as I wish -- but I do like to write to you. I wish that I could have you sit with me some afternoon. It is very prim and old fashioned with long walks, and many
pink hollyhocks, and sweet peas and bright things for edgings round the kitchen garden. No four o'clocks this year but going to be next! Yours with much love
Notes
Morse: See Frances (Fanny) Rollins Morse in Key to Correspondents.
1903: This was the year of the publication of Edward Garnett's paper on Jewett. See note below.
and: Sometimes in this letter, Jewett writes an "a" with a long tail for "and." I render these as "and."
Medea: Presumably, this was a production of the ancient Greek tragedy, Medea by Euripides (c. 480- c. 406), or perhaps an adaptation.
Family Search shows that Frances Rollins Morse was the sister of Dr. Henry Lee Morse (1852-1929). He married Jessie Frances Lizzie Scott (1860-1909). Their only known child, Harriet Morse's granddaughter, was Gwendolyn (1886-1968). It appears that Gwen Morse may have been a performer; she would have turned 17 in 1903.
head: Jewett was suffering from the results of her September 1902 carriage accident.
Fields: Annie Adams Fields. Key to Correspondents.
Garnett: Edward Garnett. Key to Correspondents.
His paper was "Miss Sarah Orne Jewett's Tales," Academy and Literature 65 (July 11, 1903): 40-41. Reprinted in Richard Cary, Appreciation of Sarah Orne Jewett.
Hilton's Holiday: Jewett's "The Hilton's Holiday" appeared in Century Magazine (46:772-778), September 1893, and was collected in The Life of Nancy, 1895.
Mrs. Whitman: Sarah Wyman Whitman. Key to Correspondents.
Marsh Island: Jewett's 1885 novel, A Marsh Island.
Dr Morse: Mrs. Morse's son, Gwen's father.
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.
William Dean Howells to Sarah Orne Jewett
Aug. 13, 1903.
I will write a letter to Norton,* and I wish I had soul or body enough to prompt the others you mention, or to set a Round Robin* flying amongst them, for it ought not to be left to you. But my soul and body, though interested in the same objects, are like the two unions of striking carpenters,* and wont work together. I have done such a lot of futile writing this sum=
=mer that I cannot bear the thought of anything wise or worthy; that is the worst of futility; it corrupts.
But I will write my own letter to Norton, and [ do ? ] you yours; and a little later I am coming to see you, now that the trolley has made us next door neighbors. I heard of you from Miss Grace Norton* the other day when I was visiting her in Cambridge, and I hope that by the time I come it will not be so far from your garden end back to your house.*
Mrs. Howells joins me in love; and Pilla,* if she were not in New York would too.
Notes
Norton: The identity of this Norton is as yet uncertain, as is the issue that has prompted Jewett to ask Howells to write to a group of people. A likely candidate is Charles Eliot Norton, Harvard professor and father of Jewett's close friend, Sara Norton. See Key to Correspondents.
Round Robin: A circulating letter that is passed within a group of recipients.
striking carpenters: There was such a strike involving rival unions of New York carpenters in May 1903.
Grace Norton: Sister of Charles Eliot Norton. See Key to Correspondents.
house: Presumably, Howells refers to Jewett's slow and never complete recovery from her carriage accident of 3 September 1902.
Pilla: Howells's daughter. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of the letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University. Howells, William Dean, 1837-1920. 16 letters to Sarah Orne Jewett; 1875-1908. Sarah Orne Jewett correspondence, 1861-1930. MS Am 1743 (105). Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Wyman Whitman to Sarah Orne Jewett
[ 20 August 1903 ]*
Darling, this is the latest from Isabel's* official [ unrecognized word, Mother ? ]! So I found it {.} Yes: though dear Coolidge's* little [ fine ? ] writing is now a strange puzzle to read.
I guess I had a good half hour with A.F.* last [ Saturday corrected ], for she looked so well & gay & had such Good news to tell that we drank almost
[ Page 2 ]
I send this least word because I have just counted the "addressed envelopes" to find that 73 must be filled at once, or I perish!
Sw
Notes
20 August 1903: The envelope associated with this letter was cancelled on 20 August 1903 and addressed to Jewett in South Berwick.
Isabel's: Which Isabel Whitman means is not yet known. A likely candidate is Isabella Stuart Gardner. See Key to Correspondents.
Coolidge's: Probably Sarah Chauncey Woolsey, who wrote under the name Susan Coolidge. See Key to Correspondents.
A.F.: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Mr. Sandle: The transcription is uncertain and the reference not yet known.
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 Sarah Wyman Whitman
[ End letterhead ]
[ 22 August 1903 ]*
Dear old fellow
I was not unmindful of the Boon of Coolidge's* letters -- the last one was a nice Coolidge indeed but the first was all Runkles and Lolly-Dollys, and* I felt as if she would never be the same Coolidge again after that private car business -- and Little Yardleys* going off like hot cakes. [ Jennie ? ] must look so resigned at these weddings, with her bairns being [ respectif ? ] like the [ love ? ] and Tom a rector -- I think that Tom is
as Theodore* would say, a scene in his high church cut and ^the^ sanctity of shape in his collars and opinions. Oh what a world with Yardleys in it -- they make you feel so crowded when you think of them, and Jennie's smile is like a dog-day with no wind from the sea. (Now I feel quite cheered up!) And I am reading Causeries du Lundi* a portion each day, right straight along ^like [ unrecognized word ]^ as I never did before; same 's Mrs. Lawrence*
did -- and I hope in time to have a well furnished mind. [ Were ? ] there ever such enchanting pages to read ^again and again^? -- -- This reminds me that I had such a dear visit from Mifs [ Fanny ? ] Chapman* the other day with "Leila" and her dear* little girl! You must know that child -- you really must see her before she goes away! Walpurga!* and we are such friends already. I really long to see her again -- They have had an anxious summer but she has been such a brightness. I remember
you speaking of an evening at [ Aldie ? ] or somewhere when all their profiles were like large fine cameos -- this small thing is [ deletion ] like a little bright pink topaz among such. Would you write pretty soon and just happen to say in the letter that Leila's name is of German nobility -- I cant remember anything beyond von! You will find that there is a place in my memory where the shutters are up and things dark and cobwebby inside -- ( not where [ deletion ] ^impressions^ about Yardleys are !! ) I was so glad
to hear about you from Mary* -- who got home yesterday from a most lovely visit. Now I mustn't write any more or that little mill in the back of my head will begin to pound me into ----- but I am going to begin the second year pretty soon with what patience one can muster. I make you a little promise dear as I write this: And dont mind the seventy-three letters -- some persons die (not Yardleys) and I have
got three heaps in different places and a peck basketful in the long-entry closet and the world goes on just exactly as well. = perhaps one ought to say 'that's the worst of it!* Let me know when Mr. Franklin* is going to have the sale -- The other day I saw a table cloth of his on a little table in the breakfast room -- so pretty and I had bought it in haste and tucked it away ^just^ before he came to the fair in the evening! I could have weppit, as you say.
1903: This date is speculative, with bits and scraps for confirmation, based on the notes below. Walpurga von Isarborn would have turned 10 years old in 1899. Jewett says she is reading Sainte-Beuve, whom she reports reading in letters of 1896, 1899 and 1903, though this is the only known letter in which she names Causeries du Lundi. During most of 1903, Jewett was debilitated from her September 1902 accident, and she hints in this letter that she is beginning the 2nd year during which, after she writes too much, her head bothers her.
Finally, this letter could be a response of Whitman's of 20 August 1903, in which she says she is sending along a letter from "Coolidge." I have dated this on the Saturday following Whitman's letter.
The Houghton folder in which this letter is included has been scrambled. It contains a number of envelopes, some of which are associated with letters in the folder. There is an envelope addressed to Whitman at Old Place, Beverly Farms, MA, cancelled in South Berwick on 29 August 1903. If that envelope belongs with this letter, then it may have been composed a week later than 22 August.
Coolidge's: Sarah Chauncey Woolsey. Key to Correspondents.
It is not certain what Jewett means in referring to Runkles and Lolly-Dollys. Lucia Isabella Runkle (1844-1922) was a well-known editorialist. Wikipedia.
and: Jewett often writes "a" with a long tail for "and." I render these as "and."
