Sarah Orne Jewett Letters of 1906
Annie Adams Fields to Eben Norton Horsford
148. Charles Street,
New Year 1906
Dear Kate --*
Thank you for your Christmas remembrance. The Ferns are still flourishing and will continue with care for many a day I hope.
And you, dear Cornelia, how good it is to see your hand and the bit of box tree and the gift -- all telling that the old days and friends are remembered.
May this year be a rich one to you both, rich in loving thoughts and deeds. As ever,
Affectionately yours
Annie Fields
Notes
Transcriber note: This letter suggests that the Horsfords may have drifted out of their close relationship with Annie Fields and Sarah Orne Jewett.
Kate ... Cornelia: Horsford daughters. See Key to Correspondents.
old days and friends are remembered: By 1 January 1906, Jewett's fragile health made visiting difficult for her. Professor Horsford and his youngest daughter by his first marriage, Mamie, both had died in 1893. That this letter is addressed only to Kate and Cornelia suggests that they may be the only remaining Horsfords still living together at the same address.
According to transcriber John W. Willoughby, the manuscript of this letter is in the possession of the family of Andrew Fiske, Eben Norton Horsford's great-grandson, "heir to Sylvester Manor, Horsford's Shelter Island estate, who graciously offered to share with the public the letters from Sarah Orne Jewett and Annie Fields to Eben Norton Horsford and his family." This letter was published in John W. Willoughby, "Sarah Orne Jewett and Her Shelter Island: Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett and Annie Fields to Eben Norton Horsford," Confrontation (Long Island University) 8 (1974): 72-86. Annotated by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Ellen Tucker Emerson to Annie Adams Fields
Concord, 2 January, 1906
Dear Mrs Fields,
I thank you for sending me Miss Jewett's pretty story,* which I like very much. I hope that you and she are well again; I have not happened to hear of you for a long time; often I pick up little accounts of both, but this year I am staying as closely at home as
[ Page 2 ]
[ home as repeated ] I can, so I see fewer people.
Affectionately
Ellen T. Emerson.
Notes
Miss Jewett's pretty story: Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
In 1906, Jewett was no longer actively publishing, so it is not yet known what story Fields may have sent to Emerson.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields Papers and Addenda, Box 16: mss FI 5637. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Annie Adams Fields to Mary Katherine and Cornelia Horsford*
148 Charles Street
New Year [ 3 January ]* 1906
Dear Kate -- Thank you for your Christmas remembrance --The Ferns are still [ blossoming ? ] and will continue with care for many a day I hope.
And you, dear Cornelia, how good it is to see your hand and the bit of box tree and the gifts -- all telling that the old days and friends are remembered.
May this year be a rich one to you both -- rich in loving thoughts and deeds as ever --
Affectionately yours Annie Fields.
Notes
3 January: An envelope associated with this letter is addressed to Mifs Horsford / Mifs Cornelia Horsford, and cancelled in Boston on 3 January 1906.
Horsford: Eben N. Horsford's daughters. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of the letter is held by the Fales Library and Special Collections, Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, New York University. Sylvester Manor Archive 1649-1996, MSS.208, IV: Horsford Family, Box 110: Folder 10. Jewett, Sarah Orne: Maine & Massachusetts. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College,
Robert Collyer to Annie Adams Fields
[ Begin letterhead ]
201 West 55th Street
New York.
[ End letterhead ]
January 10th 1906*
Dear Friend
Tell me how you are at 148* this new year, and how you got through the Holidays -- Did you take them easy{,} you and Sarah{,}* and just let things slide or were you busy as a hive o' bees -- We had a nice time entirely. Friends to dinner Christmas and New Year and for my own great content I had five private dinner parties. In Topeka, and Milwaukee, and Philadelphia, each one family, and in Ilkley* a family and a washerwoman whose mother lodged with us a good 75 years ago "over beyant the say"* where the factory was -- I am reading the 4 Lectures on Jesus in the Gospels by Philips Brooks* and have never read anything in this sort before quite so near the heart of his divine life and mission or quite so helpful. What have you seen in books well worth the reading in these days? I lot on you to tell me when you find a nugget. Dr Furness* used to say he did not bother to find the best books. They were sure to get round
[ Page 2 ]
to him within a year -- I am reading with some pleasure this new life of Lamb by Lucas.* It is well done but over done for one who almost knows Lamb by heart -- Still there are nuggets and then there are the illustrations more and better than I have seen before -- Dear friends in Chicago also sent me a curious and capital volume by Belloc* the author of the way to Rome. This is the way to Canterbury with all sorts of side ways but he keeps to his text. And English Hours has come by Henry James.* Indeed the new year finds me rich in these good gifts as it finds you no doubt
As ever yours
Robert Collyer
Notes
1906: This date appears to have been added in pencil, probably by Collyer.
148: Fields's Boston address was 148 Charles St.
Sarah: Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
entirely: Collyer often omits periods in this letter. I have supplied them where they seem necessary.
Ilkley: A village in Collyer's home region in Yorkshire, England. He also had dinners in Topeka, KS, Milwaukee, WI, and Philadelphia, PA. As a child, Collyer worked in a linen factory in Yorkshire.
say: Over beyond the sea.
Philips Brooks: Phillips Brooks. See Key to Correspondents. Almost certainly, Collyer was reading The Influence of Jesus (1879).
Dr Furness: American clergyman and reformer, William Henry Furness (20 April 1802 - 1896).
Lamb by Lucas: British author, Charles Lamb (1775-1834). The biography is The Life of Charles Lamb (1905) by Edward Verrall Lucas.
Belloc: Franco-British author Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc (1870-1953). His travel books included The Path to Rome (1902). However, the new book Collyer received is not certain. Perhaps he means The Old Road from Canterbury to Winchester, but this appears to have been published in 1910, according to WorldCat.
James: American author Henry James (1843-1916) published his travel book, English Hours, in 1905. 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.
Mary Amelia St. Clair to Annie Adams Fields
C/O Miss Holt*
New York City
Jan. 12. 1906
My dear Mrs Fields
I am so sorry to say that Katherine Tynan's* volume of collected Poems is out of print. I am sending you Mr. Lodge's Drama "Cain" instead & returning "The Great Adventure"*
[ Page 2 ]
with many thanks & apologies for the length of time I have kept it.
I hope Miss Jewett will like "Grey World"* as much as I do.
I am very sorry that it has been impossible for me to find an afternoon to call on Mrs Trimble* yet. It has been a dreadful rush all the time in New York
[ Page 3 ]
& as all my engagements are made for me I have n't been able to control things. I will try to call before I sail on Saturday week.
With love to you & Miss Jewett
believe me always
[ affect --- ? ] ys
May Sinclair.
Notes
Katherine Tynan's: In her letter of 24 December 1905, Sinclair announced her intention of sending Fields and Jewett Katharine Tynan's "poems." Katharine Tynan (1859 - 1931) was a prolific Irish novelist and poet. Her new poetry in 1905 would have been Innocencies, but Sinclair indicates that her gift was to be "collected poems," perhaps referring to Tynan's, Poems (1901).
Wikipedia says Evelyn Underhill (1875 - 1941) "was an English Anglo-Catholic writer and pacifist known for her numerous works on religion and spiritual practice, in particular Christian mysticism." Her first novel was The Grey World (1904), in which "the hero's mystical journey begins with death, and then moves through reincarnation, beyond the grey world, and into the choice of a simple life devoted to beauty."
Mr. Lodge's ... "Cain" ... "The Great Adventure": American poet George Cabot "Bay" Lodge ( 1873 - 1909) published his drama, Cain, in 1904; his volume of poems, The Great Adventure appeared in 1905.
Mrs Trimble: It is not clear whether Sinclair has written "Mr." or "Mrs." The identity of the Trimbles is as yet unknown. Possible candidates are Walter Underhill Trimble (7 March 1857 - 18 September 1926), a New York lawyer and banker, and his spouse.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, California: James Thomas Fields Papers and Addenda (1767-1914), Letters of Sinclair, mss FL 1-5637.
May Sinclair, when she abbreviates a word as well as with some titles places some of the letters in superscript position. I have elected not to duplicate this practice in the transcriptions of her letters.
Robert Collyer to Annie Adams Fields
[ Begin letterhead ]
201 West 55th Street,
New York.
[ End letterhead ]
St. Valentines 1906*
[ 14 February 1906 ]
Dear Friend -- and more
I send you by this mail the Ilkley paper* with a picture of the Library &c as is to be -- and a report of the laying of the corner stone I thought you would like to see -- I like the semblance there will be { -- } no thing so good in the town.* Have this moment read your ever such a good letter and it quite sets me up -- For I have been a mite down cast over the situation here -- Mr Savage* has broken down from over work and has to lay off for we cannot tell how long, but in all possibles until October -- He goes on Saturday to [ Calafornia so spelled] to Redlands where his son Max is settled and where Mrs Savage went some weeks ago with Mrs Simons, her daughter, who has been a great invalid cut and come again poor Lassie by the Surgeons, but seems to be amending.
Mr Savage gave notice he should preach last Sunday but early in the week threw up his hands. So I took the services of course
[ Page 2 ]
as was meet & right -- I go today to Germantown Pa to the wedding of Mary Mapes Dodge* -- that was -- her [ grandaughter so spelled ] and shall return to morrow if all is well.
They have lassoed me for the speaker at the Unitarian Club in Boston on the second Wednesday evening in April, and my subject will be The Life and Genius of Father Taylor.* I read the Lecture ? to our Young Peoples Club two weeks ago, and the gentleman who came to see me about the Boston Club said they had heard of it &c and wanted it also &c. I was to be their guest at the Vendome but told him we would leave that open. This because I thought it was possible you might want me to stay at 148 for the couple of days or so when I was there [ possibly erased word ] in Boston or you might be as Lambs* coach was "full inside." So I shall hear from you between now and then on this matter Sweet Heart. With love to Sarah & Mary* if there
Always yours
Robert Collyer
I sent the photo also to South Berrick.
Notes
1906: This date may have been added in pencil, perhaps in another hand.
Ilkley paper: A public library (the Robert Collyer Library) and town hall in Ilkley, in Collyer's home region of Yorkshire, UK, was completed with support from the Andrew Carnegie Foundation in 1908. Before the building's completion, Collyer was a guest at its dedication in October 1907.
town: Collyer omits many periods in this letter. I have supplied them where they seem necessary.
Savage: American Unitarian minister, Minot Judson Savage (1841-1918). His wife was Ella Augusta Dodge. Their children were Gertrude, who married Collyer's son, Robert, the American poet Phillip Henry (1868-1899), Helen Louise, who married Unitarian clergyman, Minot Simmons, and Maxwell Sands, who became a Unitarian minister and married Marguerite Downing. See also "Minot Judson Savage" in Maine: A History v. 4 (1919), p. 126.
Mary Mapes Dodge: For Dodge, see Key to Correspondents. The granddaughter whose wedding Collyer planned to attend probably was Fayelle Dodge Mulford (1885-1935).
Father Taylor: American Methodist minister, Edward Thompson Taylor (1793-1871), remembered especially as chaplain of the Seamen's Bethel in Boston.
Collyer's talk on Father Taylor was published in 1907 by the American Unitarian Association.
Lambs: British author, Charles Lamb (1775-1834). In The Life of Charles Lamb (1905) by Edward Verrall Lucas, appears the anecdote of Lamb responding to a woman who inquires whether a coach is "full inside." Lamb put out his head and said that the last pudding he'd eaten before departing had filled him up (p. 141).
Sarah & Mary: Sarah Orne and Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents. Their residence was in South Berwick, ME, which Collyer often renders as "South Berrick."
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
[ Begin letterhead ]
201 West 55th Street,
New York.
[ End letterhead ]
Feb 17th 1906
Dear My Friend
I wrote to Mr Erickson* in mid week who had written me to say he was going to take two Sundays off down there -- Wrote him about our trouble and asked him if he would lend a hand i e preach for us on those Sundays, and he answered he would -- The President of our Board came in to see me this morning about supplies.*AndI told him about Mr Erickson and the letter I have just licked shut -- by the way yours was not licked ^shut^ -- just licked [ I say ? ] lies ready to be mailed -- They will do all they know to have supplies of good men so as to relieve me all they can -- I preach again to morrow and we shall be helped from 25 Beacon st* for all they are worth.
I think also Mr. De Normandie* will be glad to come if I will take his church on a Sunday { -- } he has been after me ever so long
[ Page 2 ]
to preach for him, and as I read your note it gleamed on me that I might make the exchange on the Sunday before that Wednesday or the Sunday after if alls well -- But all this is to be seen to between now and then -- The Lecture ? about Father Taylor* is made out of two I gave in our church long and long ago -- Our Young folks wanted something for the dedication of their Club, so I dug out the yellow entity and found it was a very interesting thing -- Mr Savage* said it was most delightful with much more, and GeorgeEEllis* was there from Boston who said a sound Amen. Then the man from our Club in Boston came to see me saying they wanted me to speak there and that my Lecture had reverberated to 25 Beacon st{,} so I said all right, and chose my evening. He said also I could invite any I choose to come and hear it and they had a recess where ladies sat who wanted to hear any man, so you can come with me or in time for the deliverance and the Lassies.*
As ever yours
Robert Collyer
Notes
Erickson: This person has not yet been identified.
supplies: Collyer omits many periods in this letter. I have supplied them where they seem necessary.
Collyer uses the term "supply" in a specialized way, meaning to "supply a pulpit," provide clergy to serve in a church.
25 Beacon st: The Boston address of the Unitarian Universalist Association until 2013.
De Normandie: American Unitarian minister, James de Normandie (1836-1924), who served for many years in the Boston area. See Men of Progress p. 360.
Father Taylor: American Methodist minister, Edward Thompson Taylor (1793-1871), remembered especially as chaplain of the Seamen's Bethel in Boston.
Collyer's talk on Father Taylor was published in 1907 by the American Unitarian Association.
Savage: American Unitarian minister, Minot Judson Savage (1841-1918).
George Ellis: This person has not yet been identified.
Lassies: Usually Collyer means Sarah Orne and 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 Orne Jewett to Rev. Thomas Franklin Waters
148 Charles Street
Boston 23d February
1906My dear Mr Waters
I am very sorry to be so late in thanking you for your kindness in sending me this most interesting reprint of the Cobbler,* with all its notes and reports. I have been enjoying everything between the covers while I have been silent -- but I have had an attack of winter illness
[ Page 2 ]
in addition to my usual difficulties about writing &c! I have wished to tell you, too, how much I found in the Ipswich history -- I only wish that there were another volume -- with more about the famous schools and the famous early and late ministers -- I could almost make a list of
Contents!
Believe me with my best thanks,
Yours sincerely,
S. O. Jewett
NotesCobbler: Rlichard Cary notes:
Nathaniel Ward, The Simple Cobbler of Aggawam, in America (London, 1647), reproduced by the Ipswich Historical Society with facsimiles of title page, preface, headlines, and exact text; an essay, "Nathaniel Ward and The Simple Cobbler" by Waters; and the proceedings of the annual meeting in Publications of the Ipswich Historical Society, XIV (Salem, Mass., 1904. Reverend Ward, a scholar and jurist, was minister at Ipswich in 1634-1637. His book, a rambling satire interspersed with lively couplets, was a protest against religious and political toleration, published under the pseudonym Theodore de la Guard.This letter is held by Colby College Special Collections, Waterville, Maine: JEWE.1. It was originally transcribed, edited and annotated by Richard Cary for Sarah Orne Jewett Letters. New transcription by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Waters' Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Ipswich, Mass., 1905) was published by the Ipswich Historical Society.
Marie Thérèse de Solms Blanc to Sarah Orne Jewett
This letter was composed in French; a transcription follows the translation.
3 March 1906*Alas, dear Sarah, what you ask of me is impossible. Were there no other reasons, I wouldn't have the strength needed for a trip. My doctor tells me to remain here during this changeable and capricious spring, sealed in my room if necessary, but trying to take advantage of the least ray of sunshine. That's easier here than elsewhere in the countryside, for one can throw a coat over her dressing gown and go out into the garden. Yet each time I've tried, I've had a small relapse. I shouldn't talk at all, and people are kind enough to come and see me often! The exchange of ideas being my greatest pleasure{,}
[ Letterhead ]
24, Chemin de la Station. Meudon (S. et O.)
[ End letterhead ]
[ Page 2 ]
I let myself go, and then I pay dearly for these moments of avoiding medical orders. Edouard* is with me, but he's not one to bring much calm to my life. Fortunately, a dear young friend, Mlle. de la Voissière* has settled here for a few weeks, perhaps a few months. Having her near is precious to me, and even helpful in the absence of Louise,* who has put on the airs of a princess, leaving almost a month in advance to prepare for
[ Page 3 ]
the Accession of the Dauphin.* Whatever else I may think of Christian Science,* I believe she must have but little penetration! I hope you soon will see in the Review an appreciation of your novel;* I completed your commission with Hachette, but one never counts on anything other than such an announcement during the first 3 months after publication. Once the major magazines have spoken, the others follow.
Do you remember that you encouraged me, formerly, to write my memoir?* I followed your advice by scribbling what one might call "Childhood Memories of a French woman of letters." I will send you soon the first hundred pages; they are too intimate
[ Page 4 ]
to appear here with propriety, but you will see whether they might chance to amuse in America. Then you would have them translated yourself or send them back to me to be translated, if you do not have to hand an excellent translator, and if it seems possible, I would like an American copyright, awaiting the time when they would be available here. But perhaps you will find them too childish. Finally, you must speak frankly.
Yesterday, I received a nice family portrait of Mrs. H. Ward,* Mr. Humphry, and the adorable baby. Mrs. Ward tells me that her son has lost the election, that she is terribly tired, and that Fenwick's Career has pleased [ unrecognized phrase ] M. Brunetière* thinks otherwise. I regret this very much for her sake.
[ Cross-written up the left margin of page 1 ]
I have not yet gotten over the unhappiness of not being able to attend the wedding of his/her niece.* She leaves on the 11th. I believe her to be in good hands{.}
[ Cross-written down the left side of page 4 ]
the first flowers cut on the day of my first going outside on the lawns of Meudon. Regards to you two{.}* ThB
[ Cross-written in the bottom right corner of page 4 ]
Did I tell you that M. [ London ? ]* wrote me a letter in which he sounded like a happy man. Perhaps this marriage is working out better than predicted.