Little Yardleys: Jewett refers to Woolsey's sister, Jane (Jennie) Andrews Woolsey (1836-1908) who married Rev. Henry Albert Yardley (1834-1882). In the 1880 census, at FamilySearch, they had 5 children at home, four of whom were daughters. Their only son was Rev. Thomas Henry Yardley (1869-1933). He married Eva Louise Thorn in Philadelphia in 1905. At the probable time this letter was written, there seem to have been no "little Yardleys," all of Coolidge's nieces being grown adults, born before 1880.
Causeries du Lundi: "Monday Chats," was a collection of critical and biographical essays by French literary critic, Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (1804-1869). Wikipedia.
Mrs. Lawrence: Robert Mainfort and Mary Kwas (University of Arkansas) identify Mrs. Lawrence as Elizabeth Chapman Lawrence (1829-1905), one of Whitman's correspondents. See E.L., The Bread Box Papers: a biography of Elizabeth Chapman Lawrence, (1983) by Helen H. Gemmill. She was married to the diplomat, Timothy Bigelow Lawrence (d. 1869). Her home was the Aldie Mansion in Doylestown, PA.
Fanny Chapman ... "Leila": Find a Grave lists Walpurga von Isarborn von Friesen (1893-1975) as the daughter of Baron Hubert Fidler von Isarborn and Elizabeth Chapman Mercer von Isarborn (1858-1919). About Elizabeth, Find a Grave says:
Elizabeth "Lela" Mercer, the little known sister of Henry Chapman Mercer. Lela and brothers Henry and William grew up in the mid-1800s in Doylestown, the grandchildren of Bucks County [PA] Judge Henry Chapman. Grandson Henry [1856-1930, Wikipedia], an archaeologist and founder of the Bucks County Historical Society, built the 9-story Mercer Museum in Doylestown as well as his home a few blocks away, awe-inspiring Fonthill Castle. William, a successful sculptor, constructed Aldie, a Tudor-styled mansion that replaced the original Aldie villa just down the hill from Fonthill. Sister Lela married a European baron at Aldie and moved permanently to Europe." (excerpt from "Rediscovering Lela Mercer").Miss Fanny Chapman should be Frances "Fanny" Chapman (1846-1923), half-sister to Lela/Leila's mother, Mary Rebecca Chapman Mercer.
Note that Elizabeth Chapman Lawrence also was a resident of Aldie. Find a Grave identifies her as Lela's aunt, full sister of her mother. It Jewett is speaking, then, of Mrs. Von Isarborn, it's odd that she calls her "Mifs," but on the whole the details of her letter seem to correspond well with this group of people.
dear: This word is underlined three times.
Walpurga: Wikipedia identifies Saint Walpurga as an 8th-century English missionary to Germany and also Maria Antonia Walpurgis (1724-1780) as a princess of Bavaria. Presumably, Jewett saw Leila Chapman as related to the princess, though it is not clear that she really was. However Baron von Isarborn was from Germany, and the family resided in Bavaria. Walpurga von Friesen's Find a Grave page includes a photograph of her.
Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. Key to Correspondents.
Mr. Franklin: The fair probably is a pre-Christmas fund-raising sale at Trinity Church (Episcopal) in Boston, where Whitman was an active member. Mr. Franklin, mentioned in other letters as a fellow member, has not yet been identified. Whitman may refer to one of her correspondents, Elizabeth Franklin, who was a member of the Bible class Whitman taught at Trinity Church in Boston. In a letter of 14 June 1890, Whitman writes to Miss Franklin about her father's health.
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 Sylvia Hathaway Watson Emerson
[Begin letterhead]
South Berwick Maine
[ End letterhead ]
My dear Sylvia
I have thought 'ever-so-many' times about [writing corrected] to you and said to myself that I didn't know how to direct the letter, and the great thought has now occurred to my still greater Mind that I could send the letter to Milton!*
You see what's left of your friend, but I can truly say that you are welcome to the affectionate residue! -- I have thought so often of you and dear Mr. Emerson{.}* I wished that I could see you
both, shouldn't we sit down happy and idle together, and I'd sharpen the pencils if you two would undertake to sharpen my wits a little. Next week it will be a year since I tried to go through to China head-first* and showed such a lack of judgment in choosing a hard road for the starting place. I am not good for much yet but a concussion of the brain doesn't seem to impair the affections, though it may have an effect upon the walk and conversation.
Just one word to carry you both my love and Mary's* too. Ask W.R.E.* if he doesn't wish we could have gone to Wells to the 250th anniversary -- to see all the Littlefields and Hatches and Perkinses in the World!!* Poor old Wells with the long sandy road and carrot crops & blue fringed gentians in the fields where the sand shows through the grass. I always like to think of it! -- I used to go there "doctoring" -- and there was always a ^big, cheerful^ fisherman or sea cap'n [browned corrected] with sea tan, and a thin blue-white wife going off in a decline! This showed the salt water itself a better climate than its adjacent town of Wells! Goodbye dear friend
with love from S. O. J.
Our garden is lovely this year -- all full of tiger lilies just now, round the edges and the row of poplar has grown nearly as high as yours in the wet weather.
Great year for the glads etc!
Notes
Saturday July [August] 29th [1903]: It is virtually certain that Jewett has misdated her letter. July 29 in 1903 was not a Saturday, but August 29 was. She mentions in the letter that a week after her writing is the anniversary of the carriage accident of 3 September 1902. She mentions the Wells, Maine 250th anniversary celebration as having happened. It took place 26 August 1903.
Milton: At this time, the Emersons lived in Milton, MA.
Mr. Emerson: William Ralph Emerson, or W. R. E.. See Sylvia H. W. Emerson in Key to Correspondents.
head first: A carriage accident on 3 September 1902 incapacitated Jewett for fiction writing; thereafter, she wrote letters, but not for publication.
Mary's: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
250th anniversary .... Littlefields and Hatches and Perkinses: A program for the 250th anniversary of the founding of the town of Wells, Maine, was available for purchase on E-Bay in spring 2017. According to that program, the event took place on 26 August 1903. There was a "Historical Parade, giving Pictorial Illustrations of Events in the History of Wells. This was followed by evening exercises in Ogunquit: a band concert, oratory and fireworks. Among the speakers was the Honorable Charles E. Littlefield. He also was the chairman of the "Display of Fireworks."
Charles Edgar Littlefield (1851 -1915) was a United States Representative from Maine. In 1903, he was in the middle of his final four terms in Congress.
The following image from that program is available courtesy of EBay.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Library of Congress in the Owen Wister Papers, 1829-1966, MSS46177, Box 19. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
With this letter in its Library of Congress folder appear two related items, not written by Jewett.
It seems clear that this writer is mistaken about the date of the letter. As the second item shows, there is reason to be confused about this. The author also is mistaken in identifying Annie Adams Fields as a daughter of Charles Francis Adams, Sr. (1807-1886), as she would have been were she a sister of:
John Quincy Adams II (September 22, 1833 – August 14, 1894)
Charles Francis Adams Jr. (May 27, 1835 – May 20, 1915)
Henry Brooks Adams (February 16, 1838 – March 27, 1918).
In fact, her father was Zabdiel Boylston Adams, Sr. (d. 1855).
Jewett, Sara Orne
S. Berwick Maine
-- Sylvia Emerson
29 July 1891,
Note in a delightful characteristic letter to S.E. who sends it with a note to Owen Wister.
Sara Orne Jewett wrote beautiful [thin ?] silverpoint stories of New England people & places. The Mrs. Fields she alludes to was Mrs James T. Fields (Annie Adams)
wife of the publisher & sister of John ^[ unrecognized word ]^, Henry & Charles [unrecognized word] Adams, herself a poet & Writer of articles and criticism.
This letter seems to be dated in 91, but if it really does refer to Jewett's "brave letter" above, that date must be incorrect. One possibility is that the number "91" which appears on this page refers to a post-office box number rather than to the year of the letter. Further assistance in sorting out this mystery is welcome.
Sept 2d 91
[Text apparently added at an angle beneath the date]
How lovely the [unrecognized word] are.
Dear Owen,
I send you Sarah Jewetts letter which will give you her news & Mrs Fields. Don't try to answer this{.} You must be busy up to yr eyes -- I thot you might like to read this brave letter. My [unrecognized word] gains by slow degrees. Affly yours,
Sylvia W. E.