[ On the inside flap of the accompanying envelope ]
Poor M. Brunetière is still very ill. Mme Foulon de Vaulx* worries me. You would find her much changed.
Notes
1906: While "3 Mars" is clearly in Blanc's hand, "1906" appears to be in another hand. That this date is correct is supported, though not decisively, by information in the notes below, notably, the publication date of Mary Augusta Ward's novel, Fenwick's Career. More persuasive is an envelope associated with this letter, addressed to Jewett in South Berwick, Maine. It is postmarked in Paris on 5 Mars 06. On the back is a South Berwick postmark of 16 March 1906.
Edouard: Édouard Blanc is Mme. Blanc's son. See Key to Correspondents.
Mlle. de la Voissière: This person has not yet been identified.
Louise ... Dauphin ... Christian Science: Louise was Blanc's maid for many years.
What Blanc means by saying that Louise has been preparing for the Accession of the Dauphin remains mysterious. Perhaps it is as simple as the anticipated birth of a new relative, with Louise helping out in the infant's household.
But we have speculated that Louise may have been a dedicated Orleanist, a supporter of the restoration of the French monarchy. Wikipedia lists the claimants to the French throne after the monarchy was abolished in 1848. Philippe, Duke of Orléans (Philippe VIII) held the position in 1894-1926. He was succeeded by Jean, Duke of Guise (Jean III), who was "king" 1926-1940. The dauphin, however, is the heir to the throne, and between 1894 and 1906, that may have been Prince Robert, Duke of Chartres (1840-1910), father of Jean III, though this is not certain. We were not able to find another male in the family who might have been the heir apparent in that time period, nor have we learned of any accession ceremony in 1906.
We also have speculated that the "accession" may relate in some way to Christian Science. Wikipedia says that Christian Science is a Protestant sect that originated in the United States in the 19th Century, based on a core belief that physical health and healing result from communion with divinity. Blanc wrote about Christian Science, with some skepticism, in Chapter 2, "Boston," of The Condition of Woman in the United States (1895).
Wikipedia and other accounts have Christian Scientists arriving in France in between 1896 and 1898 and establishing a church in Paris between 1899 and 1906: -- the Première Eglise du Christ Scientiste. It appears that this church moved into a building of its own during 1906, perhaps in mid-August, with 26 members. We have not been able to confirm exact dates for these events, and we have no other evidence that Louise was a member of the sect.
your novel: A problematic French translation of Jewett's The Tory Lover (1901) appeared in 1905. Blanc apparently reworked the translation or re-translated the novel for publication in 1906. Blanc dealt with the novel in "Le Roman Historique aux États-Unis," Revue des Deux Mondes 32 (1 April 1906), pp. 689-708.
memoir: Blanc is not yet known to have published a memoir in English or in French. In The North American Review 166 (May 1898), Theodore Stanton presented "Autobiographical Notes by Madame Blanc," based on his correspondence with her.
Ward: Mary Augusta Ward. See Key to Correspondents. Her novel, Fenwick's Career, appeared in 1906.
Her son was Arnold Sandwith Ward (1876-1950), journalist and Conservative Party politician. He was first elected to parliament in 1910. He was a founder of the Women's National Anti-Suffrage League. Wikipedia.
Presumably the family portrait includes Mrs. Ward and her husband, but the identity of the baby remains uncertain. Perhaps the image was made when one of her three children was an infant. Of the three, Dorothy Ward, who became her mother's assistant in a social welfare activities, may be the strongest candidate. If the portrait was from 1906, then perhaps the baby is a grandchild. Mrs. Ward's daughter, Janet Penrose, married British historian George Macaulay Trevelyan. They had twin sons in 1906: Charles Humphry and Theodore Macaulay. Their daughter, Mary Trevelyan Moorman, was born in 1905, making her a strong candidate for "the baby."
Brunetière: Ferdinand Brunetière (1849 - 9 December 1906).
London: This transcription is uncertain. There is some possibility that Blanc refers to American author, Jack London (1876-1916). Jewett to Fields of 23 December 1905 suggests that Annie Fields may have entertained London at her home. Though there is as yet no reliable documentation indicating that Fields and London met, London was published in Atlantic Monthly, making their meeting possible. Even though he was a popular American author whom Blanc must have read in Atlantic, she is not known to have met or written about him.
A little support for a Fields-London connection is in Earle Labor's Jack London: An American Life, who notes that London lectured in Boston soon after his second marriage (to Charmian Kittredge) in 1905, appearing at Harvard and Faneuil Hall in late December (p. 227). London had divorced his first wife, and at the time of this letter had recently remarried.
you two: Jewett and Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
niece: We do not know in what order the various pieces of cross-writing should be placed in this letter. This complicates identifying the niece to whom Blanc refers. Where we've placed the text, Blanc could refer to a niece of Mary Augusta Ward or of M. Brunetière, but we have not identified a niece of Ward married in 1906, and Brunetière is not known to have had a niece. This niece might belong to the mysterious "Mr. London" if we placed the text after he is mentioned, but Jack London, at least, is not known to have had a niece.
Mme Foulon de Vaulx: In 1872 Alice Devaulx married Henri Foulon (1844-1929). Shortly after they married, they changed their names to "Foulon de Vaulx." Henri Foulon de Vaulx was a Belgian industrialist and historian. Alice Foulon de Vaulx became a translator, notably of works by Hamlin Garland.
This letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA: b MS Am 1743, Sarah Orne Jewett Correspondence I, Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett, Blanc, Thérèse (de Solms) 1840-1907. 10 letters; 1892-1906 & [n.d.], 1892-1906, Identifier: (23). 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." In this letter, she also abbreviates forms of "quelque" as "q.q." All instances in this letter are rendered as complete words.
3 Mars 1906*
[ Letterhead ]
24, Chemin de la Station. Meudon (S. et O.)
[ End letterhead ]
Hélas, chère Sarah ce que vous
me demandez est impossible.
Toute autre raison écartée
je n'aurais pas la force
nécessaire pour un voyage. Mon
médecin me dit de rester ici
par ce printemps inégal et
capricieux, calfeutrée dans ma
chambre, s'il le faut, mais en
essayant de profiter du moindre
rayon de soleil. C'est plus facile
qu'ailleurs à la campagne
où l'on jette un manteau
sur sa robe de chambre
pour sortir dans le jardin.
Pourtant chacune de mes
tentatives a été suivie jusqu'
ici d'une petite rechute.
Je ne devrais pas parler
du [ tout ? ], et on a la bonté
de venir beaucoup me voir!
L'exchange des idées étant
mon plus grand plaisir{.}
[ Page 2 ]
Je me laisse aller et ensuite
je paye cher ces moments
[ d'evistation ? ]. Edouard est
auprès de moi, mais ce
n'est pas lui qui m'apporte
beaucoup de calme. Heureusement
une chère jeune amie, Mlle
de la Voissière, s'est installée
ici pour quelques semaines, quelques
mois peut-être. -- Son voisinage
m'est très précieux, ^utile même^ en l'absence
de Louise qui prend ses aires
comme une princesse
et est partie presque un
mois d'avance pour se
préparer à l'Avènement du
Dauphin. Quoique je puisse
penser d'ailleurs de la Christian
Science, je trouve qu'elle
aurait besoin d'en être un
peu la pénétrée!
[ Page 3 ]
J'espère que vous verrez bientôt
dans la Revue une appréciation
de votre roman; j'ai fait
votre commission auprès
de Hachette, mais il ne faut
jamais compter sur autre
chose que des espèces d'annonce
pendant les 3 premiers mois
après, les grandes revues ayant
parlé, les autres se lancent.
Vous rappelez-vous
que vous m'avez encouragée,
autrefois à écrire [ deletion ] mes
[ deletion ] mémoires? J'ai suivi
votre conseil en griffonnant
ce que-on pourrait appeler
"Souvenirs d'enfance d'une
femme de lettres française."
Je vous enverrai prochainement
les cent premières pages;
elles sont trop intimes
[ Page 4 ]
pour pouvoir convenablement
paraître ici, mais vous verrez
si elles ont chance d'amuser
en Amérique. Alors vous feriez
traduire ou me renverriez
à traduîre, si vous n'avez pas sous
la main un excellent traducteur
et, si cela devait paraître,
je voudrais un copyright
pour l'Amérique en attendant
le moment où nous
les donnerions ici. Mais
peut-être les trouverez-vous
trop puérils. Enfin vous
me le direz franchement.
J'ai reçu hier un joli portrait
de famille: Mrs H Ward, [ Mr ? ] Humphry
et l'admirable baby. Mrs Ward
me dit que son fils a échoué
aux élections, qu'elle est terriblement
fatiguée et que Fenwick's Career
a plus [ unrecognized, underlined words ]. M. Brunetière pense
autrement. Je le regrette beaucoup
pour elle. Au revoir, chère. Voici
[ Cross-written down the left side of page 4 ]
les premières fleurs cueillies le jour de ma première
sortie, sur les pelouses de Meudon. Amitiés aux chers votres{.} ThB
[ Cross-written up the left margin of page 1 ]
Je ne suis pas encore reverra du chagrin de
n'avoir pu assister au mariage de sa
nièce. Elle s'embarque le 11. Je la crois en
bonnes mains{.}
[ Cross-written in the bottom right corner of page 4 ]
Vous ai-je dit que M. [ London / Loudon ? ]
m'avait écrit la lettre d'un
homme heureux. Peut-être
a mariage est-il mieux
assorti qu'on ne [ paraissait ? ]
le croire.
[ On the inside flap of the envelope associated with this letter ]
Le pauvre M. Brunetière est toujour bien souffrant. Mme Foulon de [ Vaulx text obscured ] m'inquieté. Vous la trouveriez bien changé.
Marie Thérèse de Solms Blanc to Sarah Orne Jewett and Annie Adams Fields
This postcard was composed in French; a transcription follows the translation.
[ 4 March 1906 ]*
Yes, dear Annie, this homecoming of Mr. [ unrecognize name ] is tragic, as you are doubtlessly aware of his wife's death. He had married a widow, older than he, with children added to his own. Anyway, he had to make the lecture tour, but he is from a family seemingly dogged by misfortune. All his family drowned three years ago, and now comes this misfortune, cutting short the only good luck he has had in his life.
So you haven't yet received the recently published volume of letters of G. Delzant* which has been particularly successful? I thought perhaps you could find it in translation; in any case, the life of this woman should be known in America, so French and with a style, perhaps somewhat over-studied, but still charming. Consider this, dear Annie. You speak of her daughters. One, by her marriage, cut herself off from the world of honest people, while the other has a 20 year-old husband who seems promising but we can't tell yet.
[ Cross-written up the right side ]
I find, after two months of illness and a slow convalescence, that I am in no condition to go to Rome.
Affectionately yours Th B
Notes
1906: This French postcard is addressed to to Annie Fields at 148 Charles Street, Boston, from Mme. Blanc at Meudon, Chemin de la Station, No. 24. It was cancelled in Paris on 4 March, and again in Boston on 16 March. A partial cancellation upper right, appears to give the year "06." This date is supported by Blanc's discussion of the recently published volume of letters by Gabrielle Delzant (see note below).
Penciled in the lower left corner is "South Berwick, Maine," suggesting that the card may have been forwarded at a time when Fields was visiting Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
Delzant: Gabrielle Delzant (1854-1903) was one of Blanc's closest friends. Lettres de Gabrielle Delzant, 1874-1903 with a preface by Th. Bentzon appeared in 1906. Blanc may be hinting that Fields should undertake a translation or perhaps interest some other acquaintance in the task. WorldCat does not list any translations of Delzant's writing. Presumably, Blanc's report on "her daughters" refers to the Delzant children.
The manuscript of this card 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."peut-être, mais charmant. Pensez-y
Oui, chère Annie, ce retour de M. [ unrecognized name ]
est tragique, car vous savez sans
doute la mort de sa femme? Il avait
épousé une veuve, plus âgée que lui
avec des enfants auxquels les siens sont
venus s'y ajouter. De toute façon il
devait faire ce voyage, ces conférences,
mais il est d'une famille à laquelle
le malheur semble s'attacher.
Tous ses proches noyés il y a 3 ans
et maintenant ce malheur
qui coupe court à l'unique chance
qu'il ait eu de sa vie.
Vous n'avez donc pas reçu le [ vol for volume ]
des lettres de G. [ Delzant blotted ] récemment
publié et qui a un succès très
particulier? J'ai pensé que vous
pourriez peut-être les trouver en
traduction, en tout cas faire connaître en Amérique
cette vie de femme si française et
ce style épistolaire un peu trop étudié
chère Annie. Vous me parlez de ses filles.
L'une s'est retranchée par son mariage
du monde des honnêtes gens l'autre a
un mari de 20 ans qui promet, mais ne
[ tient ? ] pas encore.
[ Cross-written up the right side ]
Je trouve après deux mois de maladie une
lente [ convalescence ? ] et serais hors d'état
d'aller maintenant à [ Rome ? ]
Tendresses [ unrecognized word or words ] votre ThB
Sarah Orne Jewett to Sara Norton
South Berwick, Monday, March 26 [1906].
Dearest Sally, -- Today is town-meeting day and I am sitting by Mrs. Fields's desk at the front window (it has to move from the window where you knew it in winter), and it is very funny, beside giving rise to thoughts, to see the farmers and their country sleighs and their wives who come "trading"! You may have seen an Ashfield town-meeting, but our eastward region about Agamenticus "Mountain,"* between us and the sea, is still in a very old-fashioned state of mind -- its expression in the men's dress is like early "Biglow Papers"* times -- fur caps made from what must be long extinct animals, but good common-sense rules the rulers for the most part; and I should like to shake hands hard with two or three of them, and they would say, "Now which one o' the Doctor's girls be you?"* This is a nice neighbourhood: I wish that you (and I) knew it better.
Notes
Mountain: On Ashfield, see Norton in Key to Correspondents. Wikipedia says: "The Mount Agamenticus region covers nearly 30,000 acres ... in the southern Maine towns of Eliot, Ogunquit, South Berwick, Wells and York."
Biglow Papers: James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) published The Biglow Papers, containing poems and prose, in 1848 and 1867.
the Doctor's girls: Mary, Sarah and Carrie Jewett were the daughters of their physician father, who was perhaps better remembered locally than they during their lives, Theodore Herman Jewett (24 March 1815 - 20 September 1878). To share this local perspective, see Gladys Hasty Carroll's Dunnybrook (1943).
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 David Douglas
South Berwick, Maine. [Spring 1906]*
Dear Mr. Douglas, -- The very day that your letter came I was sending you a copy of Mr. Owen Wister's new story.* I find it so delightful, worthy of himself and worthy of Fanny Kemble's journals.* It has so charming a humour and so humorous a charm! and tastes as good as the cake itself. The serious talk about the cheap side of American life just now is not at all too severe, but we must look on with what patience we can at the doings of those who have no inherited sense or discretion in the use of money: as a wise old friend said to me not long ago, their grandparents or even their own parents went hungry and ill clothed, and it will take some time for these people to have their fling, to eat all they want and to wear fine raiment, and flaunt authority. They must get to a state, and by slow stages too, where there is going to be something fit for education. "It is just the way that in the South, still, one sees the coloured people on aimless journeys: in the old days they could not leave their plantations. They won't be satisfied with that exercise of liberty for generations yet!" The years of leanness are succeeded by many more than seven fat years in all these people.* The trouble is to us old-fashioned New Englanders that 'the cheap streak' so often spoils what there is of good inheritance, and the wrong side of our great material prosperity is seen almost everywhere. These are sad reflections! -- but I often remind myself of the better side of life, a hope that it is truly an immortal sort of leaven.
My Lockhart* came to-day and, as I had expected, I found you before I had gone far in the preface.* Do not write just to acknowledge the book; those dutiful notes rob us of time to write the letters we care more for!
Our "Atlantic" editor, Mr. Bliss Perry,* goes over to England this summer. I hope you will see him in Edinburgh, -- a delightful man with true enthusiasm for the best things.
Notes
Spring 1906: The content of this letter is very similar to that of Sarah Orne Jewett to Frances (Mrs. Henry) Parkman [September 22, 1905]. This hint and Jewett's discussion of Wister's Lady Baltimore support this dating.
Mr. Owen Wister's new story: Wikipedia says: "Owen Wister (July 14, 1860 - July 21, 1938) was an American writer and "father" of western fiction. He is best remembered for writing The Virginian, although he never wrote about the West afterwards."
Wister's Lady Baltimore began serial publication in October 1905 in the Saturday Evening Post (10/28, 1905 to 1/27, 1906). Google Books describes the story: "Lady Baltimore is the classic novel of post-Civil War Charleston life, in the process of healing the wounds of war through the reconciliation of Northerners and Southerners. Written at the turn of the century, it evokes the enduring charm of old Charleston in contrast to the values of the breathless, competing North." The issue date for the first edition in book form was April 1906.
Featured in the novel is a Lady Baltimore Cake: "... an American white layer cake with fluffy frosting and a fruit and nut filling.... The most popular legend of the Lady Baltimore is that Alicia Rhett Mayberry, a Southern belle, baked and served the cake to novelist Owen Wister in Charleston, South Carolina. Wister was said to have been so enamored with the cake that he used it as the namesake of his novel, Lady Baltimore.... Wister included a description of the cake in Lady Baltimore...."
Fanny Kemble's journals: Wikipedia says: "Frances Anne "Fanny" Kemble (27 November 1809 - 15 January 1893) was a notable British actress from a theatre family in the early and mid-19th century. She was a well-known and popular writer, whose published works included plays, poetry, eleven volumes of memoirs, travel writing and works about the theatre.... In 1834, she married an American, Pierce Mease Butler, heir to cotton, tobacco and rice plantations on the Sea Islands of Georgia, and to the hundreds of slaves who worked them. They spent the winter of 1838–39 at the plantations, and Kemble kept a diary of her observations. She returned to the theatre after their separation in 1847 and toured major US cities. Although her memoir circulated in abolitionist circles, Kemble waited until 1863, during the American Civil War, to publish her anti-slavery Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839. It has become her best-known work in the United States, although she published several other volumes of journals."