I wrote Mother about the crow
Helen Cross Knight to Sarah Orne Jewett
You dear one I hope you {are} gaining fast by this time. How much you are in my thoughts -- and other people's -- From a letter just received from Down East,* she writes, "Every thing [ is intended in ? ] this region of light and shade and Pointed Firs brings to mind Mifs Jewett's idyllic story which I never tire of reading or quoting. The Country of the Pointed Firs,* a gem among books"
and this she but echoes and re-echoes a thousand other "shes", who are reveling still in your "balmy and beautiful words -- "
I wrote thus far the other day, my dear under a passionate desire to see you and to know that you were fast getting better -- then a multitude of little things came up to be attended to -- among them a bigger one which was going to Boston,
we did [ deletion not ? ] on Thursday{,} Susie* and I, to welcome Kitty and Marie home, or rather to our shores, for it is to be but a flying visit -- Marie wrote from shipboard that her mother was miserable and the weather during the voyage miserabler -- They are at the Berkeley* -- where they are to be till Thursday afternoon when they come to the Pillows* here.
I hope they will like the Pillows, for it is near us and a pleasant neighborhood and so near that if she can walk
out at all, she can walk to our door -- Kitty looks very pretty, but is infirm and full of rheumatism -- It is hard to be bright and charming under such conditions, yet she seems so -- Marie quite delightful -- [ Grace ? ] is to come to me and see her -- so we shall be together -- Kitty and I are all who are left to remember grandpa's --
Kitty's almost first inquiry was for you -- I do not feel Mary* is at home, is she?
Love, love, love from H. C. K
Aug 29 -- 1903 --
No summer ---
Notes
Down East: This term is somewhat confusing to those residing outside New England. It refers here to the coast of Maine, though more generally it includes the Canadian maritime provinces.
The Country of the Pointed Firs: Jewett's 1896 novel.
Susie: Almost certainly, this is Knight's niece, Susan Jameson Jewett, daughter of Knight's brother-in-law, Elisha Jewett (first cousin of Jewett's father), by his first marriage to his cousin Sarah Orne Jewett (1820-1864), not the author, Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909), another cousin.
Marie and Kitty have not yet been identified.
The transcription of "Grace" is very uncertain, and she remains unidentified.
Berkeley: The Berkeley Hotel in Boston was in the Back Bay area, not far from the home of Annie Adams Fields. At this time, Jewett continued to suffer debilitating symptoms after her September 1902 carriage accident.
Pillows: While Knight seems to have written "Pillows," her handwriting often is eccentric, and it seems more likely that she would have written "Willows." What looks like a P could be a W. In 1903, there was a Willows Hotel in Prouts Neck, ME, south of Portland, in a country of pointed firs.
Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University: bMS Am 1743 (128), Knight, H. G. 2 Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett; 1898-1903. Transcribed and annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Helen Williams Gilman* to Sarah Orne Jewett
Dear Sarah,
Tomorrow is your birthday, and I want to send you one little word of love and very best wishes.
I do not know as you are at home today, but shall send this note there, because both it & the candy will keep.
I hope you will have a beautiful day -- wherever you are -- and a very happy new year.
Aunt Gilman
Sept. 2d
Notes
Gilman: Probably, the "Aunt Gilman" who signed this note is Helen Williams Gilman (1817 - 22 December 1904), who was particularly close to Jewett.
Penciled in another hand at the top right of page 1: 1903?? The rationale for this speculation is unknown, and no details of the letter support any particular date, except that it must be from before December of 1904, if the author is correctly identified.
L. R. H. : The transcription of these initials is uncertain. Probably, they identify the person who wrote this letter for Aunt Gilman, and that person remains unknown.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University: Sarah Orne Jewett Correspondence I, Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett.
Gilman, [ ] 1 letter; [1903?]. (81).
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 Isabella Stewart Gardner
[ Begin letterhead ]
South Berwick, Maine
[ End letterhead ]
Dearest Mrs. Gardner
What a kind and dear note you have written to me. I shall never forget it! Oh you are quite right there was no reason for such a foolish disaster, and so one can make no excuses.
My sister* and I are so sorry to have been away
Sarah O. Jewett
1903 or 1908: 12 September fell on a Saturday in 1903 and again in 1908. Jewett's letters suggest that she was at home in South Berwick during parts of September in both years. I have chosen arbitrarily to place the letter with others of 1903. It is at least remotely possible that the disaster to which she refers is her September 1902 carriage accident.
sister: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
Hamilton House: See Emily Davis Tyson in Key to Correspondents. Hamilton House became a place to visit in South Berwick after 1900, when Tyson completed her restoration of the property. It is possible that Jewett refers to her novel, The Tory Lover (1901), which is set partly at the Hamilton House.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA. Transcription and annotation by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Wyman Whitman to Sarah Orne Jewett
Darling, I send you a little rejoinder that I felt called upon to make when Mr Goodhue* -- (young and not quite deep enough in the heart of things -- ) wrote of old glass & new: and I hope you'll think it reasonable!
And I saw A.F.* last night sitting on the Sunset's Edge, as I was on my way to Cliffs:* and she looked (I thought) better than
[ Page 2 ]
[ Page 3 ]
another [ unrecognized word Father ? ] (who have had no vacation this year ) came by the 10.45 & returned at 9:30! Luncheon at Old Place: High tea at the Vestry, and lemonade & [ guess-cake ? ] "all along". -- A very great occasion.
The one pressing question was as to you: & your absence was hard to bear -- though it was only the Baptist Fair this time.
[ Page 4 ]
But you will know about a good many missings dear friend: and that we at this end have to draw heavily on patience in order to give you freedom & time to get those nerves* all squared & solid. It will come "unannounced" too, when it does come: yet all your patience and our abstinence is necessary to this great end --Love & blessing every day from your
Notes
14 September 1903: The envelope associated with this letter was cancelled on 14 September 1903 and addressed to Jewett in South Berwick.
Mr. Goodhue: Whitman speaks of her response, "Stained Glass," in Handicraft 2:6 (1903) 117-31, to Harry Eldredge Goodhue, "Stained Glass," in Handicraft 2:4 (1903) 77-92. In "The Second Gothic Revival and the Transformation of Taste," Virginia Raguin writes:
In 1903 Harry Eldredge Goodhue published an article in Handicraft magazine criticizing the contemporary opalescent style as not "stained glass, for it is absolutely different from what has been understood by the term." Sarah Wyman Whitman replied in a subsequent issue praising the experimentations of La Farge and the validity of the American contributions in new methods and expression.A.F.: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Cliffs: Whitman was on her way to the summer home of Alice Greenwood Howe, and she apparently passed by Annie Field's summer home, also in Manchester-by-the-Sea, MA, on her route.
Whittemore: Fields was acquainted with Thomas Whittemore (1871-1950), the American archaeologist who founded the Byzantine Institute of America. He was a favorite among her younger friends, often mentioned by Alice Meynell, for example.
B. Farms: Beverly Farms, MA, where Whitman had her summer home. Wikipedia notes that in summers, Whitman taught a Bible class at a Baptist church in Beverly Farms and that she helped to raise funds at church fairs for such projects as a library and a reading room.
E. Franklin: Whitman may refer to one of her correspondents, Elizabeth Franklin, who was a member of the Bible class Whitman led at Trinity Church in Boston. In a letter of 14 June 1890, Whitman writes to Miss Franklin about her father's health.
guess-cake: At 19th-century church fund-raising fairs, one item donated and sold was "guess-cake," which at least sometimes involved paying for a chance to guess at the kind of cake it was, with a correct guess winning the cake.
nerves: More than a year after her carriage accident of 3 September 1902, Jewett continues to suffer serious debilitating symptoms.
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.
William Dean Howells to Sarah Orne Jewett
Sept. 15, 1903.
Dear Miss Jewett:
Your letter and your book have both come, and these poor thanks must go to [ let ? ] you and your sister* [ know ? ] the sense of your welcome has not left me yet. I think it must have been the beautiful old house and garden that helped give the welcome, for I cannot separate either of you from them.
Your house will always remain a surprise to me, not because it was not the fittest possible setting for such literature as yours, but just because it was: literature does so often have such alien settings. The garden! It would not have
been the house it is without the garden, where all its graceful [ motives or motions ? ] were carried out in leaf and flower.
It was a [ rose ? ] visit, and I am glad I would not suffer it to be qualified by any other call. I think the strange pleasure of it culminated in seeing you standing in the doorway of the dining parlor, with your look of [ care ? ], and affirming the constant [ quiet ? ] of it all.