Jewett's comparison with Fanny Kemble is significant, for she was Wister's grandmother.
for generations yet: The quotation marks are a puzzle, because it is not clear that Jewett quotes anyone. Perhaps she changes from paraphrasing to quoting her wise old friend? The idea that groups of people are sometimes characterized by behavior that they will outgrow with experience occurs several times in Jewett's work. Tom Burton, her point of view character in "A War Debt," notices the seemingly irresponsible behavior of newly freed slaves." This story appeared in Harper's in 1895 and was collected in The Life of Nancy the same year. Jewett has Father Daley in "The Gray Mills of Farley" (1898) make similar comments upon Irish immigrants and offer the Church as an effective restraint. See also Sarah Orne Jewett to Frances (Mrs. Henry) Parkman [September 22, 1905].
seven fat years: The allusion is to Genesis 41, where the Pharaoh has a dream of seven lean cattle and seven fat ones and Joseph is called upon to interpret it.
My Lockhart: Which book Mr. Douglas sent to Jewett in 1905 is less than clear. It seems unlikely that he would have sent her John Gibson Lockhart's (1794-1854) Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott (1837-8), as this was readily available from Houghton, Mifflin in the United States. Therefore, it seems more likely that he sent her: The life and letters of John Gibson Lockhart 2 Volumes, by Andrew Lang, London 1897, though this also was published in the United States by Scribner's. Perhaps even more likely would be The Life of Sir Walter Scott. ("Edinburgh Edition." [With plates.]), Edinburgh: T.C. & E.C. Jack, 1902, 3. Though Lockhart's biography of Scott also was readily available in the U.S., Douglas could have wanted to give her a copy of this special edition.
Our "Atlantic" editor, Mr. Bliss Perry: Bliss Perry (1860-1954), a professor of literature at Princeton and Harvard Universities edited Atlantic Monthly (1899-1909). See Correspondents.
the preface: If Douglas did send her The Life of Sir Walter Scott, it seems likely that she is joking about finding him in the preface. In fact, Douglas does not appear in the preface, but another David Douglas, one of the best of Scott's school fellows. He is named by Walter Scott in the memoir that opens the volume. Wikipedia says: David Douglas, Lord Reston (1769-1819) was "the fifth and youngest son of Col. Robert Douglas of Strathendry (1716–1803) and Cecilia Craigie, daughter of Robert Craigie, Lord President of the Court of Session. He spent his later childhood with Adam Smith, who was a first cousin of his father, and received Smith's property, including his library, on his death. He attended Edinburgh High School (with Sir Walter Scott), 1777–1782...."
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 Julia Stowell Laighton
148 Charles street
Friday
[ 13 April 1906 ]*
Dear Mrs Laighton
I thank you very much for this dear photograph -- it was very kind of you to think of giving it to me. I am very sorry to have missed seeing you -- My sister* brings word that the little honey suckle has lived through its first Berwick winter and I am so glad! Mrs. Fields* and I have been shut up again
[ Page 2 ]
with very bad colds. I was so unwise as to boast that whatever else had happened, I had had no cold all winter, and now I find myself hurried more than ever in these last days of town -- I wish that I might see you and the girls again but if not, I shall look forward to summer
Yours ever sincerely
Sarah O. Jewett
1906: Scott Stoddart notes that this letter probably relates to Jewett to Laighton of 15 September 1905, when Jewett received some honeysuckle from Laighton.
Notes
Associated with this letter is an envelope addressed to Mrs. Cedric Laighton at 118 Mount Vernon Street, Boston. Lacking a stamp or cancellation, it probably was hand-delivered. In another hand in very light pencil on the front, top left, is "Miss Jewett."
Also in this folder and associate with this letter is a visitor card, upon which is printed "Miss Sarah Orne Jewett." Jewett has penciled a note above her name: ""With best Easter wishes for Mrs Laighton and Ruth and Barbara from." Stoddart notes that Ruth and Barbara was Laighton's daughters.
Easter fell on 15 April in 1906, indicating that this letter probably was composed on Good Friday, 13 April.
sister: Mary Rice Jewett. Key to Correspondents.
Fields: Annie Adams Fields. Key to Correspondents.The manuscript of this letter held by the Miller Library Special Collections at Colby College, Waterville, ME. JEWE.1. A transcription appears in Scott Frederick Stoddart's Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign: Selected Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett.
New transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Annie Adams Fields to Richard Watson Gilder
148 Charles Street.
Boston. April 17th
[ 1906 ]*
Dear Mr. Gilder;
Madame Blanc* is writing the Recollections of her Childhood, which are rapidly growing under her hand into her Memoirs, or Autobiography. She is sending it to us in French and wishes to have it translated and published in America. What shall be done with it? I feel that I may ask you this question for her sake.
It is delightfully written -- all this first part.
She is far from well, at Meudon.*
Believe me yours
most truly
Annie Fields
Notes
1906: This date is speculative, but should be close. Having become ill and following her doctor's advice Madame Blanc moved to Meudon in 1905, where her health continued to decline. See Madame Th. Bentzon (1924) by Mme Paul Fliche, Chapter 14.
Blanc: Marie Thérèse de Solms Blanc. See Key to Correspondents.
"Autobiographical Notes by Madame Blanc" collated by Theodore Stanton, appeared in North American Review 167 (May 1898). However, it seems clear that this publication took place well before the memoir Fields asks about.
Meudon: Southwestern suburb of Paris, France.
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.
Robert Collyer to Annie Adams Fields and Sarah Orne Jewett
[ Begin letterhead ]
201 West 55th Street,
New York.
[ End letterhead ]
April 30th 1906
Dear Friends
The enclosed card came yesterday. Mr Bland* in a letter some weeks ago said the dear wife was far from well but seemed to have no fear that she would be taken from them. It will be a sore loss to them. Mrs Bland as you would guess was the soul of the home. I trust you are well the both of you. I am about so so{,} not up to the old figure above zero but by no means down to that. Have been over doing I guess and the doctor came but was not scared and did not scare me. What a royal visit I did have as Gertrude* says sometimes "the best ever."
Moncure Conway* gave a dinner the other evening to celebrate our friendship of fifty years and we had a nice time entirely.
Mr Savage* is lying low in Redlands and resting for all he is worth. They will return the last week in May.
Entirely yours
Robert Collyer
Notes
yesterday: Collyer omits periods in this letter. I have supplied them where they seem necessary.
Bland: One would expect that this is James Alfred Anthony Bland (1856-1928), son of Collyer's old friend, British-Canadian Methodist clergyman, Henry Flesher Bland (1818-1898). However, James Bland's first wife, Louisa Guppy Bland, died in September 1905, and he did not remarry until 1911. Possibly, Mrs. Bland is James's mother, Martha Flesher (b. 1811), but she seems unlikely to be living in 1906.
Gertrude: Collyer's daughter-in-law. See Collyer in Key to Correspondents.
Moncure Conway: American clergyman, author and noted abolitionist, Moncure Daniel Conway (1832-1907).
Savage: American Unitarian minister, Minot Judson Savage (1841-1918). See Collyer to Fields of 14 February 1906.
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 Julia Ward Howe
Saturday May 13th
[ 1906 ]*
[ Begin letterhead ]
South Berwick, Maine
[ End letterhead ]
Dear Mrs. Howe
Could you come here on Saturday (I mean on Friday night) to meet the Womens Club of this neighborhood -- and stay with me, and say a few words to the company ^which meets^ at three o'clock on Saturday afternoon. Expenses &c all properly attended to: but besides
[ Page 2 ]
selfishly wishing for a visit as long as you can give us, I think it would be a great inspiration to the club itself to see you. The address is to be made by the teacher of our [ deletion ] Academy* here{,} a man whom I distrust & dont like -- but it saves you from the fatigue of speaking long, (though dont I wish
[ Page 3 ]
much to hear you!) and all we should ask would be what you felt like saying by way of encouragement and [ deletion ] advice. And I do hope that Laura* hasn't gone home so that she can come too. Please forgive this untidy and scurrying note and when you telegraph (at
[ Page 4 ]
my cost) please sign only your initials because if you come, it is going to be a secret from some persons.
Yours very affectionately
Sarah O. Jewett
Notes
1907: This date is a guess, based on its likely relationship to another letter believed to follow this one, to Howe from Jewett at 148 Charles Street on a Monday.
Academy: The Berwick Academy in South Berwick, ME.
Laura: Laura Richards. Key to Correspondents.
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 (119).
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Julia Ward Howe
148 Charles Street
Monday
[ Probably May 1906 ]*
Dearest Mrs. Howe
This is our week! -- Will you meet me at the Station on Friday at the 1.15 train and we can go down together? Or, what is still better-er, I'll send the carriage for you at half past twelve promptly and you can stop here [ where corrected ] I'll be ready to join you and* we'll go [ down corrected ] to the Station together. And Laura and Mary* can just be
[ Page 2 ]
waiting for us in S. Berwick --
-- Mary meant to be here this last week and we could have made a larger party -- but she has had a [ hard corrected ] pull with a rheumatic attack -- and is better, but not very limber yet, I fear. We'll attend to her case when we get there, wont we! She has had to join the company of those who walk with sticks, but after all, it is a very distinguished company, and I may say cheerful.
[ Page 3 ]
-- I didn't know what to do without my stick when I began to use it a little less -- you can do so many things withoutit beside walking -- straighten pictures and beat the wicked, and even poke the good --
Annie is as well as usual, and Brother Robert Collyer is smoking in the library, having preached a great sermon at Arlington Street yesterday, and a man stole it from him before he left the pulpit -- making
[ Page 4 ]
believe that he wanted it for one of the papers! I am just going to tell him his sermons dont do a bit of good -- never thought of it before!
But what a long letter! -- the point is that the carriage is to be there on Friday at 1230
yours very affectionately
Sarah
Notes
1906 This date is a guess. Other letters tentatively dated to late 1906 though 1907 show Jewett attempting to arrange for Howe to visit the South Berwick Women's Club. It is not yet known whether any of these plans were realized, though it appears likely that Howe visited South Berwick in May of 1906 and in late October 1907.
and: Sometimes in this letter, Jewett writes "a" with a long tail for "and." I give these as "and."
Laura and Mary: Laura Richards and Mary Rice Jewett. Key to Correspondents.
Annie ... Collyer: Annie Adams Fields and Robert Collyer. Key to Correspondents.
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 (119).
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
David Douglas to Sarah Orne Jewett
[ Begin letterhead ]
DAVID DOUGLAS
PUBLISHER
10 Castle Street
Edinburgh May 4 1906*
[ End letterhead ]
My dear Miss Jewett
I am ashamed when I think how long it is since I received your greetings at Christmas together with its welcome [ accompanyment so spelled ] which was read aloud at home and enjoyed by old and young. The delay has been caused partly by my wish to send you some essays which have been appearing
[ Page 2 ]
during the last year in the Cornhill but which have only now been published in a volume. It is called "from a College Window."* I have not read them all but from the glimpse I have had of their contents I hope they may interest you.
I send the book to South Berwick on the chance of your being at home, but I shall not be sorry to hear that you are with dear Mrs Fields* in Boston, to whom please make my very kind
[ Page 3 ]
regards, and trust you will be able to tell me that you "are ever so much better" -- as I can do of the state of my dear old wifes health. Though I fear our long country walks together must be a thing of the past. Our book for reading aloud lately at 22 Drummond Place was "Talks in a Library" by Laurence Hutton --.* It is a pleasant [ chatty ? ] volume and touching as it does upon many friends & acquaintances it was agreeable reading --. I found your name & that of Mrs Fields [ noted ? ] as having been met by him
[ Page 4 ]
on a river steamboat at London Bridge on the Thames.
I am sorry now that I did not take advantage of an introduction to Mr Hutton from Mrs Howe.*
I need scarcely say that we have been thinking of little else since the 16th of last month besides the terrible earthquake in California.* I am not aware at the present moment if any of my friends are personally involved -- but the misery it has caused is wide enough spread to make the most callous sympathetic --
Yours very sincerely
David Douglas
Notes
1906: The underlined portions in the letterhead were filled in by hand.
from a College Window: British author and academic, Arthur Christopher Benson (1862-1925) published From a College Window in 1906. See Wikipedia.
"Talks in a Library" by Laurence Hutton: American author Laurence Hutton (1843-1904). See Wikipedia.
A posthumous collection of his work appeared in Talks in a Library with Laurence Hutton (1905). Hutton's account of meeting Fields and Jewett on a Thames boat tour appears on pp. 356-7.
Mrs Fields: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Mrs. Howe: Douglas may have written "Mr" Howe. He could refer to any of several Jewett correspondents, such as Julia Ward Howe and Mark Antony de Wolfe Howe. See Key to Correspondents.
California: Douglas refers to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, which occurred on 18 April. He seems to have incorrectly remembered the date. See Wikipedia: "1906 San Francisco earthquake."
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University: Sarah Orne Jewett Correspondence I, Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett.
Douglas, David, 1823-1916. 5 letters; 1888-1906, bMS Am 1743 (48).
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Sarah Cabot Wheelwright [Stoddart transcription]
Monday 7th May [1906]*
South Berwick, Maine
Dear Sarah Wheelwright
I meant to write you sooner but last week between 1st: a cold going off and 2d a journey coming on after two or three hurrying days of trying to do things postponed by the cold. I was not good for much. I believe no longer in Habit [ so transcribed ] -- for why should writing be the most difficult thing now when I spent all my life once in doing it? -- Let us not discuss these things! -- I have had much pleasure all the week in remembering last Sunday afternoon and 'the shrubbery' makes a back ground for many unrelated figures of this foreground. You gave me a great deal more pleasure than you knew in making that kind little plot ... I thank my Club* for its kind welcome, and I wish that I could appear at Mrs. Dexter's* on the 12th but, as you thought, it would [ not? ] do just now. I am not good for much, but what can be done must be done here -- things are coming right up in the Garden! I wont say that I cant cease home when the old asparagus bed is in its early prime because you might think that quite low -- but the populars [poplars?] must also be trimmed where the ice storm broke them in March -- you know how many little reasons go to making up big ones, and I have really been away a great deal lately from this dear old house so that my sister and I plan many things together. I belong to the Club all the same and I am sorry not to say yes when you ask me to do anything having a deep sense of belongingness of friendship. It has been something very dear and happy in these late winter and spring days.
How charming all this about your Acorn street* neighbors! -- the true and 'simple' life, full of such beautiful 'lines' as you artists would say. -- Genuiness [ so transcribed ] and power of enjoyment? as I write this I wonder if a certain state of mind that we call power of enjoyment didn't go out of fashion when the old feeling of worship did in going to church. Life became such a matter of opinions then: but this is beyond me to write about, most persons go round it in a circle and come back to saying that it is a matter of temperment [ so transcribed ] -- but the garden is not a matter of temperment [ so transcribed ] -- its an old plot of ground where several generations, have been trying to make good things grow -- I wonder if you have found time to drive to Brookline again and I hope that you have had better news from your sister. And dont keep Mr. Wheelwright [ so transcribed ] going down town and getting too tired -- if he seems wilful about it, just call for me to Argue [ so transcribed ] with him! Cope with him I mean -- We heard a village neighbor call her naughty boy a while ago = [ so transcribed ] "Stop that. A'thur! I'll send for your grand'ther Murphy* to Cope with you!" she has a resounding voice and it sounded like an awful threat. Forgive such a long letter, but I think of you often and when I really began to write it wasn't easy to wish that I could have come for luncheon= [ so transcribed ] the sun must be shining in at your windows beautifully to day. Do go to Lincoln, that's the proper way to Cope [ so transcribed ] with busy gentlemen, Berwick and Lincoln3 are both better than Down Town. Goodbye, I send you both my love
Yours very affectionately
Sarah
O
Jewett
Tell me about the Exhibition of S. Whitman's pictures if you see it.* I wish you would. I can't help feeling anxious about it --
Notes
1906: A partial transcription of this letter appears in Fields Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett (1911). She places the composition in 1907. However, the Memorial Exhibition of Paintings by Mrs. Sarah Wyman Whitman, mentioned in Jewett's postscript, was hung in the spring of 1906, according to the Boston Museum Bulletin 4 (June 1906, p. 23).
The Fields transcription, which omits parts of this letter, appears below.
my Club: Possibly Jewett refers to the Emery Bag Club, founded by Wheelwright. See Correspondents.
Mrs. Dexter's: In a letter to Sarah Cabot Wheelwright [September] 5th [1901], Jewett names Mrs. Fred Dexter. This may be Susan Chapman Dexter (1843-1917), wife of Frederic Dexter (1841-1895), a Boston cotton merchant. 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.
It is possible, however, that Jewett refers to Josephine Anna Moore (1846-1937), who 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.Acorn street: According to Clark's Boston Blue Book (p. 224), in 1907, the Wheelwrights resided at 73 Mt. Vernon Street in Boston. Acorn St. in Boston crosses Mt. Vernon about 0.2 miles east of 73.
grand'ther Murphy: Though historically, there were Murphys living in Jewett's neighborhood, the identity of this Mr. Murphy has not been established. See Wendy Pirsig's The Placenames of South Berwick (2007, p. 144).
Lincoln: Lincoln, Massachusetts. Mrs. Wheelwright's connection with Lincoln has not been determined. See Sarah Orne Jewett to Sarah Cabot Wheelwright, Friday [July 1907] for a mention of their Jewett's and Wheelwright's common interest in the Codman House in Lincoln.
Exhibition of S. Whitman's pictures: Sarah Wyman Whitman (1842-1904) was a professional artist specializing in stained glass and engraving. She designed many of the original covers of Jewett's books for Houghton Mifflin and the stained glass window in memory of Theodore Jewett which Jewett gave to Bowdoin College. Jewett dedicated Strangers and Wayfarers to Whitman, and edited her correspondence in 1907.
See first note above for information on the Boston Museum of Fine Arts 1906 memorial exhibition of her paintings.