I have dipped into your poetry book, where I have found tentative touches of your pencil, but where I could not have you [ a amiss ? ], anyway. I met Mrs. Meynell,* you know in New York. It is an added allure. Mrs. Howells and Pilla join me in affectionate regards to your sister and yourself.
W. D. Howells.
Notes
sister: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
Mrs. Meynell: Jewett apparently has given Howells an annotated copy of poems by Alice Meynell. See Key to Correspondents. Her most recent volume of poems would have been Later Poems (1903).
Pilla: Howells's daughter. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of the letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University. Howells, William Dean, 1837-1920. 16 letters to Sarah Orne Jewett; 1875-1908. Sarah Orne Jewett correspondence, 1861-1930. MS Am 1743 (105). Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Edward Garnett to Sarah Orne Jewett
Sept 16. 1903
Kent Hatch
No Edenbridge
Kent.
May I ask you if you would care -- ever -- to write a short paper* or causerie on any American book or author dear to you? . The reason I ask is that I have ^been^ conferring with the Editor of "The Speaker", on
Such verdicts can only be impaired or destroyed by the fresh penetrating sympathies or antipathies of people who write from feeling or conviction. So you should help us.
/ These excellent & formal reasons will not, I know, affect your inclinations or judgment in the least --
but I hope you will think over the matter.
"The Speaker" is the chief Liberal weekly paper, & is one of the few English papers that made a determined stand against the late disgraceful ^Transvaal^ war.*
It is full of excellent principle, but has hitherto been too exclusively a political organ, & not broad enough in its
If you do write on any literary
subject dear to you, -- ( say 1500 - 2000 words,) "The Speaker" will pay 3 Guineas for the article which should be addressed to me registered.
Pray pardon any curtness in this note. I wish you to feel that you have an audience here waiting to hear your voice, & I feel that you have criticisms or appreciations of books to offer which will give the English insight. In asking
you to write or not, according to your mood I do not forget that your illness may have taken away all desire, or at least that you may not soon find it possible to write.
You will I am sure send me word of your actual state, & whether you are free from pain.
Yours most truly
___
paper: Jewett is not known to have written such an article for The Speaker. After her debilitating accident of September 1902, Jewett is not known to have written again for publication.
Transvaal war: Wikipedia identifies the Transvaal War as the First Boer War between the British and the Boers of Transvaal in 1880-81.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Miller Library, Special Collections, Colby College, Waterville, ME: JEWE.1. Associated with this letter is an envelope addressed to Jewett in South Berwick, cancelled in New York on 20 September 1903, with 10 cents postage due. There is a cancellation on the back side as well. Both the envelope and the first sheet of the letter are trimmed in black.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Elizabeth Caldwell Mower
[ Begin letterhead ]
South Berwick Maine
[ End letterhead ]
My dear Mrs. Mower
I have been wishing that I could see you to tell you of my great sympathy in hearing of your aunt's death --* I cannot help feeling that as her strength grew less it must have been a great comfort to her to watch your always increasing power of usefulness, but just because your cares and interests grow larger, you will miss her help and counsel all the more.-- We only understand the blessing of older friends and 'somebody to go to' as we grow older and put our hearts more and more into what we find to do -- But to have such a [ counsellor corrected ] once is not to lose her now; you will ^always^ have the blessing of her love and her true wisdom -- The memory of such love and wisdom will go with you into hard places as well as happy ones all your life. It is always very
touching to me to see a person whose influence has been widespread, take up the [ deletion ] less-evident, the restricted service that age permits -- There is a pathetic phrase that great men may live long enough to see themselves forgotten, but it is never so! I believe that their best teaching may be given then to those who are fortunate enough to be their ^nearest^ friends and they may give the golden value of their lives into a few fit hands. ---- It is the loveliest inheritance, this of character -- and the sense
of true values, with the power of appreciation, make its best treasures -- -- I am sure that you often feel lonely, with all your gratitude that the days of your aunts failing strength are done, but you will have many happy thoughts, and a new sense of her nearness to you, for company and consolation. I am sure that it was a great comfort to her to have a niece like you! Believe me
Notes
aunt's: Richard Cary notes that Mower's aunt, Eunice Caldwell Cowles, died on September 10, 1903.
The manuscript of this letter is held by 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.
Ellen Tucker Emerson to Annie Adams Fields
Dear Mrs Fields
Thankyou for your notes and the amusing account of [ transmitt so it appears ] between you and Miss Jewett. Also for The Week at a French Country-House which I will return in a week or two, after I have read it to those friends for whom I wished to have it.
Affectionately,
Notes
Miss Jewett: Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
French Country-House: Adelaide Kemble Sartoris (1815-1879) was an English opera singer, the younger sister of Fanny Kemble, actress and anti-slavery activist. She wrote A Week in a French Country House (1867).
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, Folder 2. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Edward Garnett
Maine
October 12th
[ 1903 ]*
I have been wishing to answer your two most kind and* friendly letters, but I have been so ill with a { new}* bad attack of pain in my head with all the tiresome results of ^(dullness & drowsiness)^ that I could only wait -- It is a simple enough 'case' I {suffered} a very bad concussion indeed {which} is sure to take more {months} than I care to think about {going} even begin the proverbial {eight} [ word ] a bad {cropper} in the {hunting} [ word ]
-- But your reference to your mother's* sad illness and death has touched me very much. I know too well how such regrets double one's pain and that there is no such loss -- one is a child as long as she lives and then ^we^ seem
Your list of the stories* gave
their writer much satisfaction -- the poor creatures are glad enough to have won such a friend. I should make much the same list myself. -- The other day when I began to feel better I was quite downhearted and I took one of the books with a sort of {despair} as if I must be made to believe that there had been a person who could get something done -- I read
them. [ 5 - 7 words ] been speaking about a {second} edition which I have {privately} determined to make a selection ^{ I read }^ with all the severity I could master. I suppose that the form ^of the [ mark ] stories^ &c would be in some degree dependent upon how large an edition Messrs. Duckworth &c could order. I do not see how they could find it wise to take a large [ word or 2 ] Messrs. Smith*
[ Fragments from damaged sheet 6, 2 pages ]
like the grandmother [ how or now ] I had imagined
she gave one a [ start ] !
We are not Puritans in this corner of New England [ and or in ] many of my own books
people for the King -- it was not like Plymouth where life was very [ different, ] more [ picturesque and ] and less [ ? ] perhaps --
[ Mr. Henry ] James would (did say to me) that
and her like were
but they were
than Mrs. Todd at
I disbelieve in modern
^ the worthlessness^ of historical in that to write of yesterday is to be
of the past! I have
almost never tried to write with a real purpose in my mind
characters
studies from life
see that
no matter how many details are
I could not make him [ seem ] alive to
alas! I suppose that [ we cant make stories live]
it is only the [ creature or creative ]
but I almost always see [ exactly ] my [ creative or created ] being
[ only after ] she has long been
Please take the
selfish enough
Pray forgive so long a letter and all its tiresome [ corrections ]
I have had the
Notes
1903: Jewett refers in this letter to several events of 1903: the death of Garnett's mother, the issue by British publisher, Duckworth & Company, of The King of Folly Island, and Garnett's essay on Jewett that appeared in the 11 July 1903 issue of Academy and Literature. See notes below.
new: This letter is water damaged, with the result that several parts are blurry or washed out. In the first four pages, whenever I can make out damaged text, I have indicated with braces my guess at what Jewett has written. Where I cannot, I indicate in brackets the apparent number of words I cannot make out.
Sheets 5 and 6, two pages each, are unreadable, except for a few random words. Elizabeth Garver, of the Harry Ransom Center, graciously provided high resolution images of these pages and suggested a developing, currently free software program designed to recover damaged images, Retroreveal. However, I still only was able to make guesses at a few phrases using these means. The most tenuous guesses are in brackets.
Line breaks in this part of the transcription indicate breaks between the fragments I was able to make out.
Because of these problems, I am unable to tell the correct order of the pages on these sheets, but it appears that the pages on sheet 6 are in order from left to right, and if there really is a signature on the left page of sheet 5, that may be the final page.
and: In this letter, Jewett sometimes writes "a" with a long tail for "and." I have rendered all as "and."