The manuscript of this letter is in the collection of the Miller Library of Colby College, Waterville, ME. The transcription first appeared in Scott Frederick Stoddart's Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign: Selected Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett, copyright by Stoddart, 1988. Annotation is by Stoddart, supplemented by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Sarah Cabot Wheelwright [Fields transcription]
South Berwick, Maine, Monday, 7th May, 1907.*
Dear Sarah Wheelwright, -- I meant to write you sooner, but last week, between, 1st a cold going off, and 2d, a journey coming on, I was not good for much. I believe no longer in Habit, for why should writing be the most difficult thing now when I spent all my life once in doing it? Let us not discuss these things! I have had such pleasure all the week in remembering last Sunday afternoon, and "the shrubbery" makes a background for many unrelated figures of this foreground. You gave me a great deal more pleasure than you knew in making that kind little plot. I thank my Club* for its kind welcome, and I wish that I could appear on the 12th, but, as you thought, it won't do just now. I am not good for much, but what can be done must be done here -- things are coming right up in the garden. I won't say that I can't leave home when the old asparagus-bed is in its early prime, because you might think that quite low; but the poplars must also be trimmed where the ice-storm broke them in March -- you know how many little reasons go to making up big ones, and I have really been away a great deal lately from this dear old house, so that my sister and I plan many things together. I belong to the Club all the same, and I am sorry not to say yes when you ask me to do anything, having a deep sense of a true belongingness of friendship. It has been something very dear and happy in these late winter and spring days.
How charming all this is about your neighbours! the true and "simple life," full of such beautiful "lines" as you artists would say, genuineness and power of enjoyment; as I write this I wonder if a certain state of mind that we call power of enjoyment didn't go out of fashion when the old feeling of worship did in going to church. Life became such a matter of opinions then; but this is beyond me to write about. Most persons go round it in a circle and come back to saying that it is a matter of temperament; but the garden isn't a matter of temperament, it is an old plot of ground where several generations have been trying to make good things grow.
The sun must be shining in at your windows beautifully today. Do go to Lincoln, that's the proper way to cope with busy gentlemen. Berwick and Lincoln are both better than down town. Good-bye; I send you both my love.
Notes
1907: See the preceding full transcription for a correction of the date to 1906.
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 Samuel Thurber
South Berwick, Maine
May 9, 1906My dear Mr. Thurber:
I thank you for your kind and delightful letter which gives me great pleasure, and for the criticisms of the class which I find very interesting indeed. There is a very uncommon clearness and frankness in nearly every one of them, and so surprisingly little of the fumbling with words that so often -- both in old and young persons! -- attempts to hide a lack of thought. My heart goes out to the young friend who complains that "there are a great many words but nothing seems to be going on" in one of the stories! But it is pleasant to discover more praise than blame (as one should always like to do in 'criticism'). They try to find the reason why they like things and do it in a most genuine and sincere way.
I cannot help thinking that my stories must be difficult for girls and boys like these -- they are so often concerned with the type rather than the incident of human nature. I should dearly like to know whether they would care as much for a story I once wrote -- or stories -- about a girl of fifteen, Betty Leicester. I should like at any rate to send the two little books to you. I was thinking most affectionately as I wrote them of some of the problems that must often be in your own mind. Perhaps there is a School Library where you would give them a place?
I could not make you understand how much pleasure you have given me without explaining that it is four years since I have been able to write at all, and even yet my old and very dear habits of life, seem quite forbidden. I had a bad accident from the fall of a horse, and struck my head a blow from which it does not easily recover. To know that my stories are alive in the best sense, and going on, pleases me more than I can easily say. I always used to remind myself of that great saying of Plato -- that the best thing one could do for the people of a State was to make them acquainted with each other - and now I find that these boys and girls really liked to know my story people, and are sure that they have seen others just like them. I should like to see the class, and indeed I hope that I may some day have the pleasure of seeing you. I feel a delightful sense of friendliness and understanding of what I wished to do with the stories in your letter. You have given these young people a real power of enjoying what they read, one of the best of the golden gifts a teacher can ever give.
Believe me, with true regard,
Yours sincerely,
Sarah Orne Jewett
Notes
In a note for Sarah Orne Jewett to Frederick M. Hopkins (May 22, 1893) Cary writes of her quoting Plato:
Miss Jewett's concern with this "most interesting subject" was brought to the fore again by her publisher's decision to issue a Holiday Edition of Deephaven, sensitively illustrated by her friends Charles and Marcia Woodbury. The date on the title page is 1894, but the book actually appeared in November 1893.Miss Jewett provided a new preface for it in October 1893, rephrasing many of the sentiments expressed in the latter half of this letter [to Hopkins], which seems to have been used as a basis for the preface. See Richard Cary, "Jewett, Tarkington, and the Maine Line," Colby Library Quarterly IV (February 1956), 89-95.... Miss Jewett sought to effectuate Plato's dictum through her sympathetic Irish-American and French-Canadian stories.
The Plato quotation comes from Book V of "Laws," in which Socrates does not appear: "for there is no greater good in a state than that the citizens should be known to one another." (Research: Jack V. Wales, Jr. of the Thacher School, Ojai, CA.)
This letter is edited and annotated by Richard Cary in Sarah Orne Jewett Letters, with additions by Terry Heller, Coe College. Professor Cary indicates that he obtained permission from Newton High School in Newton, MA to publish Jewett's letters to Samuel Thurber. Though the school is no longer able to locate these letters, it would be courteous to notify the school of any intention to reprint them.
Sarah Orne Jewett to George Colby Chase
May 19th 1906
[ Begin letterhead ]
South Berwick.
Maine.
[ End letterhead ]
My dear President Chase
I should be very glad if I could send you some money for your fund, but it is not possible -- there are other things for which I am responsible that must come first -- I am pained to think that you have this weight of anxiety to carry; you need your working force and strength so much in so many ways. I think
[ Page 2 ]
that you, and other good men like you, are forced to make undue effort in these ways, and are too generous. After all, these fine buildings* can never be any thing but the body of the institution, the soul is the thing we care for, and if there is a live intelligence and power of growing usefulness we can afford to wait a little longer for the Halls and Libraries. We have the New England climate to contend with, and cannot
[ Page 3 ]
very well resort to groves for our modern 'academies' but I believe that there is too much ^material^ rivalry and ambition among our institutions, when the desire for new buildings makes a man like you work too hard and grow too much exhausted with these responsibilities. You are worth twenty times as much to your college as the best building in the world could be if you put it right down on your best site -- and you must keep well and get refreshed
[ Page 4 ]
this summer in the best way you can!
Forgive so unexpected a reply! -- but I know that you will feel sure that a friend's hand writes so severe a letter ----
Yours most sincerely,
S. O. Jewett
Notes
buildings: As his biographical sketch indicates, President Chase oversaw significant growth, both in the size of the Bates College campus and in the number of students attending. See Wikipedia.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Bates College Library: Office of the President, George Colby Chase records.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Samuel ThurberSouth Berwick, Maine
May 21, 1906
My dear Mr. Thurber:
I have kept these compositions longer than I meant to keep them, but I wished to read them again. I found that I had read [with] pencil in hand at first, and was just meaning to rub out my comments, when I thought that they were the things I should have said if we had been speaking together about these young friends. So, when you see them, please rub out with a good efficient bit of india-rubber all that should be rubbed out, for me.
The compositions are really interesting -- it is delightful to find a phrase right from the young heart and brain that begins to work out its own problems. One longs to know just what this young friend or that means, exactly, by "humorous" or "exciting" -- but often young friends (like old ones!) use words without thinking exactly what they do mean. I am for a class in definitions and derivations! -- then we might not use criticize as if it could only mean to find faults.
But I must not write longer. I thank you again for a true pleasure, and beg you to believe me
Yours sincerely,
S. O. Jewett
Note
This letter is edited and annotated by Richard Cary in Sarah Orne Jewett Letters. Professor Cary indicates that he obtained permission from Newton High School in Newton, MA to publish Jewett's letters to Samuel Thurber. Though the school is no longer able to locate these letters, it would be courteous to notify the school of any intention to reprint them.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Adams Fields
Wednesday
[ Spring 1906-7 ]*
Dearest Annie
I asked Helen about the name in S.W.'s letter -- and she says Markby's -- Sir John I think; they have to do with Balliol* and she said that you probably saw them at S.W.'s once at a luncheon or something as they had been over here. -- Helen was there at Oxford with S.W. I mean now [ possibly inserted and ? ] -- Oh dear there are so many things I wish to keep telling you! This was a most beautiful morning but it has grown cold and grey this afternoon -- I was out in the garden for awhile
[ Page 2 ]
this morning, and then found I must come in. It has been a poor day but I hope to be all right tomorrow. I got the hooks all in order on my new black skirt this afternoon quite to my mind. Mary* says that she has got some little [ permums ? ],* those pretty climbing vines for you and is going to send them in a day or two. They will be charming on the piazza posts [ when or where ] a cucumber hasn't done so well -- and I'd put one
[ Page 3 ]
down in the little pen by the hitching post -- it will be lovely on the netting! And she has got some spare zinnias too of nice colours that can fill in that pretty plot. They are well started. I long to get your letter tonight to know "how t'wukkin classes is gittin' on" --
Thursday --
Another perfect morning! I wish you were here dear -- you and I would go and finish that George Eliot* in the garden (a mat under F..s F..t,* so that they wouldn't get damp!)*
[ Page 4 ]
I was delighted to get your letter and to know that it is all right about Mr. Burnham.* I feel quite satisfied -- and I think that all other things being equal, his constant [ favoring ? ] of the place is a great advantage. All that you say is so interesting -- about Georgie Eaton and all. As for George Eliot, I think that we can read the rest of it together even if you do enjoy it now. I mean to buy it -- it is a book I want to own a{nd} we can keep it with the other Men of Letters books in Charles St.
I must stop now to write another letter which must be written to a lady in Eliot: (not Miss Farmer!)*
[ Up the left margin and then across the top of page 1 ]
With dear love & constant [ thought ? ] your Pinny.*
We are getting in charcoal today: such a funny high cart from Agamenticus* [ had ? ] pretty young black oxen.
Notes
Spring 1906-7: This speculative date should be close, for Jewett indicates that she is working on materials for Letters of Sarah Wyman Whitman (1907).
Helen ... Markby's: Probably Jewett refers to Helen Choate Bell, though perhaps she means Helen Merriman, both of whom were acquaintances of Sarah Wyman Whitman (S.W.). And, almost certainly, Jewett refers to their work on Letters of Sarah Wyman Whitman (1907). See Key to Correspondents.
Probably, Markby is Sir William Markby (1829-1914), a British judge and legal writer, who after retiring from the bench of the Calcutta High Court, became a senior Indian Law scholar at Oxford University as well as a tutor and Senior Bursar of Balliol College, Oxford.
According to Memories of Sir William Markby K.C.I.E. (1917) by Lady Lucy Taylor Markby, the Markbys visited the United States in the course of an 1898 world tour (pp. 103-4).
Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
permums: While this appears to be what Jewett wrote, there is no such known word in English, and the plant she speaks of has not been identified.
George Eliot: Though this name appears twice in the letter, the transcription is difficult. It seems likely that Jewett refers to George Eliot (1819-1880), the British author whom she admired.
At the time of this letter, it would seem likely that Jewett and Fields were reading a biography of Eliot, perhaps the one by Leslie Stephen -- George Eliot (1900). Or perhaps they were looking into The True Story of George Eliot: in Relation to "Adam Bede," giving the real life history of the more prominent characters (1905), by William Mottram.
F..'s F..t: Fuff's Feet, referring to Jewett's nickname for Fields, Fuff. See Key to Correspondents.
Mr. Burnham: This person has not been identified. Because Jewett and Fields seem in this letter to connect him with philanthropist Georgianna Eaton, a strong candidate is Lamont G. Burnham (1844-1902), a Boston coal merchant and major benefactor to various charities, including the Boston City Hospital. See A History of the Boston City Hospital from Its Foundation Until 1904 (1906), pp. 189-90.
Georgie Eaton: According to Judith Roman in Annie Adams Fields (1990), Georgiana Godland Eaton was a neighbor and friend of Fields in Manchester by the Sea (p. 38). It seems likely that Roman meant to name Georgiana Goddard Eaton (1857-1911).
Miss Farmer: The Farmer family owned Green Acre, a a quiet and pleasant place on the Piscataqua River, in Eliot, Maine, that was a favorite retreat of John Greenleaf Whittier. In 1894, Sarah Jane Farmer (1847-1916) founded the Green Acre Bahá'í School on the farm.
The identity of the "lady in Eliot" is not yet known.
Pinny: Pinny Lawson, a Jewett nickname. See Key to Correspondents.
Agamenticus: Mt. Agamenticus is the highest point near South Berwick, ME, about 9 miles east of the village.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields papers: mss FL 5567. 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 Orne Jewett to Lilian Woodman Aldrich
Friday afternoon [ June 1906 ]*
[ Begin letterhead ]
South Berwick, Maine.
[ End letterhead ]My dear Lilian
You will be coming home to all sorts of affectionate good wishes and congratulations and I send mine among the first -- to dear Tal ^and Mifs Little!^* and to you and T.B.!* I hope the young people (meaning you and T.B. ^especially^) will have had a good voyage and find the pleasantest Springtimes waiting for you. Indeed I wish all four of you all the happiness your
[ 2 ]
hearts can hold.
This is but a word of welcome, but I shall be coming to town again before very long and there I hope to see you. Thank you so much for my part of your letter to Charles Street*
Yours ever most affectionately
Sarah O. Jewett
Notes
1906: This date is confirmed by Jewett's reference to the marriage of Talbot Aldrich in that year. See notes below.
Little^: The two insertions in this letter are in different ink -- blue instead of black.
Tal ... Mifs Little ... T.B.: The Aldriches' surviving twin son, Talbot, married Eleanor Little (b. 1886) in June 1906. Their wedding trip included "an extended cruise on his steam yacht, the Bethulia" followed by "an exodus to the mountains." The name of his yacht comes from the story of Judith and Holofernes, the subject of a poem and a dramatization by Thomas Bailey Aldrich. The yacht had first belonged to T. B. Aldrich. See Sedgwick, A History of the Atlantic Monthly, p. 167 and the Boston Sunday Post of 24 June, 1906, p. 32.
T. B. is Thomas Bailey Aldrich. See Key to Correspondents.
Charles Street: Annie Adams Fields lived on Charles Street, Boston. She apparently has shared with Jewett a letter directed to herself.
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: 2767.
Mary Frances Parker Parkman to Sarah Orne Jewett
Boston
June 17 -- [ 1906 ]*
Dearest Sarah:
By this time you are home again, as I am after two Wanderwochen in which I have visited the North to get things in order at Northeast Harbor, and the South to get my niece* married -- Both are I hope
[ Page 2 ]
successful events -- I was a little troubled by my mother being more than usually unwell the day I arrived, but the next day, being that of the wedding, she [ revived ? ] in all her splendour, and staid ^downstairs^ till the last guests were leaving -- So for the moment I feel that all is well -- and my sister-in-law is with her -- Yesterday [ we ? ] went to the Greek play* and O it was something to remember! You will read in the papers [ what how ? ] the Stadium was divided across by King Agamemnon's palace all in pinkish white and whitish pink ^ [ like the Parthenon ? ] ^ with the altar on the green sward in front and Doric pillars all in beautiful proportion to support the roof
[ Page 3 ]
where the [ watchman ? ] looked brown against the sky: but the beauty of the whole thing, the colors, the dresses, the cream-colored horses of Pheidias* with their [ shorn ? ] manes, the solemnity of the music and the intense human interest of the acted drama -- ah it was wonderful, and she* sat by my side rapt with it all! It rained, but nobody minded
[ Page 4 ]
and I could have sat through a cloud-burst if they would have gone on acting in it ----
I am sending my family off on Wednesday and if little Sarah were going to be at South Berwick on next Sunday the 24th of June -- I might run down in the 1.15 train, going to church first here, and
[ Page 5 ]
spend the night -- ! But I suppose this would not get a chance to occur, as you will probably be elsewhere-- and so I do not mention it! ----
Ever lovingly
F. P.
Notes
[ 1906 ]: This date is supported by the information that the wedding of Parkman's niece has just taken place and that Parkman hopes to visit Jewett in South Berwick on 24 June, which fell on a Sunday in 1906. Furthermore, there was a performance of Agamemnon in Cambridge, MA in June 1901.
Wanderwochen: Literally translated from German, this means "walking weeks," but Parkman almost certainly did not actually walk to her two destinations.
niece: Almost certainly, Parkman refers to the marriage of Eleanor Parker, daughter of her brother Major General James Parker (1854-1934) and Charlotte Condit (1856-1933), which took place in Newark, N.J. on Thursday 14 June 1906. She married Lieutenant Guy Cushman. (See Army-Navy-Air Force Register and Defense Times, Volume 39, p. 16.) Charlotte Condit Parker may be the sister-in-law who remains with Parkman's mother after the wedding.
Greek play: Parkman refers to Agamemnon, the first play in the Oresteia trilogy by the 5th century BC Greek playwright, Aeschylus. The play was performed in the Harvard University Stadium in Cambridge, MA, by the Harvard Classical Club. See Agamemnon in Performance 458 BC to AD 2004 p. 370.
cream-colored horses of Pheidias: The fifth-century BC Greek sculptor Phidias (or Pheidias) has been credited with work in and on the Parthenon temple on the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, including horses with cropped manes that appear in the frieze.
she: Almost certainly, Parkman refers to Annie Adams Fields, though it is possible she may refer to another mutual friend likely to be interested in this performance, such as Isabella Stuart Gardner. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Parkman, Frances. 6 letters to Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. Sarah Orne Jewett additional correspondence 1868-1930. MS Am 1743.1 (85).
Sarah Orne Jewett to the Andrew Cunningham Wheelwrights
Monday evening
July 18th
[ Summer 1906 ]*
[ Begin letterhead ]
South Berwick, Maine
[ End letterhead ]
My dear friends
I reached home late this afternoon, and* this evening I have been trying to tell my sister* all about my visit, and loving to remember every day of it. You cannot think how much better I feel than when I went away -- and I have been much applauded for coming back in such health and high spirits! My steamers were late all the way along
[ Page 2 ]
so that I did not land until ten o'clock yesterday, but it was a good little voyage and much easier than the train. Both the Bishop's carriage* and my good box of luncheon were the greatest comforts -- and I got to Mrs. Fields's* all right between half-past one and two o'clock. I just the missed the ten o'clock train of course, and retired to the Sunday quiet of Young's Hotel --* where I got an [ early corrected ] luncheon and read my book. Mrs. Fields looked very white
[ Page 3 ]
and very far from strong after her cold, and I was very glad to get to see her -- Everything is all right now about her summer housekeeping -- let's hope it may continue! at least until the good dependable Margaret* is safely back again from Ireland --
Dear Alice Howe* came over this morning for an hour but I did not see any one else of the Shore neighbours. Mrs. Fields had Mifs Richmond,* a Philadelphia friend of the Charities'* and a very pleasant companion, but, I think she is* going away tonight.
I write about Manchester
[ Page 4 ]
and sit here in Berwick -- but my thoughts fly back to my dear visit and I miss you both, and Mary and Isabel --* very much. Do please send a word before long! I keep wondering what you are doing.
-- Yesterday was going to have a tea party at the bungalow, but today you must have sailed on the Hesper* if it was like the day here -- I send my love to you all, and a blessing to the green roof over your heads, and a pat for Kim* -- Please do not forget how happy I was for I shall not = I shall "top my books" for Big Gott's and Little
[ Up the left margin and across the top margin of page 1 ]
Gott's* whenever I like all the rest of my life!
Yours very affectionately
Sarah O. Jewett
Notes
summer 1906: As shown by Jewett's August 5, 1906 letter to Sarah Cabot Wheelwright, Jewett was the Wheelwrights' guest at Sutton's Island at some time during the summer of 1906. This letter seems to be a "thank you" note for that stay.
and: Jewett sometimes writes "and" as an "a" with a long tail. I render these as "and."
sister: Mary Rice Jewett. Key to Correspondents.
Bishop's carriage: Because Jewett is not yet known to have been acquainted with anyone named Bishop, it seems likely that this was a transportation service Jewett used for part of her trip.
Mrs. Fields: Annie Adams Fields. Key to Correspondents.
Young's Hotel: Young's Hotel, located at 20 Court Street in Boston; the hotel was owned and operated by J. R. Whipple and Company; Mr. Whipple was a frequent guest of Mrs. Fields.
Margaret: This probably is a reference to Annie Fields' maid.
Alice Howe: Alice Greenwood Howe. Key to Correspondents.
Miss Richmond ... Charities: In her pamphlet How to Help the Poor (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1884), Annie Fields explains that the Boston Charities Society was modeled on those organizations established in New York and Pennsylvania. This system sponsored a number of wealthy and concerned women to visit poverty-ridden homes throughout the city. The context suggests that Mrs. Richmond was one of these sponsored women of the Philadelphia branch.
she is: Jewett has drawn a line between these two words, presumably to clarify that they are separate after she ran them together
Mary and Isabel: Mary Cabot Wheelwright is Sarah Cabot Wheelwright's daughter. The identity of Isabel is uncertain, though this may be Isabella Stewart Gardner. Key to Correspondents.
Hesper ... Kim: In a letter to Louisa Dresel, Monday afternoon [1907], Jewett says of Mary Wheelwright (see Key to Correspondents.): "I like her and her family yacht the Hesper, which-who sails like a swallow. I don't like to joggle on a steam boat half so well as to sail free."
Kim is the Wheelwright's pet dachshund.
Big Gott's and Little Gott's: The Wheelwright's summered on Sutton Island in Maine, which makes up part of the village of Cranberry Isles, located off the south coast of Mt. Desert (the current location of Acadia National Park). A few miles southwest of Sutton's Island are Great Gott and Little Gott islands.
This letter is held by Colby College Special Collections, Waterville, Maine: JEWE.1. A transcriptionfirst appeared in Scott Frederick Stoddart's Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign: Selected Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett, copyright by Stoddart, 1988. New transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Annie Adams Fields to Lilian Aldrich
Manchester by Sea
Massts
June 30th
[1906 ]*
Dear dear Tom & Lilian
My heart is with you both today! Joy to the young couple and may they soon rejoin you for a while at least at Ponkapog!
The sun shone joyously too in the morning, like the bride her very self and long enough I trust to prevent the rain clouds from casting any shadow over the proceedings.
[ Page 2 ]
Shall you be at home for the great Fourth* I wonder! If it be so, and you have no pleasant plan I pray you both to come to me, although I can offer you no inducement because Iam^expect to be^ quite alone just [ then written over now ].
[ Page 3 ]
May this marriage prove a mine of happiness to you ----
The messenger waits --- Goodbye
from your
Annie Fields.
Notes
1906: The Aldriches' surviving son, Talbot Bailey Aldrich (1868-1857), married Eleanor Lovell Little (1884-1978) in June 1906.
Fourth: American Independence Day holiday, 4 July.
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 Sarah Orne Jewett
Sunday. 11.00 [ unrecognized word ].
[ June/July 1906 ]*
My darling: I was so sorry last night that I could not speak to you, but it is hard to rally oneself from a conversation and talk with some one else listening or waiting but in a little [ hour ? ] now !!! Minnie* is a little better and Helen* writes that she is so humble she is almost content with that -----
[ Page 2 ]
I sent H. & M.* two of the exquisite* roses you sent to me yesterday -- They were exceptionally beautiful. I stayed in bed this morning and I feel much fortified by doing so --
Darling, I can see you in my room! It is beautiful there but it is far better for me
[ Page 3 ]
to stay here, though I miss you sorely. We were running a little fast -- too fast before you went away and the thought of South Berwick is good.
I am just back from Mrs Cabots!* She has revived and was just going to send for me when I telephoned much to her pleasure she said. She is evidently looking forward to your visit. She is going to send us the
[ Page 4 ]
Life of Leslie Stephen* very soon. I am sorry not to suggest a later hour for [ Amy Murray ? ]* especially as [ Anne ? ] may not get here but under the circumstances it seems better. If it were any one else and were not her first coming without Adeline I should feel differently. Ida* came this morning with much pleasure expressed for your call, [ though corrected ] it was in vain{.}
Those flowers in your garden had been waiting for you to get home dear. Perhaps this sunshine will beckon out a few more. Love to the beloved household [ from ? ]
[ Up the left margin of page 1 ]
your own most [ particular corrected ] Pal.
Notes
Spring 1906: This speculative date is supported by the mention of the Leslie Stephen biography published that year. See also Jewett to Fields of 1 July 1906.
Minnie: Probably, this is Helen Bell's sister, Miriam (Mrs. Ellerton) Pratt. See Key to Correspondents.
Helen: Probably Helen Choate Bell. See Key to Correspondents.
H & M: Usually, this would mean Houghton and Mifflin, publishers, but in this case, Fields almost certainly means Helen and Minnie.
exquisite: Fields has underlined this word twice.
Mrs Cabots: Susan Burley Howes Cabot. See Key to Correspondents.
Life of Leslie Stephen: The Life and letters of Leslie Stephen (1906) by Frederic William Maitland. Stephen (1832-1904) was a British author of criticism, biography and history, the father of Virginia Woolf. Wikipedia.
Amy Murray ... Anne ... Adeline: These transcriptions all are uncertain. But possibly, two of these names can fit together. Anne Whitney will be coming to Manchester, MA for the first time without her domestic partner, Abby Adeline Manning, who died on 21 May 1906. See Key to Correspondents.
Amy Murray (1865-1947) was an American author, musician and folklore collector of Gaelic music who performed across the United States and the United Kingdom near the turn of the twentieth century.
Ida: Fields and Jewett knew several women named "Ida," but only two Fields was likely to have called by first name in a letter. The more likely was her niece, Ida Gertrude Beal, but perhaps she means Ida Agassiz Higginson. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University: Sarah Orne Jewett Correspondence I. Letters to Sarah Orne Jewett. Fields, Annie (Adams) 1834-1915. 16 letters; 1894-1901 & [n.d.], 1894-1901 bMS Am 1743 (64).
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Annie Adams Fields
Sunday -- after supper
[ 1 July1906 ]*
Dearest Annie
I should call this the perfect June evening if it weren't July! I can see how beautiful it is at dear Manchester -- Mary* and I went to Hamilton House* to luncheon with Dr & Mrs. Fox and Mr. Arlo Bates a{nd} his son* who is rather interesting -- a good fellow and they were interested to come and see about some places that looked like Indian affairs, on the place. I liked Arlo Bates himself better than before -- but it was rather a pull -- I was
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worse for my train from town all day yesterday and though I felt better this morning and didn't think much about it -- I found the carriage hurt my head dreadfully driving down, and I didn't get very steady or comfortable all the time I was there -- But I got through -- 'ladies' so I wont grumble any more, and it wont be so bad next time for it hasn't troubled me half so much of late.
'The Foxes' were very nice and gave such good accounts of "the Twinnies" that it did my heart good. Dr Fox thinks
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that Minnie* is really a good deal better -- and they were so pleased --
-- I had a nice letter from Frances Parkman* in answer to my question about the lantern -- She said would you please give it to Mollie Hooper* to use in her future home (She is ^just^ engaged but I forget to whom). S.W.* was very fond of them and they were familiar with Old Place and would love to have any of her things -- you could ask Mollie Hooper to come or you could take it in the carriage some day when
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you are driving -- I make these suggestions because it just came to me how much easier than {to} have it packed to go to North East -- or anywhere! so please forgive! Frances found every thing all right at home "all the little family waiting on the wharf" -- She did go down by the night boat after the Radcliffe commencement dinner was over -- How beautiful you[r ?] drive to the Higginsons* -- and all the flowers bloomed right in the letter as I read -- I cant think about this week -- Do you hear anything yet from Alice Longfellow* about her plans? No, I dont
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feel as if Annie Alden's career in Art* were any more promising than of [ deleted word ] yore -- There is Miss McCracken, and oh how I wish poor Louise Guiney* could get away! And you might think to ask Lilian Aldrich* again -- this week after the wedding they might be glad to fill with such a visit -- Think how wet it was yesterday for the poor wedding! -- I am just thinking of these stray names at random -- it is just a time for such to fit in -- Perhaps Mr. Hays Gardiner will not have left Cambridge yet -- and he loves to be asked, and could
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send his answer by telephone or Copeland* -- knowing you are alone.
Now I must go out to the garden a little while before it gets too dark -- Good by dearest Fuffy from your Pin
Notes
1 July 1906: Penciled in another hand beneath "Sunday -- after supper" is "1906". This date is confirmed by Jewett's mentioning the recent marriage of Lilian Adrich's son. See notes below.
Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
Hamilton House: See Emily Davis Tyson in Key to Correspondents.
Dr & Mrs. Fox and Mr. Arlo Bates ... his son: Dr. Fox and his wife have not been identified, though the fact that he seems to have been treating friends of Jewett and Fields suggests that he may be the Washington, DC ophthalmologist, Dr. William H. Fox (1857-1921), who was married to Mollie Ewing (1865-1958).
Arlo Bates (1850-1918) was an American author, educator and journalist. His son was Oric Bates (1883-1918), historian and archaeologist.
Twinnies ... Minnie: Jewett sometimes refers to sisters (who were not twins) as "the Twins," Helen Olcott Choate Bell and Miriam ( Minnie ) Foster Choate Pratt. See Key to Correspondents.
Frances Parkman: Mary Frances Parker Parkman. See Key to Correspondents.
Mollie Hooper: Though this is not certain, it seems likely that Jewett refers to Ellen Sturgis Hooper (1872-1974), who in 1908 married John Briggs Potter (1864-1949). She was the subject of portrait c. 1890, by the American painter by James A. M. Whistler (1834-1903).
S.W.: Sarah Wyman Whitman, who had died on 24 June 1904. See Key to Correspondents.
Higginsons: Though Jewett and Fields knew both Thomas Wentworth Higginson and the couple, Henry Lee Higginson and Ida Agassiz, it seems more likely in this case that Jewett refers to Fields visiting the Henry Lee Higginsons, who had a summer home West Manchester, near Fields's summer home in Manchester-by-the-Sea. See Key to Correspondents.
Alice Longfellow: Alice Mary Longfellow. See Key to Correspondents.
Annie Alden's: While this is uncertain, it is possible Jewett refers to Annie Fields Alden (1863-1912), daughter of Harper's Magazine editor, Henry Mills Alden. See Key to Correspondents. In 1897, she was mentioned as a manuscript reader for the publisher, Harper & Brothers. See The Writer 10 (1897) p. 107.
Miss McCracken: Elizabeth McCracken. See Key to Correspondents.
Louise Guiney: Louise Imogen Guiney See Key to Correspondents.
Lilian Aldrich ... the wedding: Lilian Woodman Aldrich. See Key to Correspondents. Aldrich's surviving twin son, Talbot, married Eleanor Lovell Little at Salem, MA, on 30 June 1906. See The Harvard Graduates' Magazine v. 15, p. 186,
Mr. Hays Gardiner: Probably, this is John Hays Gardiner (1863-1913), author and Harvard professor of English.
Copeland: Probably, Jewett refers to Charles Townsend Copeland (1860-1952), Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard University from 1892 to 1928. Richard Cary says that Copeland was a frequent visitor at Fields's Boston home.
Fuffy from your Pin: Fuffy is a nickname for Fields; Pin for 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: mss FL 5550. 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 Orne Jewett to Sarah Perkins Cabot Wheelwright
South Berwick
Friday
[ July 1906 ]
Dear Sarah
I must send two words to tell you how well and happily we got home, full of pleasant things to remember on sea and shore. The garden is in full bloom, it is already rose-time here though it was lilac time on [Cranberry ?],* and the strawberries are so ripe that Katy* provides them at each meal. Mary* and I love to think of our visit to you, and
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to talk about it; this afternoon we went to Hamilton House to tell Mrs. Tyson* and found 2 friends there from York Harbour just back from Sicily &c but their travels were counted as nothing beside ours . . We had a delightful sail across Penobscot Bay that day, as steamers go, but we were always thinking of the Hesper,* and we did very well at the hotel in Rockland but it was very poky compared to
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being with you -- Then we mustered up and took the eight o'clock train so that we could have an hour or two in Brunswick and so got to Portland and home in good season in the afternoon.
We have tamed down a good deal as to color, but are still wondered at and admired. I wish that I could go everywhere in the Hesper: I am not writing a long letter because it spoiled my peace to drive to Hamilton House this afternoon but I shall
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write again to you and to dear Mary.* Tell her I miss her and give her my love, and to Mr. Wheelwright. I hope that you are all getting better and rested and that I shall hear of it soon -- my fish-net pieces and the duck's head decoy came home quite safe. Miss Ellis* will be glad to know. I ought to quote "I brought my sea-born treasures home."*
How I wish you were near to come for two or three days now and then dear Sarah!
Yours very affectionately
S. O. J.
Notes
July 1906: Though this date is speculative, it receives support from two other letters from Summer and August 5 1906 indicating that earlier in this summer, Jewett was the guest of the Wheelwrights at Sutton's Island.
Cranberry: While this transcription is uncertain, Great Cranberry Island, near Mount Desert Island in Maine, was a popular resort area at the turn of the 20th Century.
Katy: Probably Katy Galvin, a Jewett family employee. See Key to Correspondents.
Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
Hamilton House and Mrs. Tyson: Emily Davis Tyson took up residence in the renovated Hamilton House in South Berwick in 1900. See Key to Correspondents.
Hesper: The Wheelwright family's yacht.
Mary: Mary Cabot Wheelwright. See Key to Correspondents.
Miss Ellis: This may be Mary Agnes Ellis, daughter of Emma Harding Claflin Ellis. See Key to Correspondents.
sea-born treasures home: The line from Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Each and All" reads: "I fetched my sea-born treasures home." See Ellen Tucker Emerson in Key to Correspondents.
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.
Mary Frances Parker Parkman to Sarah Orne Jewett
Northeast Harbor
July 15 ---- [ 1906 ]*
Dearest Sarah:
I woke up and thought of you several times through the night, wishing that you might have staid over and not have taken that late boat which must have got you to Rockland nearer ten o'clock than nine, -- for to my astonishment it was
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a quarter to six when you set sail! And I wondered and hoped about the possibilities of fog -- but as the Morse* came in early this morning I fancy you had a good night in this respect. Dear Sarah, I feel really enriched by your visit here, and warmed by all your understanding sympathy, and bettered by your gentle monitions, and grateful for all you did for Mother,* which has heartened her up and helped her -- She was much touched by your parting message, and said that having met you would repay her for the effort of coming here [ now ? ] without anything else -- So there you see what you do!
The weather has become heavenly, and all the pink and blue [ bows ? ] are off for a mountain walk this afternoon -- I did not go to Church but read to Mother all the morning, one of your stories ^which she much enjoyed^ and other things -- Some people have come on, and
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I have done my usual chores and now I wish a balloon would come and take me off for an aërial trip before supper. As there is none in sight I think I shall try a walk with a person at the end of it -- This is just [ to ? ] hope you had a successful trip and all safe with Mrs Fields* -- Bless you dear Sarah
Your loving
F. P ---
Notes
1906: This date is confirmed by a Jewett letter of January 1907, in which she remembers forming a friendship with Parkman's mother the previous summer. See notes below.
Also, Parkman says she did not go to church as usual on the day of this letter. July 15 fell on Sunday in 1906.
the Morse: The side-wheel steamer J. T. Morse provided service between Boston, MA and Mt. Desert, ME from 1879 to 1921.
Mother: Frances Parkman's mother, Elizabeth Wolcott Stites Parker (1827 - 1 January 1907).
See Jewett to Parkman of 2 January 1907, in which Jewett remembers this visit and her new friendship with Parkman's mother.
Mrs Fields: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Parkman, Frances. 6 letters to Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. Sarah Orne Jewett additional correspondence 1868-1930. MS Am 1743.1 (85). Houghton Library.