Fate: Jewett refers to her carriage accident of September 1902, which resulted in permanent disability.
stories: In "Miss Sarah Orne Jewett's Tales," Garnett uses the occasion of Duckworth & Company's 1903 British publication of The King of Folly Island (1888) to present an overview of Jewett's work. He singles out The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896) and several specific stories for special praise. Among the stories he rates most highly are: "Decoration Day," "The Hiltons' Holiday," "A Dunnet Shepherdess," "The Passing of Sister Barsett," and "The King of Folly Island." His essay appeared in Academy and Literature 65 (July 11, 1903) 40-41.
Garnett was an editor at Duckworth at this time; it appears Garnett and Jewett were considering another publication of a careful selection of Jewett's fiction and that Jewett found this particularly attractive in light of the failure of her American publisher to realize a projected new edition of her selected works. Duckworth did not publish another volume of Jewett's work after The King of Folly Island.
British publisher Gerald de l'Etang Duckworth (1870-1937) founded Duckworth & Company in 1898.
mother's sad illness: Garnet's mother was Olivia Narney Garnett (1844 - 23 June 1903).
Smith: Almost certainly, Jewett speaks of Smith, Elder & Company, British publisher of The Queen's Twin (London, 1900) and The Tory Lover (London, 1901). See Jewett to Houghton, Mifflin of 1 October 1904.
This manuscript is held by the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. 2 ALS, AL to Garnett, Edward, 1904-1905, undated; Edward Garnett Collection MS-1541. Container 9.1. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Roger Livingston Scaife
I thank you for Mrs. Riggs's delightful book* -- [ a for and ] for the kind message which your note brought me -- I am sorry to be so late in acknowledging them both --
S. O. Jewett
Notes
1903: Just below the letterhead is a Houghton Mifflin date stamp: 16 October 1903. Two punch holes appear at the top of the page. Above "Dear Mr. Scaife" appear penciled initials, probably "RLS" for Roger Livingston Scaife.
Mrs. Riggs's delightful book: Almost certainly, this is Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903) by Kate Douglas Wiggins, who married George Christopher Riggs. 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 S. Weir Mitchell
My dear Friend
I cannot help writing to thank you for a very great pleasure: this exquisite St. Martin’s Summer in the new Century!* How can one speak of its delicacy its strength its charming subtleties? ---- By reading it again and again and putting it on a shelf where there are only treasures, since actions speak louder than
words – "When the leaves were drifting down around you – you seemed like the glad young Spring" --------- Alas that we have no Sainte-Beuve* in these days to say what should be said of a piece of work like this!
I cannot tell you what a pleasure you have given me and in these days when pleasures are very few. My life was all in writing and reading and friends and a year ago I was thrown from a high carriage -- My head tried
to get through to China and didn't! and since that 3rd of September 1902 I have either being staying in bed very “Dumpy” and confused or creeping out into the old garden with a stick, walking zig-zag and swaying about (no coordination to speak of!) pain in my head thickening of meningeal ----- (word gone!) and all the rest. You know how tiresome such cases can be to doctor and patient[.]* One does remember that, but all my excellent doctors speak
of "that Prince and Pattern of Physicians, Time" as old Sydenham* called him ----- I was touched to the heart when one day my good doctor Sleeper* the village doctor here told me how much he owed to you in his practice. he had managed to get all your books ^of medicine^ somehow or other. nothing* had helped him more ----- so a good deed shines in this naughty world -- Forgive this note, I am never sure of writing straight since I often think so crookedly. And must write lying down since I can’t write at all at a desk -- What good can Habit be! I have spent
time enough at a desk writing in my day.
; Thank you dear friend for the delight of all you have written ----- the thing I love best of all to remember is the poem of this Roman Areus* the father and his little girl when he puts his hand on her shoulder ----- it is so doctorly too ---
I love to think of writing -- There is nothing like it for happiness for oneself or ones friends. When the wonderful little mill starts itself, and you need only seize your pen. But
it seems not really true that it ever happened! ----- or that the long evenings in summer when we used to talk at Miss Hickman's* or at Beverly were anything but the memory of a happy dream. Please do not think that this calls for an answer – you will be busy and I shall read St. Martin’s Summer again
(I wish that my Tory Lover had been as live and good as your Hugh Wynne* but it was my country too and my heart was in it, and all my pleasure ----- )
Notes
St. Martin’s Summer ... new Century: Mitchells story, "The Summer of St. Martin" appeared in Century Magazine (November 1903), pp. 144-148. The line Jewett quotes appears in column 1 of p. 145. St. Martin's Summer is a period of sunshine and warmth near the Feast Day of St. Martin on 31 October.
Sainte-Beuve: Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (1804-1869) was an eminent French literary critic.
doctor and patient: Jewett has underlined "and" twice.
"that Prince and Pattern of Physicians, Time" ...Sydenham: Wikipedia says: Thomas Sydenham (1624 - 1689) "was an English physician. He was the author of Observationes Medicae which became a standard textbook of medicine for two centuries so that he became known as 'The English Hippocrates'." For the quotation, see Kenneth Dewhurst, Dr. Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689): His Life and Original Writings (1966), p 47.
doctor Sleeper: Almost certainly, this is Dr. Charles M. Sleeper (1856-1924). According to his obituary in the Portsmouth Herald (NH), he was a graduate of Bowdoin Medical College (1883) and was active in Maine democratic politics. His wife was Julia F. Sleeper (1861-).
nothing: Jewett has underlined "nothing" twice.
Areus: It seems likely Jewett refers to the first century BC Greek stoic philosopher, Arius Didymus of Alexandria who became the teacher of the Roman emperor, Augustus Caesar. However it is not clear what she means by this reference. Perhaps she refers to the end of "The Summer of St. Martin" (p. 148), when the main character quotes for a young woman a verse that expresses the wish to shield her from loss and suffering. ; Perhaps more likely, she is referring to her favorite poem by Mitchell, "In the Valley of the Shadow: The Centurion," collected in his volume of poems, In War-Time (1895). See her letter to Mitchell of 15 September 1890.
Miss Hickman's: Miss Hickman has not been identified. It is possible she is a relative of Dr. Napoleon Hickman of Philadelphia, PA, a friend and associate of Mitchell. Further information is welcome.
Tory Lover ...Hugh Wynne: Jewett's final novel, The Tory Lover appeared in 1900-01. Mitchells Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker (1897), first appeared serially in Century Magazine (53:1) November 1896 - October 1897.
The manuscript of this letter is held in the Sarah Orne Jewett Papers, Maine Women Writer's Collection, University of New England, Houghton Autograph File to S. Weir Mitchell #4. Transcription by Linda Heller; annotation by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Maine.
My dear friend
How good you are to send me this charming little book!* It is even going to be nicer than any of the chapters that I read in the Century -- those used to make one ^ -- people^ feel as if two peoples were talking and when the [ theist ? ] ^T.B.A.^ was just as interesting as he could be something interrupted him!
It will not seem interrupted now and it is one of those best books that always seem new. The Herrick essay* has never been put away off the table in the library -- Perhaps one may not ^often^ read anything but the essay and the lovely list of contents, but it is pleasant to have it there. Indeed I cannot very often read much, but I grow a little stronger all
a birthday. She isn't strong at all, but much better than a while ago.* Give my love to Lilian, and to Charley and Tal* when you are writing --
Sarah O Jewett
Notes
1903: Jewett notes that it is 14 months since her September 1902 near-fatal carriage accident.
little book: It is difficult to know what book Aldrich has given her. Usually he gives her copies of his newest, so perhaps this is a copy of Ponkapog Papers. Aldrich included his Herrick essay in this collection.
Herrick essay: Thomas Bailey Aldrich's edition of Poems of Robert Herrick: A Selection from Hesperides and Noble Numbers, appeared in 1900. Robert Herrick (1591-1674) was a British lyric poet. Aldrich wrote a long appreciative introduction.
A.F.: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Craigie House: Craigie House was the Cambridge, MA home of the American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. His daughter, Alice Longfellow's (1850-1928) birthday was on 22 September. Probably, however, this celebration was for Edith Wadsworth Longfellow Dana (1853-1915), whose birthday fell on 22 October.
a while ago: Fields may have suffered a mild stroke in the fall of 1902. In March of 1903, she seems to have been under the care of a nurse at home. See Sarah Orne Jewett to Fields, probably March 1903.
Lilian ... Charley and Tal: Lilian Woodman Aldrich. See Key to Correspondents. The Aldriches' twin sons, Talbot and Charles were born in 1868.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Thomas Bailey 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: 2729*.