Mary Frances Parker Parkman to Sarah Orne Jewett
[ Northeast Harbor
24-25 July 1906 ]*
Dearest Sarah --
I blush to say that the black silk skirt was here all the time. I blush somewhat vicariously because Ella* was absurdly stupid about it and had not replaced it in the closet where I subsequently looked -- and I also blush in propria persona* because I never asked her before, but contented myself
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with the insufficient evidence of my own eyes -- I now send it --- and have addressed it to Mrs J. S. Cabot* (BeverlyMass -- this may not be the right address and if not you had better telephone the Beverly office ^see P.S.^ )
I am sorry you have been hot: we have been [ sitting over ? ] a fire for days -- and today is the first time for a week when we could have the windows and doors open -- So we have felt much inspired! -- Our family is reduced to its lowest terms, with only Mother as a guest. She is [ evincing ? ] some of her own spirit now and has just proposed that we take a driving trip to Bar Harbour -- So I plan it for tomorrow! She says she
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feels much better than when she came --
I am cutting trees and pass my day in alternations of agitated sorrow and joy according (literally) to the Point of View -- Give my love to Mrs Cabot, please --
Your loving
Francis P --
July 25
Mary* was 15 yesterday. Two of the [ boys ? ] departed Monday & we miss them greatly.
P.S. I have on consultation with Miss [ unrecognized name -- Thies ? ] concluded to send the parcel to Pride's.*
Notes
1906: This date is supported by Parkman's report that her daughter Mary had her 16th birthday on the day before she completed this letter. See notes below.
Ella: Presumably, Ella was a Parkman employee.
propria persona: Presumably Parkman means that she blushes in her own body, rather than vicariously. Parkman appears to have placed a caret over the "a" in each of these words, which would have been a fairly common English spelling in the nineteenth century.
Cabot: Susan Burley (Mrs. Jacob S.) Cabot of Prides Crossing, MA. See Key to Correspondents.
Mary: Parkman's daughter, Mary Elizabeth, was born 24 July 1891. She would have turned 15, then on June 24, 1906.
Parkman's mother was Elizabeth Wolcott Stites Parker (1827-1907).
Parkman reports that two people have left Northeast Harbor. The transcription of "boys" is very uncertain; she may have written a name, possibly "Lords." The "boys" in her family were her husband, Henry, and her two sons, Henry, who was 13, and Francis, who was 9 at this time.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Parkman, Frances. 6 letters to Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. Sarah Orne Jewett additional correspondence 1868-1930. MS Am 1743.1 (85).
Sarah Orne Jewett to Sarah Cabot Wheelwright
Sunday --
At Mrs. Cabot's
Pride's crossing* [August 5 1906]*
South Berwick Maine*Dear Sarah
I think of you and of writing you every day, but it does not seem to have been good writing weather! I have been thinking as much of my days with you and with Frances, too and of what I have been doing since -- if there is a good wind I say to myself that we can go sailing in the Hesper, not no [so transcribed] matter if I am land locked and I go on living with you as if I had never come away. one dav Mary and I went to Portsmouth to luncheon, and across to York to see Mrs. Bell and Mrs. Pratt* (who has been ill but was better again) -- the rest of the time I was quietly at home, sitting in the garden and (over last Sunday) attending to a long postponed visit from Loulie Dressel [ so transcribed ]. I came here in time to see the Watteau fete, and felt as if Isabel quite belonged to me! -- She was delightful in her part and made a centre for the gay little crowd of players. "Joe Smith" who was staying with his wife at Mrs. Fields said that he felt lost. Nobody could do the Dowager Duchess but Isabel, and he was so happy to find that she could come.--* The prettiest thing beside that was the classic touch= beside this foreground of gay French gentry there was a little group in the green field behind at the edge of the trees of a shepherd with his pipe a nymph who danced delightfully and the small heathen god Eros with his bow and arrows and the garment of leopard skin and green chaplet (little John Caswell!)* for his young sunburnt head, with a sheep and a lamb that followed him when he followed the happy pair. -- The dance was charming, but at the close when the shepherd and nymph strayed away down the field to the sea and Eros strayed after, and the sheep and the lamb after him it made a fine little procession that came right from a page of Theocritus!* I would give anything if you three had seen it with me! I should like to see them among the blue bells on your green turf at
TheSutton's Island* -- the place was made for such as they -- Yesterday dear Mary Wheelwright* followed me here and she can't think how much I liked it -- I love to remember every bit of my dear visit. I cannot quite give up the hope of the September cruise -- though I am afraid from what I know of September plans that it is a choice between disappointing several other people -- or disappointing myself -- I find that my sister has plans on foot -- and it doesn't look as if either she or I could count on being at home much in August much together I ought to put it -- I have made little plots already about that voyage -- if I can't go this year M won't Mary [so transcribed] ask me "some other day" but not "some other ship" as the Kate Greenway book used to say --*
I found Mrs. Fields much better this time, and Mrs. Cabot very well. She likes to hear all about my days with you. I am glad she does for she often hears about something that I suddenly remember.
I found the old address of my father's and sent it to Mr. Wheelwright but he must not vex himself -- if it does not appeal -- by reading it -- was only interested to find how much my father had anticipated of the condition of things now in "practice" and especially the contempt of remedies with which I have but little patience -- it seems as if there were such a thing as therapeutics, and as if it were just as ignorant to take too little medication as to take too much -- I am going to send Mr. Wheelwright one of my story books that I happened to find here in my room this morning I happened to read By the Morning Boat -- * I hadn't read it for ever so long before! -- and I thought of you dear A. C. W.* as I read -- all the way=one [so transcribed] cant tell why, but I liked to hope that he would care about it for it was a great favorite of mine when it first got itself written -- Please forgive such a long letter, but it has kept spinning itself first to one of you and then the other -- With a great deal of love
Yours always
S. O. J.
Notes
This letter appears, much edited, in Annie Fields, Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett (1911). Fields's version follows this transcription by Scott Frederick Stoddart, from his Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign: Selected Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett, copyright by Stoddart, 1988. Annotation combines the work of Stoddart and Terry Heller, Coe College. The manuscript of this letter is in the collection of the Miller Library of Colby College, Waterville, ME.
Mrs. Cabot's, Pride's Crossing: Susan Burley Cabot; see Key to Correspondents.
This letter, written on a Sunday after some time at Mrs. Cabot's, seems likely to have been written on the same day as Sarah Orne Jewett to Sara Norton, Sunday, August 5, [1906].
South Berwick Maine: This letter was written on Jewett's personal stationery, engraved with "South Berwick, Maine." For this letter, she crossed it out and wrote in the Pride's Crossing address.
Frances, too, ... sailing in the "Hesper": It is not clear to which Frances Jewett refers. Stoddart believes this is Mary Frances Parker Parkman (1855-1942), another of the Boston contingent of philanthropic women,
In a letter to Louisa Dresel, Monday afternoon [1907], Jewett says of Mary Wheelwright (see Key to Correspondents): "I like her and her family yacht the Hesper, which-who sails like a swallow. I don't like to joggle on a steam boat half so well as to sail free."
Mrs. Bell and Mrs. Pratt: The sisters, Helen Choate (Mrs. Joshua) Bell and Miriam (Mrs. Ellerton) Pratt, both were members of the Fields-Jewett circle of artistic friends. See Key to Correspondents.
Watteau fête ... Isabel: Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), a French rococo painter. The dance Jewett describes may enact his famous painting, The Embarkation for Cythera (1717), but it is quite possible that others were "performed." See Wikipedia on "Fête galante."
John Caswell: While this person has not been identified, a prominent Boston banker at this time was William Watson Caswell. He and his brother John of Prides Crossing, MA. appear in an 1878 portrait by Eastman Johnson (1824-1906). Young John Caswell may have been a child of one of these men.
The mention of "Isabel" offers a hint at what Jewett may be describing. The only "Isabel" currently known to be among Jewett's close acquaintance is Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840-1924); according to Wikipedia, Gardner "was a leading American art collector, philanthropist, and patron of the arts. She founded the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston."
Among the artists she patronized was Joseph Lindon Smith (1863 - 1950) Monadnock Art says of Smith: "Beginning in the 1890s, if not earlier, he designed and produced pageants for countless private parties, civic occasions, and fundraising benefits. Wealthy individuals in Boston, Newport, New York, and elsewhere would hire him to devise theatrical interludes to entertain their guests....Smith produced several pageants for Isabella Stewart Gardner at Fenway Court, the grand home she built in Boston for the eventual public display of her art collection." Among the Joseph Lindon Smith papers at the Archives of American Art is a "Script for Watteau Fete, 1906." Figure 6 in the Monadnock Art write-up of Smith shows a photograph of his 1931 Watteau Fete. See Sarah Orne Jewett to Joseph Lindon Smith 26 February 1897.
This transcription of the letter makes clear that Smith was both present and apparently in charge of the fête, but no evidence has yet been found that Isabella Stewart Garner participated in the event Jewett describes. Further information is welcome.
Theocritus: Theocritus (c. 308 - c. 240 BC), Greek originator of pastoral poetry.
Sutton's Island: Wikipedia says: "Sutton Island, in Hancock County, Maine, is a small, private island south of Mount Desert Island, and north of Cranberry Isles, Maine. Its dimensions are roughly 2.1 km on its east-west axis by 1.1 km north to south. It has a negligible permanent population, but is the site of several summer homes."
Mary Wheelwright: Daughter of Sarah Perkins Cabot Wheelwright. See Key to Correspondents.
the old address of my father: Theodore Herman Jewett's (1815-1878) Elements of Success in the Medical Profession. Introductory Lecture Delivered Before the Students of the Medical Department of Bowdoin College, February 21, 1867 was published as a 28 page book in 1869.Kate Greenway: Catherine "Kate" Greenaway (1846-1901), British children's verse writer and illustrator. Her first books of illustrated poems was Under the Window (1878), in which appeared, "I Saw a Ship":
I saw a ship that sailed the sea,
It left me as the sun went down;
The white birds flew and followed it
To town -- to London town.
Right sad were we to stand alone,
And see it pass so far away;
And yet we knew some ship would come --
Some other ship -- some other day.
By the Morning Boat: Jewett's story appeared in Atlantic Monthly (October 1890) and in Strangers and Wayfarers (1890).
dear A. C. W.: Mrs. Wheelwright's husband, Andrew Cunningham Wheelwright. See Key to Correspondents.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Mrs. Sarah Cabot Wheelwright [Annie Fields's presentation of the above letter]
Sunday, at Mrs. Cabot's, Pride's Crossing [August 5 1906].
My dear Sarah, -- I think of you and of writing to you every day, but it does not seem to have been good writing weather! I have been thinking as much of my days with you and with Frances, too, as of what I have been doing since. If there is a good wind I say to myself that we can go sailing in the "Hesper." No matter if I am land-locked, I go on living with you as if I had never come away.
I came here in time to see the Watteau fête, and felt as if Isabel* quite belonged to me! She was delightful in her part, and made a centre for the gay little crowd of players. The prettiest thing besides that was the classic touch: beside this foreground of gay French gentry there was a little group in the green field behind, at the edge of the sea, of a shepherd with his pipe, a nymph who danced delightfully, and the small heathen god Eros, with his bow and arrows and a garment of leopard skin and green chaplet for his young sunburnt head, with a sheep and a lamb that followed him when he followed the happy pair. The dance was charming, but at the close, when shepherd and nymph strayed away down the field to the sea and Eros strayed after, and the sheep and lamb after him, it made a live little procession that came right from a page of Theocritus!* I would give anything if you three had seen it with me. I should like to see the players among the blue-bells on your green turf at Sutton's Island -- the place was made for such as they.
I found the old address of my father and sent it to Mr. Wheelwright, but he must not vex himself by reading it if it does not appeal. I was only interested to find how much my father had anticipated of the condition of things now in "practice," and especially the contempt of remedies, with which I have but little patience. It seems as if there were such a thing as Therapeutics, and as if it were just as ignorant to take too little medicine as to take too much.
Note
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 Sara Norton
Pride's Crossing, Sunday, August 5, [1906].
I am ending my summer visit to Mrs. Cabot on Wednesday, when I go to Mrs. Fields,* and Miss Ellen Emerson* is to be there on Wednesday, too. I have really come back to some sense of pleasure in life; though I feel like a dissected map with a few pieces gone, the rest of me seems to be put together right! There are a great many delightful people to see, and I always delight in my visit here -- each one is a treasure as it comes, and this was one of the perfect Sunday mornings when my dear old friend and I sat alone together and felt very near each other's heart. I must tell you what we read with great delight -- the life of Miss Catharine Sedgwick!* We each passed it to the other to read some delightful page, and 'the other' would read on in silence until a craving for sympathy made her unselfish enough to pass it back again. I did not know how good it was. I fancied it had been written in the dull time of "Memoirs," but I was quite wrong; it was just as well to wait and grow a good deal older before I went back to it, and Mrs. Cabot had not opened it for many years. It is a charming picture of my mother's and your grand-mother's New England. Mrs. Kemble's letter at the end is one to learn by heart. There is a page, too, about the advantages of country life, that made me "fire up" about Berwick as I used in my best days! There is another pleasure in being here. I often see Miss Caroline King, who was one of your Uncle James Lowell's early friends;* she talks about him more and more as she grows older, and yesterday, when I went to see her just at the other end of this short beach, she lent me a tiny volume of Shakespeare sonnets that he gave her in the early forties, with all his marks and bits of notes and a quotation from "Bussy d'Ambois"* on the fly-leaf -- all her youth and his are shut like a little flower between the small covers -- it is a dear little book! I have seen it before, but yesterday she lent it, and touched it as if it were a flower still in bloom. They knew how to read poetry, that company of friends -- their hearts were full of it.
Notes
Mrs. Cabot ... Mrs Fields: Susan Burley Cabot and Annie Fields; see Key to Correspondents.Ellen Emerson: Ellen Tucker Emerson (1839-1909) is the daughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
we read with great delight -- the life of Miss Catharine Sedgwick: Catharine Maria Sedgwick (1789-1867), the American novelist, probably is best remembered for her popular novel, Hope Leslie, or, Early times in the Massachusetts (1862). Mary E. Dewey edited The Life and Letters of Catharine M. Sedgwick in 1871. Fanny Kemble's letter appears on pp. 415-418.
James Lowell ... Miss Caroline King: James Russell Lowell (1819 - 1891) was an American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat, a close friend of Jewett and of Annie Fields.
Bussy d'Ambois: This play (1607) was written by George Chapman (c. 1559-1634).
Caroline King (1822-1909) was the author of When I Lived in Salem, 1822-1866. (Source: Cary, "Jewett to Dresel: 33 Letters," Colby Quarterly 11 [March 1975] 13-49.)
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 Bliss Perry
148 Charles Street
Friday [ August 1906 ]*
Dear Mr. Perry
I enclose a letter to Mr. Douglas* -- "Sir Walters" Editor - at Edinburgh in case you and Mrs. Perry should go there. I was going to add one to Madame Blanc=Bentzon* but I am just now very anxious because she is very
[ Page 2 ]*
ill = if she should recover as I hope and pray, I shall send you a note for her. I am just now deeply touched by reading in the April 1st number of the Revue des Deux Mondes what she wrote about my last book ----
I wish that I could see you and Mrs Perry before you go, but I am just here for a day or two, and we go to Manchester tomorrow -- Believe me always your sincere & affectionate friend
Sarah O. Jewett
Notes
Friday, August 1906: This letter is on two sides of a card with a letterhead on the upper left of the first page, an image in dark red ink of Jewett's initials (SOJ) superimposed inside a circle.
It is probable that Jewett gave Perry this introduction to David Douglas before he departed for a six-month stay in Europe after completing Walt Whitman: His Life and Work in June 1906. This is the only trip Perry made to Europe between his marriage in 1888 and the death of Madame Blanc in 1907.
See his And Gladly Teach (1935), pp. 192 ff.
Mr. Douglas: David Douglas (1823-1916). See Key to Correspondents.
Madame Blanc=Bentzon: Marie Thérèse de Solms Blanc. See Key to Correspondents.
Madame Blanc's translation of The Tory Lover (1901), appeared in 1906: Le Roman d'un Loyaliste. She discusses this novel and Jewett's other work in her essay, "The Historical Novel in the United States," in Revue des Deux Mondes 32:5 (1906), pp. 689-708.
Uncharacteristically, Jewett twice uses "=" in this letter where one would expect a hyphen and a dash.
Page 2: In the bottom right corner of page one is penciled, in another hand, the ms number, 297.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. 8 letters to Bliss Perry; undated. Perry, Bliss, 1860-1954, recipient. Bliss Perry letters from various correspondents, 1869-1942. MS Am 1343 (290-297).
Enclosed letter: Sarah Orne Jewett to David Douglas
[ Begin letterhead ]
South Berwick.
Maine.
[ End letterhead ]
My Dear Mr Douglas
It gives me great pleasure to send this note by so friendly a hand as Mr. Perry's -- he will give you news of Mrs. Fields* and me and I hope bring back good news of you.
-- You will not be long in finding this new friend as pleasant as an old one, since I can hardly think of anyone among our younger scholars and men of letters who cares so deeply
[ Page 2 ]*
and so wisely for the best books and the men who write them -- I hope that he may be so fortunate and Mrs. Perry too, as to find you and Mrs. Douglas at home in Edinburgh.
Yours always sincerely
S. O. Jewett*
Notes
Mrs. Fields: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Page 2: In the bottom right corner of page one is penciled, in another hand, the ms number, 297.
Jewett: With this manuscript is an envelope addressed to David Douglas, Esqre, 10 Castle Street, Edinburgh, Scotland.
At the bottom left on the front these words are enclosed within two lines, one to the left, one at the bottom: "Kindness of Professor Bliss Perry." They appear to be in a different hand from the address.
In the bottom right corner of the front is penciled, in another hand, the ms number, 297.
Louise Imogen Guiney to Annie Adams FieldsSaluti: Italian: Greetings.
Little Good Harbor, Five Islands, Maine.
Sunday, Septr 2.
[ 1906 ]*
My dear Mrs. Fields:
Your alluring postal is before me for ten minutes or so past; and here am I at the world's end! I don't think I told you that I was horribly ill for three weeks, and fed with a spoon &c., and that the nice girl who nursed both 'Marmee'* and me took me down here as soon as I could travel? I am all right now, except that I haven't much sleep to boast of; but I think that is coming. My Mother was ^ -- better than for a year back -- ^ immensely better before I left, and according to last accounts, goes to Cohasset on Tuesday, where I am to find her on or about the 11th. She has had with her at 302 ^Beacon St.^ a very kind capable woman for cook and caretaker, who was lent to us [ deletion ] by Miss Alberta Houghton.* As soon as we get together again we can make some plans. They are all, of course, in abeyance now. Well, if I don't get to Manchester, you will know my thanks and love last out
[ Page 2 ]
undiminished. The summer has whizzed by I know not how, but in rather a nightmare way. Would that I knew the author of the lines about dear Sidney!* I don't. They're beautiful, though one disputes their accuracy. Surely 'Chivalry's departing sun' was the Carolian Civil War, not Elizabeth's blazing reign.
Will you tell a certain celebrated author* that I adore her yet, and wish many benisons on her peculiarly bonnie head? It is always gloriously wild here. The one snake in Eden* is -- mosquitoes! Saluti.*
Yours always
L. I. Guiney.
Anything addressed in
care of Dr. Sutherland,
302 Beacon St., would al-
ways reach me. We are
such nomads just now,
I cannot give a permanent
address.*
Notes
1906: This letter is dated on Jewett's birthday.
Guiney's letters show that she was in Boston during the summer of 1906 -- having interrupted her long sojourn at Oxford, UK -- and that her mother was seriously ill at the time.
'Marmee': Guiney often calls her mother Marmee in her letters, though she does not always put the name in quotation marks. Presumably she alludes to Little Women by American author Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888), where the mother of the little women is called Marmee.
Miss Alberta Houghton: Alberta M. Houghton (1861-1931) was a daughter of publisher Henry Oscar Houghton. See Henry O. Houghton in Key to Correspondents.
Sidney: Almost certainly, Guiney refers to one of her artistic mentors, English poet and scholar, Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586). Guiney refers to the English Civil War (1642-1651) as the Carolian Civil War. Elizabeth almost certainly is Queen Elizabeth I of England (1533-1603).
The poem Guiney could not name remains unidentified.
celebrated author: Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
snake in Eden: See the Genesis 2-3 account of the Garden of Eden in the Bible.
address: 302 Beacon Street, Boston, is a notable address, as it was for a number of years, the home of author and editor, William Dean Howells. See Key to Correspondents.
According to Back Bay Houses, Dr. John Preston Sutherland, Dean of Boston University Medical School, resided at the house from 1905 to 1910 or 1911. See Biographies of Homeopathic Physicians, Volume 30: Stearns - Sylvis by Thomas Lindsley Bradford, p. 287.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields collection Box 26: mss FI 5516. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Robert Collyer to Annie Adams Fields
FairHaven September 17 -- 1906
[ Begin letterhead ]
FAIRHAVEN
MASSACHUSETTS
[ End letterhead ]
Dear Friend
I was to report from this place so here goes. I left East Gloucester on Thursday with daughter Emma { -- } saw her safely on her train for Home and then turned my face hitherward{,} was met at New Bedford by the auto and the men in costume and they landed me here where I had and have a homelike welcome. Yesterday I preached to a great congregation { -- } many stood and many went away they tell me and they who were there heard the word gladly.
[ Page 2 ]
I had freedom of speech and enjoyed my own sermon. This evening I shall read the Father Taylor* in the church parlor and start for home to morrow morning if all's well{,} in charge of a Lady for Mr Rogers* will not let me go alone. Mark Twain* has been here over Sunday and has gone this morning on the Yacht to New York with Mr Rogers and his son who must be on hand in our Great Babylon.*
Mark made his mark as usual{,}
[ Page 3 ]
his quaint humor blended with serious touches and we had a lovely time listening to his racy anecdotes. Some one says the first sign of dotage is anec-dotage but I see no sign of this in Mark { -- } I quite fell in love with him over again. You will haveradread the first chapter of his autobiography.* It is all Mark down to the ground. Do you know he is paid a dollar a word for his work{?} What a temptation to make an endless
[ Page 4 ]
chain but 250000 is the limit. I wish I could just run in this very morning for an hour to greet you all. Mrs [ Cabot corrected ]* sent me two very interesting volumes and a lovely note in [ remembrance corrected ] of our visit { -- } bless her good heart
With love all round
as ever & ever yours
Robert Collyer
Notes
goes: Collyer omits many periods in this letter. I have supplied them where they seem necessary.
Father Taylor: American Methodist minister, Edward Thompson Taylor (1793-1871), remembered especially as chaplain of the Seamen's Bethel in Boston.
Collyer's popular talk on Father Taylor was published in 1907 by the American Unitarian Association.
Rogers: Henry Huttleston Rogers (1840 -1909) was an American industrialist, financier, and philanthropist.
Mark Twain: American author Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), who published under the name "Mark Twain," also was a popular lecturer-entertainer. In September 1906, chapters of his autobiography began to appear in the North American Review.
Twain gave a speech at the dedication of the Rogers Memorial Church in Fairhaven.
Babylon: Capital of the ancient Babylonian Empire, Babylon is now mainly an archeological site. In the Hebrew Bible, Babylon represents a period of captivity for the Hebrew people, and in that tradition often is thought of as representing pagan and materialistic values, spiritual as well as physical captivity.
Cabot: Susan Burley Cabot. 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.
Mary Augusta (Mrs. Humphry) Ward to Annie Adams Fields
Oct 1, 1906
[ Begin letterhead ]
STOCKS,
TRING.
[ End letterhead ]
Dear Mrs Fields
At last I am able to write a few lines with my own hand to thank you for your most charming & friendly letter of July, & to say how sorry we are not to avail ourselves of your invitation this autumn. It is too unlucky, but I have had 4 months of [ serious ? ] illness
[ Page 2 ]
-- eczema, sleeplessness & general nerve break-down, & am only now beginning to struggle back to [ life ? ] a little [ wh for which ? is still ? ] some way off. This I think is the first letter I have written to any one out of my own immediate family for a long long time. -- for all [ exertion ? ] has been forbidden & merely to listen to reading aloud was for long a positive pain -- And I am
[ Page 3 ]I long to know how she & you both are, -- and how much I wish you were sitting with us on the Stocks lawn, this windy sunny autumn day. My two grandchildren are just in front of me. One -- little Mary Caroline* aged a year & 7 months fast asleep in her 'pram' -- the other the baby being walked up & down by his nurse, wrestling with her & the world generally, as it is proper
still so far from myself that the doctors won't hear of America this autumn -- so it must be put off another year alack! We had actually taken out passage by the Cedric,* provisionally, and I feel sadly disappointed over it all -- But there is nohopehelp for it, -- and one must only try to get well as soon as possible --
Will you give my dear love to Mifs Jewett --*
[ Page 4 ]
[ Cross-written in the top margin of page 1 ]
that a boy should do -- They have called him Theodore Macaulay, & I wonder as I look at his dear pudgy face whether anything of the great Corinthian* as
[ Cross-written in the top margin of page 4 ]
Uncle Matt called him, lies hidden in the [ unrecognized word ] great great nephew! Most affectionate regards to you both --
Yours [ unrecognized word ]
Mary A. Ward
Notes
Cedric: The RMS Cedric (1902) was a White Star Line ocean liner.
Jewett.: Sarah Orne Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
Caroline: Ward's daughter and biographer, Janet Penrose Ward Trevelyan (1879-1956), was the mother of Theodore Macaulay Trevelyan (1906-1911). Her husband, historian George Macaulay Trevelyan (1876-1962), was the grand-nephew of British historian and politician, Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859). Their daughter, Mary Caroline Moorman (1905-1994) became a biographer and historian.
Corinthian: Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) in "Literary Influence of Academies," in Essays in Criticism: First Series (1865), described Macaulay's writing style as Corinthian, a style Arnold thought provincial.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in the James T. Fields Papers and Addenda: mss FI 5637, Box 64, Ward, Mary Augusta (Arnold), 14 pieces. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Mary Frances Parker Parkman to Sarah Orne Jewett
Boston
Oct 6 -- [ 1906 ]*
Dearest Sarah
Our last letters crossed and then afterwards I got your note written to welcome me home, which had gone to Northeast Harbor owing to a hiatus in the Parkman methods, which resulted in our getting no letters for several days after arrival!
[ Page 2 ]
I have been giving everybody a vacation in the household so I feel by no means settled, and on Thursday I paid a long-promised visit to Dublin to visit the Handasyd Cabots -- I staid one evening & one morning and enjoyed it mightily -- I met all the interesting people Mark Twain, the Bushes,* &c -- and O how beautiful upon the mountains* was the sunshine & the shadow -- it was a real refreshment. I do not feel as conceited as usual about my family. Harry senior has a cold; and a lame leg, owing to an accident at tennis, and yesterday Francis had a headache -- ! My niece Alice* has typhoid fever and this demoralizes my state of mind -- [ Whats more ? ] I had quite a shock to my nerves by being close to a man who
[ Page 3 ]
who was being shot & killed by another in the Subway* -- & I keep finding myself [ morally ? ] demanding of myself "Could I have done anything to keep that wrong from being consummated?{"} As it was, being directly in range of the pistol, about 3 ft away, & being much startled by the first shot, I stepped out of the way. Ah, it was a horror!
I wonder where are you? I shall send this to Berwick I guess -- Boston is silent and with a mist coming and going in the unseasonable heat, it not as it should be somehow. But the shop windows are just glorious this season, and I am in imagination
[ Page 4 ]
[ elated or sated ? ] with wonderful Solomon-in-all-his-glory* garments, particularly hats; while they who see me as I do not see myself, may remark an air of age and dowdiness about my actual habiliments --- Good bye dear Sarah. I hope to see you soon
Yours lovingly
Frances P.
Notes
1906: This date is supported by the probability that Parkman refers to a Boston subway shooting that took place on 2 October 1906. See notes below.
Handasyd Cabots ... Mark Twain, the Bushes: Parkman probably refers to the family of Thomas Handasyd Cabot (1864-1938) of Dublin, NH.
American author, Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain, 1835-1910), rented Mountain View Farm in Dublin, NH, for a stay in 1906.
The Bushes have not yet been identified.
how beautiful upon the mountains: See the Bible, Isaiah 52:7.
Harry senior ... Francis ... niece Alice: See Mary Francis Parkman in Key to Correspondents. Harry is her husband, Henry Parkman. Francis (1898-1990) is her youngest son. Alice probably is Alice Gordon Parker Hoyt (1885-1951), daughter of Parkman's brother, Richard Wayne Parker (1848-1923).
shot & killed ... in the Subway: On 2 October 1906, Henry A. Brown shot and killed Charles Queen in the Boston subway's Park Street Station. It seems likely that this is the event to which Parkman refers. See The Boston Globe (2 December 1906), p. 32.
Solomon-in-all-his-glory: See the Bible, Matthew 6:29.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Parkman, Frances. 6 letters to Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. Sarah Orne Jewett additional correspondence 1868-1930. MS Am 1743.1 (85).
Sarah Orne Jewett to Lillian Munger
Manchester by Sea
Thursday -----[ 11 October 1906 ]
My Dear Lily Munger
You cannot think how much pleasure your letter brings me! -- I had seen the announcement of Quentin Durward with true satisfaction, and wished to know more of you ----- though that told me a good deal!* Your letter finds me here but I go back to South Berwick next week; by [Sunday?] I shall be in town and shall be looking forward to seeing you and having a good talk about all that you are doing, and about those old days which I do not forget. I have had a very long hard time since my bad accident, but now I am really better and trying to get back to doing some of the things that I used to do, though I still must be very careful for it is so easy to over do.
I need not tell you how glad I shall be to have your book, or how your letter touches my heart.
Yours always and affectionately
S. O. Jewett
Notes
Quentin Durward. L. M. Munger and Susan Francis were responsible for a 1906 reprinting of Sir Walter Scott's (1771-1832) novel, Quentin Durward (1823), for Houghton Mifflin's Riverside Literature series. Munger edited the text "for study," and Francis wrote a biographical introduction.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Old Berwick Historical Society, in the archives at the Counting House Museum in South Berwick, ME: item 1974I 0001.C. 01 + 02. With this letter, OBHS has an envelope postmarked Oct 11, 1906, addressed to Miss Munger, 13 Hilliard St., Cambridge, Massachusetts. Transcription and annotation by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Robert Collyer to Annie Adams Fields
[ Begin letterhead ]
201 West 55th Street,
New York.
[ End letterhead ]
October 15th 1906
Ever Dear Friend
Thanks for this script to say all is well, and I say so too, but was ill enough to be scared late in September, three smothering days laid me out -- I am glad to hear you are to have a holiday.* Think of fourteen days when you have not to wonder what you shall provide for breakfast { -- } also dinner { -- } nothing to do but trust in Providence. The other name is Mary* -- Well you deserve it and as we used to say have addled it. No this has nothing to do with eggs -- How lovely it will be just now down there and how you will revel you three* -- It is better than when Brother [ unrecognized name Grew ? ] cut the tops from those trees{,} bless his good heart -- We are "all well." Gertrude has gone to see how a dear friend Mrs Langdon* fares who is "expecting" I guess* { -- } she has taken the tiny blanket she has been knitting. She is great on tiny blankets -- Yesterday I received a note from Colonel Higginson* teeming with delight over their grandson. He concludes that my prayer at his wedding has been answered and
[ Page 2 ]
Wentworth Higgison Barry ^(Barney)^* weighs 12 1/2 pounds. We are "hearing" ministers and I am nervous thereat & Peabody* will not be of the number. He i e the man we call will have my assistance not me his'n. I am not in it to be fore'an { -- } willing to set on the pulpit steps -- But I shall preach D V* next Sunday{,} the sermon I preached on last Sunday in September '79 when I entered on this ministry, and told 'em so yesterday. My grandson Robert{,}* Emmas boy the eldest will be married at the end of this month to a nice sister Lassie born here, Emma likes -- loves -- her -- Yes I will get Singer's life* from the Library. I want to finish that book { -- } 'tis good and bright. We are to be in [ bronze corrected ] you see. Did I tell you my self in the window of the new church at Fair Haven is a lovely bit of color* and a good likeness as you may remember me 40 years ago, but I think I blushed. They gave me a royal welcome many standing and many went away but I do try to be not proud I do indeed. Mr Savage* is very feeble. He is in Cleveland for the winter with Miss Savage.
With love to Sarah and Mary, as ever yours
Robert Collyer
Notes
holiday: Collyer omits many periods in this letter. I have supplied them where they seem necessary.
Mary: This reference remains mysterious, though possibly he means Mary Rice Jewett.
three: In addition to Fields, Sarah Orne and Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
Langdon: This person remains unidentified.
guess: Collyer has provided no punctuation here, and I have guessed where he intended his break.
Colonel Higginson: Thomas Wentworth Higginson. See Key to Correspondents.
The widowed Higginson's second wife was Mary Potter Thacher. Their daughters were Margaret Waldo and Louisa. Collyer officiated at Margaret's marriage to Dr. J. Dellinger Barney in 1905. The couple's first child was Wentworth in 1906.
Barney: A penciled arrow points from "Barry" to "Barney" in the margin above. It is not clear whether these additions are in Collyer's hand.
D V: Latin: Deo volente, God willing.
Robert: Collyer's grandson was Robert Collyer Hosmer (1878-1964). He married Elspeth Wylie (1880-1042).
Singer's life: This reference remains mysterious, but perhaps Fields has recommended the newly published English translation of Hans Wolfgang Singer's Dante Gabriel Rossetti, British poet (1828-1882).
color: In 1906 a bronze medallion depicting Collyer was placed in the new free library in Ilkley, UK. Collyer attended the dedication of the Rogers Memorial Church in Fairhaven, MA, now known as Unitarian Memorial Church. Henry Huttleston Rogers (1840 -1909), American industrialist, financier, and philanthropist, worked closely with his friend Collyer on the design of the church and related buildings in Fairhaven. "On the walls and windows [of the parish house] are inscriptions selected by Dr. Robert Collyer, Rogers’ closest clergyman friend, from the writings of Collyer’s favorite poets."
Information about the window Collyer mentions has not yet been located.
Savage: American Unitarian minister, Minot Judson Savage (1841-1918). See Collyer to Fields of 14 February 1906.
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 Henry Green
Boston -- Oct 18th
[ 1906 ]*Dear Elder Henry
Can you send me -- at South Berwick,
six or seven^ten^ dollars worth of small fancy articles, pin cushions and little work-cases and a selection of your "pretty things"? I should like to have them there on Monday ^next^ to send to a Fair. I shall not return any, and I shall be responsible
[ Page 2 ]
for this amount, or I can give the rest elsewhere if any remain unsold -- Please do not send anything that will cost much above a dollar --
It begins to seem a long time since I have seen you or my friends at Alfred. I was glad to hear about you through Eldress Aurelia Mace* whom I was glad
[ Page 3 ]
to "make friends with" last year at Poland Spring. I have not been there this year as I half [ expected corrected ], but I am glad to say that I am much better than when I saw you last; and fast getting better still, though I am not yet well.
Please give my kind love to Eldress Lucinda and* all the younger sisters who remember my visit to your family -- as I do very often. I hope that
[ Page 4 ]
another year I can go to Alfred again.
Believe me always
Yours most sincerely
Sarah O. Jewett
Notes
1906: Richard Cary dated this letter in 1899 in Sarah Orne Jewett Letters, offering no rationale. To date, there is no evidence in Jewett correspondence that she stayed at Poland Spring in 1898. However, she was there on doctor's orders in 1905. Her report on her health suggests that she wrote this letter after her September 1902 carriage accident. Tentatively, then, I have given the letter a 1906 date.
Eldress Aurelia Mace: Aurelia Gay Mace (1835-1910) lived among the Shakers most of her life. The Sabbathday Lake Shaker village was just a few miles from Poland Spring, ME, about 14 miles south of Lewiston.
Alfred ... Eldress Lucinda: The Alfred, ME., Shaker photograph collection, ca. 1850-ca. 1940. includes photos of Elder Henry Green, Eldress Fanny Casey, and Eldress Lucinda Taylor.