Robert Collyer to Annie Adams Fields
[ Begin letterhead ]
201 West 55th Street
New York
[ End letterhead ]
Dearest Friend
Yours came to breakfast this morning and was still more welcome. It finds me well and meat whole -- Gertrude* the dear daughter -- for I do not admit the "in law" -- is also amending nicely, and has taken hold of the house keeping again. She has been cautioned by the doctor to go slow, it was over work which brought the mischief, and I tell her if she goes at it again I will lock her up, but she says she will be good -- I wish I could hold the key over another person I know but mention no name -- Yes it will be the very best of all things for Sarah* to come to you, the change will be what she will answer to slowly but surely so I believe ^and^ you will be best physician bless her dear heart, and yours -- I am growing more cheerful and am in the way of going up to 70th st Sunday afternoons to drink tea but how I do miss my Hattie* as we all do -- still we manage to be cheerful -- Mr Eastman thinks it will be too much for them to spend the Christmas
at home so he is planning to take them all to Washington, perhaps for the new year also, and if Madame Eastman does not go to her sister in [ ? ]* County she will be with us Christmas day -- I am busy writing a chapter or more about my life for the Christian Register --* They threaten me with a number which will take note of my 80th birthday{,} a sort of lift past that [ milestone corrected ] with trumpets and shawms,* and want me to fall in -- I hear also that we are to have doings that evening in the church -- The children mine were asking me for some names in Boston &c where they might send invitations, and Robin said we must send one to Mrs Fields, so you will no doubt get one -- When I was a boy and dreamed dreams this was one { -- } that sometime on my birthday I would have my oatmeal in a silver bowl with real cream, not five drops as mother would give me that morning but a jug full -- Gertrude says I shall have my oatmeal that morning in the bowl you & Sarah sent her and a silver spoon and* a jug full of real cream.
Robert Collyer
Notes
Gertrude: Collyer's son, Robin/Robert, married Gertrude Savage. See Collyer in Key to Correspondents.
Hattie: Collyer's daughter, Harriet Eastman, died in 1903. See Collyer in Key to Correspondents.
Madame Eastman probably is Joseph Eastman's mother, Lucy Putnam Eastman (1823-1908).
Sarah: Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
?: Collyer appears to have written a question mark here, perhaps because he cannot remember the county's name.
Christian Register: Collyer's memoir, Some Memories (1908) first appeared as a series of 29 pieces in The Christian Register, from December 1903 through April 1903. The Christian Register (1821-1957) was a weekly publication of the American Unitarian Association.
shawms: A shawm is a medieval double-reed wind instrument.
and: Collyer has underlined this word twice.
it: Collyer omits several periods in this paragraph. I have supplied them where they seem necessary.
Ambassadors: American author Henry James (1843-1916). Two of his major novels were The Wings of the Dove (1902) and The Ambassadors (1903).
Collyer seems to be mistaken about the date of the essay he read in the Edinburgh Review. Almost certainly he refers to "James's Achievement" in the Edinburgh Review 197 (January 1903), pp. 59-85.
frames: Collyer wrote to Fields on 30 November 1903 that he had become pastor emeritus at the Church of the Messiah. Collyer went to work in a linen mill as a child, after his father's death.
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.
Robert Collyer to Annie Adams Fields
201 West 55th Street
New York Monday
Dear Friend
I am wondering how you are{,} it is or seems so long since I have seen {"}the scart o' your fren."* And the lassies are down to South Berrick.* Sarah I am trying to see across the spaces growing radiant in this magnificent fall weather, just as good as they make it or can make it. I mean "them as is above us." We are all right. Had a lovely Thanksgiving{,} seven all told at the dinner all merry as griggs* -- What are griggs? I enjoy my new role of Pastor Emeritus and as Pepys* says when he gets a carriage hope it may continue. Am no more afraid of Sunday. Still I do things. Have been to Germantown to give them a labor of love and they belabored me with that same. Preached to our own people a week ago yesterday and go to Brooklyn for next Sunday. So I am [ a part ? ] of busy after all.
Notes
1903: Collyer became pastor emeritus at the Church of the Messiah in New York City in 1903. Probably, he composed this letter on the Monday after Thanksgiving that year.
fren: Collyer omits many periods in this letter. I have supplied them wherever they seem necessary. The transcription and reference of "fren" are uncertain. Likewise, it is not clear where Collyer intended to open his quotation.
Berrick: Collyer probably intends a Scots or Yorkshire pronunciation of Berwick, the home town of Sarah Orne Jewett and her sister, Mary. See Key to Correspondents. Jewett remarks on this pronunciation (Berrik) in her historical essay, "The Old Town of Berwick" (1894).
Pepys: English diarist Samuel Pepys (1633-1793). His remark about the carriage has not yet been located.
griggs: While the saying "merry as griggs" or "merry as a grig" was in common usage in the 17th to 19th centuries in England, its meaning is disputed. See Thomas Ratcliff in Notes and Queries (30 January 1904) p. 94.
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.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Mary Rice Jewett
[ December 1903 ]
South Berwick, Maine
Dear Mary
. . . . . . . . . . . . .You can give the Posy Ring* in the parlor closet to the children at Old Fields.* "Little Ichabod".* They love such books -- and they had the mate last year. Perhaps Elise* will like the Christmas Tree trimming in the little S.T. trunk!* With love
Notes
1903: The transcriber includes this note in the transcription: [Boston Mass., Dec. 25, 1903]. The line of points that opens the letter text suggests that he has transcribed only part of it.
Posy Ring: Probably, this is The Posy Ring: a Book of Verse for Children, chosen and classified by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith. WorldCat indicates that it was first published in 1903 as part of the Children's Crimson Series by Grosset & Dunlap.
Old Fields: At the time, this was the name of the home occupied by the family of Sophia Elizabeth Hayes Goodwin. See Key to Correspondents.
"Little Ichabod" … mate of it: What is meant by "Little Ichabod" is uncertain. Though the phrase appears in quotation marks, it could easily refer to a member of the Goodwin family, in which Ichabod was an often-used name.
The mate of The Posy Ring from the Children's Crimson Series in 1902, was Golden Numbers: Poems for Children and Young People.
Elise: Elise Russell. See Emily Davis Tyson in Key to Correspondents.
S.T.: What is meant by these initials is not yet known. Assistance is welcome.
This text is from transcriptions from mixed repositories, Letters from Sarah Orne Jewett, 1875-1890, folder 63, Burton Trafton Jewett Research Collection. For more information about the individual transcription, contact the Maine Women Writers Collection. Notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
John A. Avery to Sarah Orne Jewett
top line information not readable in a fuzzy photograph ]
Graham Shoe Company
Makers of
MEN'S FINE BOOTS AND SHOES
280 Washington Street
[ unreadable street address ]
MR.S. S. O. JEWETT: --
Circumstances having arisen which compelled me to dispose of my business, I have disposed of same to the Graham Shoe Company of #280 Washington St., Old South Bldg., Boston, Mass., and have accepted a position with the above company in their shop at Quincy, Mass., having taken charge of the making of the custom shoes.
If you will send your valued orders to the Graham Shoe Company, #280 Washington Street, they will receive my personal attention as heretofore.
I would further add that I have brought with me most of my shoemakers, which will insure the shoes being made as formerly.
Thanking you for your kind favors in the past, and hoping a continuance of same, I remain
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. bMS Am 1743 Box 1, Item 12 I. Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to William De Witt Hyde
Boston 15th Decr
[ 1903 ]*
My dear President Hyde
I have meant to write you for a long time but [ two written over one ? ] bad effects of my persistent illness seem to be that I can only read and write with much effort. ^Firstly^ I have not forgotten that there must be an account on the College books about the placing of the window-- freight to all the incidentals --
And I wished to speak to
[ to repeated ] you in season about a next year's freshman, young Mr. Shipley Ricker,* a boy at home in whom I am interested, and* I have been very eager to have him decide to go to Bowdoin. This I think he has done, I am glad to say, but he will need to help himself as much as possible. He is a nephew of our librarian at the Fogg Library,* and he had a capital training in library work so far, always helping Miss Ricker ^in her work^ -- His life & interest seem to be centered in books, and if it is possible
I hope that you and
dear Mrs. Hyde are both well?
My sister* and I have not forgotten the pleasure of your brief visit to us in the summer. I can still do very little, but the change of coming to town has been a good thing I am sure. I wish that I might see you if you should be coming to town -- I shall be here a while yet.
S. O. Jewett
1903: This date is supported by Jewett's reference to the memorial window, designed and built by Sarah Wyman Whitman, that she gave to Bowdoin College in 1903.
Shipley Ricker: Probably this is Shipley Wilson Ricker (b. 1887), son of Frederick Shipley Ricker and Elizabeth J. Austin. His aunt Ella W. Ricker (1856-1928), an amateur poet, served as librarian at the Berwick Academy. Find a Grave.
and: Jewett sometimes wrote "a" with a long tail for "and." I have rendered these as "and."
Fogg library: The then almost new library of the Berwick Academy in South Berwick.
George Lewis: Probably George Lothrop Lewis. See Key to Correspondents.
sister: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Hawthorne-Longfellow Library, Brunswick, ME, Sarah Orne Jewett Papers, Series 1 (M238.1): Correspondence, 1877-1905, n.d.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Alice Meynell to Sarah Orne Jewett
PALACE COURT,
W.
[ End letterhead ]
My dear Friend,
Let me wish you a very happy Christmas and New Year. I long had the hope of seeing you in I903. But the days
of that year are now gone. If I ever go to America again, it will be with eagernefs to see you again. I trust you are well.
We are all fairly well -- my girl who married in
time for anything quite of my own.* My husband's book on Disraeli* had a very mixed reception. The reviewers did not see how carefully his little anecdotes were placed so as to illustrate points of character and not by chance -- medley.
Often and often do I think of you in your dear house
Your affectionate
Alice Meynell*
Notes
1903: Meynell's eldest daughter, Monica (1880-1929), married English physician, author and eugenics supporter, Caleb William Saleeby (1878-1940) in June 1903.
own: Atkinson notes that at this time Meynell was editing poets for the Red Letter Library series published by Blackie and Sons. In 1903, she published The Work of John S. Sargent.
Disraeli: Meynell's husband, Wilfrid Meynell, (1852-1948) authored Benjamin Disraeli: an Unconventional Biography (1903). Disraeli (1804-1881) was a British politician who twice served as Prime Minister. He is noted in part for achieving his position in the face of his society's general anti-Semitism.
Meynell: It is not clear whether Meynell or another underlined her signature.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Miller Library, Special Collections, Colby College, Waterville, ME: JEWE.1. A transcription appeared in Damian Atkinson, The Selected Letters of Alice Meynell: Poet and Essayist (2013), p. 193.
Associated with this letter is an envelope addressed to "Mifs Sara Jewett," c/o Mrs. James T. Fields, in Boston. The cancellations reveal little, except that the letter was cancelled at Kew.
New transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Kate Douglas Wiggin Riggs to Sarah Orne Jewett
Dearest Miss Jewett.
It is good of you to ask, or to care howI I am. I think I may say better, but only at the cost of much trouble, such cares{,} such eternal looking back, & [ pressing ? ]
the soft pedal* down on myself (to quote Henry James)* that I take little comfort out of the shreds of strength patched up & saved. Yet all the same I have [ passed ? ], and now that I confidently believe I can never be very strong{,} I shall try to me more philosophic, more serene,
more patient & more sensible -- It will take some years for me to learn these lessons & some of them I shall only learn in my next incarnation, for I am too stupid & wilful in my present state-of-development.
I wish I could come to Boston to see with my own eyes how you are faring. It has been so slow with you that my heart aches to think of it; -- how much you have lost,* how much your friends, & your would-be
[ Tes ? ] Rebecca* is trudging along like a stout, energetic little state o' Maine girl, to everybody's surprise, mine most of all. I cannot be proud remembering "When Knighthood was in Flower" & "Mrs Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch," but my conscience acquits me of all intention of being popular. I think what most pleases me is that you like the book & Mr. Aldrich.
Remember me to Mrs. Fields* please. Many thanks for Miss Nortons* appreciative note -- Yours with much affection.
Notes
lost: A reference to Jewett's permanently debilitating accident in September 1902.
soft pedal: Presumably a reference to the left pedal on a piano.
Henry James: See Key to Correspondents. His reference to "the soft pedal" has not yet been located.
Rebecca: Wiggin Riggs's novel was published in 1903.
Mrs. Fields: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents
"When Knighthood was in Flower" & "Mrs Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch": When Knighthood was in Flower (1898) is a novel by American author Charles Major (1856-1913). Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch (1901) is a novel by American author Alice Hegan Rice (1870-1942). Wikipedia.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University in Sarah Orne Jewett, Correspondence, MS Am 1743, Item 236, Wiggin, Kate Douglas (Smith) 1856-1923. 7 letters; 1902-[1905]. This transcription is from a photocopy held by the Maine Women Writers Collection, The Burton Trafton Papers, Box 2, Folder 98. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Annie Adams Fields to Thomas Bailey Aldrich (fragment)
Boston Decr 21st 1903.
Dear friend:
We know of your vicissitudes* as the newspapers choose to relate them, but the seas of time have rolled between us since I saw you last. Sarah* has been well enough to come to Boston and to improve steadily during the five weeks
[ letter ends, no signature ]
Notes
vicissitudes: While Fields may refer to several problems, of primary concern at this time was the health of their son, Charles Frost Aldrich, who was dying of tuberculosis. He died on 6 March 1904.
Sarah: Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents. Jewett was slowly improving after her September 1902 accident.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University: Thomas Bailey Aldrich Papers, MS Am 1429, Box 6, Items 1446-1538. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Grace Norton to Sarah Orne Jewett
Dear Miss Jewett
If you have not seen these -- words I am glad to introduce
"The Walk"* first.
My Christmas wishes go to you with much warmth & meaning.
Grace Norton.
Christmas
1903.
Don't write to acknowledge this. --
Notes
"The Walk": Norton has given Jewett a copy of The Singing Leaves (1903) by American poet Josephine Preston Peabody (1874-1922). Wikipedia. "The Walk" appears on pp. 84-5.
Associated with this letter is an envelope, addressed to Jewett at 148 Charles St. (Boston). It has no cancellation and, presumably, was hand delivered. On the back appears this penciled note: Taken from The Singing Leaves. Josephine Preston Peabody.
Penciled on the front of the envelope is: 1903.
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 167. I. Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Christmas Evening
My dear Friend
You are very kind to send me your Book -- I am delighted to have it with your name and mine in the beginning, and I am not writing before I read it, because I have read it already with the greatest delight and admiration.
-- I have been waiting for many days to tell you so,
but one of the queer blows of fate in this long [ illness corrected
] has been that I have found it strangely
difficult in this last month or two while I have been getting stronger in other ways, to read and write. On some days when I could read I caught eagerly at the Boston, and I wish that I could say now how fine I think it is as a piece of work: charm -- perspective, proportion, dignity -- readableness are all there. Yes, and seriousness which is so often left out of books in these days -- we are sometimes afraid of not being
amusing enough -- You often take the humorous point of view, but never descend to the showman’s banter -- I have just looked into a book that is spoiled by it --
I hope that I shall see you before I go home; it is going to be very hard to get on without dear Mrs. Fields,* but I long to have her out of doors more and away from North west winds. She has had a better month of December
than I have sometimes known and always dread for her -- but
she was terribly saddened by Mrs. Quincy's death.* I was glad
that I could be here and she was not all alone -- I could not
write then but I have thought so often of Fanny and of you and
dear little Kinky,* and your loss each in your own way -- This
dear picture that you brought today makes me feel nearer than
I ever did before --
Please believe me
always
Yours very affectionately
S. O. Jewett
Notes
She writes: "The year 1903 -- two years before the dinner in Charles Street -- had seen the publication of Father’s Boston, the Place and the People. Sarah Orne Jewett had written him in that year, on Christmas evening,"
Mrs. Fields: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Mrs. Quincy's death: Helen Frances “Fanny” Huntington Quincy (1831 - 11 December 1903), spouse of the Boston lawyer and author Josiah Phillips Quincy (1829-1910). She was related to Mark A. DeWolfe Howe.
Kinky: Mark and Fanny's Howe's son, Quincy Howe (1900-1977) was nicknamed "Kinky." See, The Gentle Americans (pp. 74-5).
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University in Mark Antony De Wolfe Howe additional papers, 1880-1959. MS Am 1524 (774). Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. 16 letters from; 1891-1903. Transcribed and annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Harriet Jackson Lee Morse*
[ 27 December 1903 ]*
inside a circle, superimposed initials SOJ ]
I thank you so much for the Audubon Calendar* -- How I should miss it now! I hope that we shall always have one -- and* I hoped to have time to stop and make you a little Christmas visit, or rather to make sure of a Christmas sight
of you on Thursday -- Christmas Eve, but I got belated -- and so I could only run up the steps and leave a blessing with my little bundle. I shall soon make up for it. I hope that Fanny is quite well again and that you both had a happy Christmas
Sarah
Please thank Miss Allen* for me for the pleasant looking little book. I shall read it when I get back to town --
Notes
Morse: See Frances (Fanny) Rollins Morse in Key to Correspondents.
1903: As the note on Audubon calendars below indicates, this letter must have been composed in 1898 or later. Christmas fell on Friday two more times in Jewett's lifetime, in 1903 and 1908. In both years, Jewett appears to have been in Boston on Christmas day, and then returned to South Berwick within a day or two. I have placed it arbitrarily in the earlier of those years.
Audubon Calendar: According to the Massachusetts Audubon Society, the first Massachusetts Audubon calendar was published in 1898, selling for 50 cents. The calendars featured prints of the illustrations of French-American naturalist John James Audubon (1785-1851). See also Wikipedia.
and: Sometimes in this letter, Jewett writes an "a" with a long tail for "and." I render these as "and."
Allen: This person has not yet been identified.
The manuscript of this card 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.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Mary Rice Jewett
[ After Christmas, December 1903 ]*
Dear Mary
Emily* came last night and we had a dear time with her --
they got looking at one of the autograph books, of famous
women, to find a portrait of the Honble Mrs. Norton she that
was Sheridan* -- and then Emily gave one of her best accounts
of a luncheon in Hallison [so transcribed] Avenue with
Dr. Kin the Chinese lady* whom you know. I worked at my
pink crocheting most of the time and it was a pretty
evening. Emily liked the book I am glad to say -- and
seemed pretty well I thought. I have to offer thanks for
a Coffee Pot! -- Mrs. Fields* did not think to take it down
with the heap of presents so it had a glorious moment all to
itself after we came up stairs. And ‘I [ so
transcribed ] appreciated it to the full even though it
was cold and empty at the moment. It is an important
person to receive into any family. I shall now keep a
sugar bowl upstairs and then Katy* can have this hot, with a
little cream and a little pitcher. I feel very much
pleased. Mrs. Fields gave us a beautiful big piece of
the Italian trapunte work* for the table -- finer than
any we have got. Emily put a discerning eye upon it
before any of the other presents which she seemed to enjoy
looking over. Today they must be cleared away. I
am so glad that A.F. had such a pretty lot of
them. Your list is in the letter down stairs and I shall
send it back next time I write. John* has just brought
up the little leather trunk. (I think it is jealous now
if it gets left at home.) Give my love to Uncle
Will.* I am so glad he could come and I wish I had been
there to see him. Frances Parkman* was here just before
luncheon going to New York today -- and dear Ellen Mason* at
the end of the afternoon and had a cup of tea with A.F. and
brought her doggy. She gave me a beautiful copy of the
John Bellini doge in the Natl Gallery in
London.* I always thought it looked like her, which
amused her. She talked a good deal and very
affectionately about Susy Travers.* Frances gave me a
lovely Japanese basket-box, but I cant stop to give you my
list -- here’s A.F. already for the letters. Much love
to you and Theodore* and all.
Sarah
Two beautiful winter St. Moritz picture cards* for you & me from K. Dexter* but I haven’t any envelope to send them.
Notes
After Christmas, December 1903: A handwritten
note on this transcription reads: 189-. This date is inferred
from the appearance of Dr. Kin in Boston in January of 1904.
Caroline Sheridan Norton (1808-1877) was a British social reformer and author, remembered for her work in persuading Parliament to pass acts for the protection of women who become victims in divorce cases.
Hallison Avenue ... Dr. Kin the Chinese lady: It seems likely that Jewett refers to Kin Yamei (1864-1934), a Chinese born and American raised doctor who trained in the United States. Though she practiced medicine in Japan at various times, she was often in the United States. In January of 1904, her biography reports, she lectured to women's clubs in Boston, at the invitation of Isabella Stewart Gardner (p. 10). She returned in April and September of the same year.
It seems likely that "Hallison Avenue" is a mistake in transcription for Harrison Ave., which is in Boston's Chinatown.
Mrs. Fields: Annie Adams Fields, also A.F. See Key to Correspondents.
Katy: Presumably an employee of Fields.
Italian trapunte work:
trapunta is quilt work.
John: While this could John Tucker (Key
to
Correspondents), it is more likely another Fields
employee.
Uncle Will: In this case Uncle Will is Dr. William G. Perry (1823-1910), husband of Lucretia Fisk Perry. See Key to Correspondents.
Frances Parkman: Mary Frances Parker Parkman. See Key to Correspondents.
Ellen Mason: See Key to Correspondents.
John Bellini doge in the Natl
Gallery in London: Wikipedia says: "The Portrait of Doge
Leonardo Loredan is a painting by the Italian Renaissance
master Giovanni Bellini, dating from 1501. It
is on display in the National Gallery in London. It portrays
Leonardo Loredan, Doge of Venice from 1501 to 1521...." The
entry on the painting includes a reproduction.
Susy Travers: See Key to Correspondents.
Theodore: Theodore Jewett Eastman. See Key to Correspondents.
winter St. Moritz picture cards: St. Moritz is an alpine resort town in Switzerland. It became a center of winter tourism with an emphasis on the baths and on winter sports in the second half of the nineteenth century.K. Dexter: This person may be Mrs. Fred Dexter, who is mentioned in other letters, but her identity remains unknown. Frederic Dexter (1841-1895), a Boston cotton merchant, was married to Susan Chapman Dexter (1843-1917). Both are buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge. Mrs Dexter lived at Beverly Farms as well as in Boston's Back Bay area, and so might easily have been known to Fields and Jewett. However, the first initial "K" does not fit. Frederic Dexter had 6 siblings, but none with a K initial.
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.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Mr. William Wilson*
Tuesday.
[1903 or later]
Dear Mr. Wilson
Thank you very much for your very kind note and the book -- which is interesting as all such things are which have to do with human nature. I am ignorant enough of the science of astrology, but however ingenious these workings-out may be I never can help wondering how far they have any sound foundation, and how far the later
certainties and idealities of science can be made to bear them out. 'The Stars' were so different to the early astrologers were they not? -- it must have been easy enough for sages and [ philosophers corrected ] in those days to announce whatever truths they chose, and to speak of all the 'influences' of Mercury and Mars. But however one may feel about the uncertainties
of astrology it has grown into a most elaborate and ingenious system and careful study, and [this corrected] is interesting in itself: even if one remembers the story of the saint who walked off with his head under his arm after decapitation,* and the French wit who said "C'est le premier pas qui conte!"*
All the same I shall be much interested to see the horoscope . . . Pray
give our love to your wife who gives us unspeakable pleasure with her lovely music. You can hardly think how much we have enjoyed the Sunday evenings with you both.
Believe me ever
Notes
Wilson: The recipient of this letter is not known. However, there is a strong candidate: William A. Wilson (1853-1926), husband of the well-known Scottish-born pianist and composer, Helen Hopekirk (1856-1945). The couple married in 1882 and eventually settled in Boston, MA in 1897. With this letter in the Small Library is a newspaper clipping from the Herald of 20 November 1945 of Helen Wilson's obituary.
Little has been discovered about Mr. Wilson, making it difficult to know what book he may have sent to Jewett and about his interest in astrology. While this currently appears coincidental, a good candidate for the book title would be Sir William Wilson's Shakespeare and Astrology (Boston, 1903). As yet there is no known relationship between these two William Wilsons, except that they both appear to be Scots born the same year. Nevertheless, this book seems likely to have interested Jewett enough that she may well have read it, especially at the recommendation of a person she considered a friend.
1903 or later: This highly uncertain date is based upon the possibility that Wilson has given Jewett a copy of a book published in 1903.
decapitation: Jewett refers to the 3rd-century Christian martyr, Saint Denis.
C'est le premier pas qui conte!: The full French proverb is: 'La distance ne vaut rien; c' est le premier pas qui conte." The distance to be traveled means nothing; it is the first step that counts.
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.