The Shaker community at Alfred, ME was established 1783-93. Wikipedia
and: Sometimes Jewett writes "a" with a long tail for "and." I render these as "and."
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.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Julia Ward Howe
October [ 29 ? ]
[ 1906 ]*
[ Begin letterhead ]it was thought much pleasanter than if you had come ( and gone! ) in early winter, but now I am looking forward to April with some lack of patience. You couldn't come 'long o' Laura* in June and we were disappointed, but when the summer really begins it is like an old automobile for speed and rattle . . Now I shall see you in town first, if not in Berwick -- for tryings-on attend my steps; that's one
South Berwick, Maine
[ End letterhead ]
[ What ? ] a great pleasure to get a note from you, dear friend, and* I bless the academic bulletin about the degree* for [ teaching itself arriving* ? ] your papers -- I love to think that you sit at desks here as well as at the other places. Oddly enough this note might have passed yours on the way because I have been thinking about you, and wishing you were coming -- Last spring
[ Page 2 ]
[ Page 3 ]
of the trials of getting better, no more kimonos and old clothes! and I am eveningbeginning to get up to breakfast and spoiling all my nice evenings, because I cant see a bed without desiring to creep into it after four o'clock in the afternoon.
But mending* I should like to say, and keeping house attentively just now with one guest to provide for: Mrs. A.F.* who is staying here between Manchester, and the Town winter. She is much better for the summer at
[ Page 4 ]
Manchester -- I am sure you will think so! a little lame still, so is Mary* who is spending ten days at Little Boar's Head in Rye with a valued cousin, but we are all mending as to both heads and [ beds ? ].
Other things I shall tell you when we meet = how deeply my heart was touched because dear old Laura put my name into one of her story books -- and everything else. Do you (and Maud;* of course [ she corrected ] does) know the [ Baddeleys ? ]* who are just coming to Boston, Roman acquaintances of A.F's? -- She is looking forward to seeing them. Tell Maud that we
[ Up the left margin and across the top margin of page 1 ]
mean to like the new book as much as we did Rome book and we look forward to it with joy. Yours always with love
Sarah
I had a dear letter from Mrs. Agassiz* a little while ago -- saying she was much better
[ Up the left margin of page 2 ]
for the summer. Isn't that good?
Notes
1906: This date is supported by Jewett reporting she has recently read Maud Elliot's book on Rome and anticipates her next book. See note below.
Also from this date and it seems through 1907, Jewett wrote a number of letters to Howe about visiting the South Berwick women's club, a visit that seems to have taken place finally in late October 1907.
and: Sometimes in this letter, Jewett writes "a" with a long tail for "and." I give these as "and."
degree: Howe received three honorary degrees: June 1904 Doctor of Laws from Tufts College, June 1909 Doctor of Letters from Brown University, October 1910 from Smith College. If Jewett refers to one of these, it seems likely to be the first. Note that this would suggest an earlier date for this letter, 1903, when there may have been an announcement of the 1904 prize. Exactly what Jewett means in this passage is not yet clear.
arriving: Jewett seems to have written these three words, but their meaning is obscure.
Laura: Laura Richards. Key to Correspondents.
It is not yet known which of Richards's books contains Jewett's name.
mending: This word is underlined twice.
A.F.: Annie Adams Fields. Key to Correspondents.
Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. Key to Correspondents.
Maud: Maud Howe Elliot, daughter of Laura Richards. See Richards in Key to Correspondents.
Her "Rome book" probably was Roma Beata: Letters from the Eternal City (1906). Her next book was Two in Italy (1907).
Baddeleys: While the transcription is uncertain, probably Fields refers to British antiquarian Welbore St. Clair Baddeley (1856-1946), who gave a course of eight lectures at Boston's Lowell Institute on "Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries" during November 1905. See Monthly Bulletin of Books Added to the Public Library of the City (1905) Volume 10, p. 396 and Worldcat Identities. His wife was the subject of a 1907 portrait by Augustus Edwin John (1878-1961).
Agassiz: Elizabeth Cabot Cary Agassiz. Key to Correspondents.
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 (119).
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Clara Garland Goodwin* to Sarah Orne Jewett
Berwick, Maine.
Nov. 5, 1906.Dear Miss Jewett,
I venture to introduce myself as a descendant of natives of the old towns of Berwick and Kittery.
My Grandmother was a descendant of Humphrey Chadbourne* of colonial times and my paternal ancestor was Benjamin Stacy of Kittery (I747),* Surveyor of the King's Forests.*
I take the liberty of mentioning these facts as I think you are very loyal to
[ Page 2 ]
Your* own town and might be influenced to have patience and forbearance with my imperfect efforts,
I am an ardent admirer of your book, The Tory Lover,* and the scenes are specially interesting to me as I am familiar with the locality, -- and so true to life.
All this preamble is to introduce the fact that I am sending you a package by express, of mss., hoping that you will kindly look it over and pronounce your estimate of its unworthiness.
[ Page 3 ]
I am aware that the mss. is crude in style and may have other defects.
Please pardon the liberty I take in calling your attention and monopolizing your time in this manner and believe me,
Gratefully yours,
Clara Garland Goodwin
Berwick,
Maine.
R. F. D. Box 41.
c/o E. Wentworth.
Notes
Goodwin: Garland Genealogy (1897, p. 132) indicates that Clara Jane Garland (b. 1856) became the second wife of True Ernest Goodwin (1850-1918) on 25 May 1896 in Boston. Her marriage certificate available via FamilySearch says that, at the time of her marriage, she was a teacher and gives her age as 35 -- making her birth year about 1861, the year of her mother's death: Jane Stacy (1831-1861).
In Wendy Pirsig's The Placenames of South Berwick is a photograph of True E. Goodwin and his family at Hamilton House (p. 38).
Clara Goodwin is not known to have published a book.
Humphrey Chadbourne: Chadbourne (1615-1667) was a pioneer settler in the area of South Berwick, ME.
Benjamin Stacy: Stacy (1704-1758) was an early settler in Kittery, ME. His will is published at his Find a Grave Memorial.
Forests: The end punctuation appears as a colon, but the extra mark may be a stray.
The Tory Lover: Jewett's final novel appeared in 1901.
Your: Goodwin fairly often begins words with oversized letters. Whether she intends to capitalize is then uncertain. In most other cases, I have rendered these words as we would expect rather than as they appear.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the University of New England Maine Women Writers Collection, Sarah Orne Jewett Correspondence Box 1 Folder 037
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Louisa Dresel
148 Charles Street
Tuesday, November 20, [1906]*
My dear Loulie
I shall send you a short letter only, though I have been thinking that if I waited I might make a longer and better one!
I was very glad to hear from you dear, I have really missed you since I have been in town. Mrs. Fields and I came up from Berwick together and after a few days I went to Cambridge to spend a few days with Miss Longfellow,1 and now I am here again for another few days before I go back with my sister who is here also. Everybody has been thinking that Mrs. Fields looks better than for a long time and I think so myself. I am tempting her by the promise of good side seats to go to see Peter Pan tomorrow! You should go too if you were here!
I have seen Mrs. Cabot2 once or twice. I had luncheon with her on Sunday and she happened to say that your aunt Caroline3 was getting on well and that the Book Club auction was about to take place -- yesterday, I think.
I had a feeling that the next mail might bring a letter from Ellis, Loulie dear* -- and any rate I hope you had your little worry and had it over. It is funny how most of our troubles come from wanting things just a little different (I suppose that I mean people when I say things) -- but, a lack of response is always trying to the patience of one's heart. I agree with you in thinking that one can only follow the path of behaviour that seems right and best to oneself, but it is sometimes very odd to see how people dissent from the various steps and details and then approve the result and general course. I suppose this is partly because we have thought out things, and then they haven't, but disagree with us simply because our old idea is to them quite new. Sometimes it almost seems as if we must stop trying to have things right, and only be careful to have them pleasant! -- you know what I mean to say? -- but indeed we often think it is right because it is the way we want it. Let's try to be "pleasant" at any rate! I am almost tempted to counsel you to come home a little sooner if you really think that Ellis and aunt Kiddy disapprove and lament your being away. You will have your good visit, and give them a happy surprise -- they are both very dependent upon you, and they both love you in spite of certain occasional evidence to the contrary. What I really wish is that you should contrive some plan: perhaps to find out the right person to leave, and arrange about it, and then take your dear cousin Hélène by the hand and bring her back with you for a month or two. So big a little Carmelita can well be left and it will be good for our Johanna* to try her wings at being head of the house. Give my most affectionate remembrance to them both.
And dear Loulie, be kind to this preaching old letter! I have been advising myself while I wrote to you. I observe that I said I must be short on the first page, and I don't know when I have written so much.
Yours with true love,
S. O. J.
Cary's Notes*
1Alice Mary Longfellow (1850-1928), daughter of the poet, was a friend of long standing. Jewett often visited with her in the summer at Mouse Island in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, where Miss Longfellow annually filled in the season with a vigorous regime of walking, rowing, and sailing.
2Mrs. Joseph [Susan Burley] Cabot (1822-1907) widow of a mayor of Salem, Massachusetts, kept a summer home, Misselwood, in Pride's Crossing, a short walk down Hale Street from the Dresels' cottage on Boyles Street. Though twenty-seven years older than Jewett, she shared a rare affinity of social and intellectual tastes with her frequent guest, who dedicated The Queen's Twin and Other Stories to her.
3Caroline Howard King (1822-1909), born in Salem, lived there until 1866, then for thirty years in Boston, after which she returned for the rest of her life to Salem. In When I Lived in Salem 1822-1866 (Brattleboro, Vt., 1937) -- for which Dresel wrote the preface -- Miss King said of Mrs. Cabot: "She broadened and enlightened all who came in contact with her gracious presence, and truly it was a liberal education to know her . Miss Burley had a great love for books, and in 1848 instituted our Salem Book Club" (pp. 167-168 ). See Fields, Letters, 219. [ Letters of 1906, August 6 ]
Editor's Notes
Cary's notes for this letter are scrambled in the original printing and have been corrected here.
1906: Cary's dating of this letter in 1888 is problematic. Jewett indicates that she plans to see Peter Pan in Boston in November. J. M. Barrie's play opened in London in 1904, and the final week of its first Boston performances appears to have been the week of November 19, 1906, according to an advertisement in the Boston Evening Transcript (Tuesday 20 November 1906, 13). See also Bruce K. Hanson, Peter Pan on Stage and Screen, 1904-2010 (McFarland Arts, 2011), 65-6.
Ellis: Louisa's brother, Ellis Loring Dresel (1871-1925), a graduate of Harvard College and Law School, became a career diplomat. As a plenipotentiary at the Paris Peace Conference following World War I, he was one of the signers of the peace treaty. He served at various times in the United States embassies at Berlin, Vienna, and Berne.
Aunt Kiddy: Caroline Howard King (1822-1909), called "Kiddy" by her family, was born in Salem, lived there until 1866, then for thirty years in Boston, after which she returned for the rest of her life to Salem. She authored When I Lived in Salem 1822-1866 (Brattleboro, Vt., 1937) -- for which Dresel wrote the preface. (Cary)
cousin Hélène ... a little Carmelita ... Johanna: The Ellis Loring Gray papers at Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women show correspondence between Johanna Dresel, Helene Dresel and various other family members.
Otto Dresel was Louisa's father. See Correspondents.
Louisa had an aunt, Helene Dresel (born circa 1842), who was the wife of Otto Dresel's brother Adolf (b. September 27, 1822).
Though information so far is sketchy, it seems clear that both Helene and Johanna were cousins. Johanna (d. 1952 ? ) has been identified as a grand-daughter of Julius Dresel, Otto's half-brother. Julius Dresel (1816-1891?), an immigrant wine-grower in Texas and then in Sonoma, California. His wife probably was Jane/Johanna Plage (1823-1864?), whom he married in Bexar, Texas on 6 August 1850.
Helene probably also was a grand-daughter
In the 1890s, the Julius Dresel family was located in Sonoma, CA, and this probably is where Louisa was visiting, when Jewett suggested that she bring her cousin Helene to Boston to see her brother and Aunt Kiddy. According to the 1930 U. S. Census, a Helene Dresel (b. 1852-3) was living with her niece, Carmelita Dresel (probably 6 March, 1894 - December 1976), in San Francisco, CA. If these are the right people, in 1906, Helene would have been about 53 and Carmelita about 12.
Further information and corrections are welcome.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Am 1743 (50). This transcription by Richard Cary appeared originally in "Jewett to Dresel: 33 Letters," Colby Library Quarterly 7:1 (March 1975), 13-49, which gave permission to reprint it here. Notes are by Cary, with additions by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Robert Collyer to Annie Adams Fields
201 West 55th Street
New York Dec 9th 1906
Ever Dear Friend
Your ever such a good letter greeted me when I came home from the church this morning where I took the service and sermon.* It was a good sermon but I was not in good trim { -- } still I worried through and the folks did not let on or did not know I had waded where I should have soared while the only comfort was that the farmer had who told his better half he had not sold those potatoes for as much as he expected and he knew he shouldn't before he left home. Father Time patted me kindly on the shoulder yesterday when I got to the 93d milestone* and I think 'tis a shame the way people talk about him and the way some try to "kill" him { -- } he is my good friend. The man you ask about was John Newton{,} Cowpers* longtime friend. He is buried in St. Mary Woolnoth in London and I once made a pilgrimage to his tomb. It was said he served on a slaver in his early life but that is not proven but he was "wild" no doubt.
[ Page 2 ]
We hope to settle on a minister to morrow evening at the annual meeting and I do trust we shall. Mr Savage* is slowly amending but will never return to us. We have heard three men as candidates and as I write Mr Holmes* of Dorchester -- Mass -- seems to be the first choice. He is a young man and puts his whole soul into his work { -- } also it is worth the price. I will let you know the upshot if the Boston Herald fails you. There is a good notice of the Leslie Stephen* in this mornings Tribune and I hope to see the volume soon. I think you told me once you had met him? -- The last end of the Canon Angier* was much better than the first. I am head on to read Lowells Essays* [ for intending or ? ] shall I say bonbons { -- } they are so good. The parts in the North American from Mark Twain* about his home are among his best things. Andrew Carnegie* gives a dinner in his honor on the 18th and I am one of the guests. Pip old chap what Larks{!}*
Dear Katharine* my heart aches when I hear these sad tidings. You know I am her godfather. And what a sad story the Dexters* is all told in contrast with its promise
Always my Lassie yours
Robert Collyer
[ Upside down and added at the top of page 1 ]
Done and folded Sunday afternoon 4-15 p m
Notes
sermon: Collyer omits many periods in this letter. I have supplied them where they seem necessary.
milestone: Collyer seems confused about his age. On December 8, he would have celebrated his 83rd birthday. Perhaps he is joking, or perhaps he simply wrote the wrong number.
Newton: British Anglican cleric John Newton (1725-1807). He was a friend of British poet, William Cowper (1731-1800). According to Wikipedia, Newton captained slave ships and invested in the slave trade before becoming an abolitionist and Anglican priest.
Savage: American Unitarian minister, Minot Judson Savage (1841-1918). See Collyer to Fields of 14 February 1906.
Mr Holmes: American Unitarian minister, John Haynes Holmes (1879-1964).
Stephen: British author, Sir Leslie Stephen (1832-1904). Among his famous children was author, Virginia Woolf (1882-1941). Collyer most likely was reading Frederic William Maitland's The Life and Letters of Leslie Stephen (1906), but possibly he refers to The Interpretation of Scripture and Other Essays (1906) or another of Stephen's earlier works.
Canon Angier: Little is known about the French cleric, Angier of St. Frideswide, credited with the translation into French of the Dialogues of Pope Gregory the Great as well as of an 873 life of this pope by John the Deacon. See "Brother Angier and the early thirteenth century" in Andrew Dunning "St Frideswide’s Priory as a centre of learning in early Oxford" (2019).
What Collyer was reading by or about Angier is not yet known.
Lowells Essays: American poet and critic, James Russell Lowell. See Key to Correspondents. Lowell's essays on various topics were collected in several volumes before 1906, including The Complete Writings.
Mark Twain: American author Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), who published under the name "Mark Twain," also was a popular lecturer-entertainer. In September 1906, chapters of his autobiography began to appear in the North American Review.
Andrew Carnegie: Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919).
Larks: Collyer quotes from Great Expectations (1861) by British author, (Charles Dickens (1812-1870).
Katharine: This person has not yet been identified.
Dexters: Collyer's friends included Chicago lawyer Wirt Dexter (1832-1890) and his wife, Josephine Moore (1846-1937). It is not yet known whether Collyer refers to this family or what problem he is sad about.
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.
Annie Adams Fields to Sarah Orne Jewett
[ Christmas 25 December 1906 ]*
Dearest, it is getting late but I must send you one word. Was [ there corrected ] ever anything more distinct than our voices this [ eveg so written ] {--} we seemed close together! Mrs Cabot* [ asked ? ] this morning if you were still here and Mrs [ Bradley corrected ] to know if a note from her had reached you. H. H. Furness's pretty stone set as a broach has just come -- indeed presents have been dropping along all day and Mrs [ Fitz ? ] came instead of writing just before luncheon to thank you for your
[ Page 2 ]
remembrance & gift & oddly enough the reproduction from one of the most famous Fra Lippo* wh. I sent her was an especially beloved picture of hers --
Helen* was much gladdened by the Angel da Forli. [ These corrected ] old pictures of the world (many of them) she had made her own through [ photography corrected ]. Among the 85 letters she has answered are many very curious and [ some ? ] wonderful in their sympathy & beauty. "I loved them all{"} and kissed each one and tied them up with a ribbon ! ! She says one came of Alice's great depression is now* that Helen is about to sell her house and leave Boston with [ Eizel ? ] in the spring {--}
[ Up the left margin of page 1 ]
of course we shall not speak of this at present --
[ Up the right margin of page 1 ]
your own sleepy A.F.
Notes
1906: This date is a guess resting on these hints. That gifts are being exchanged suggests the season is Christmas. If Helen Bell is correctly identified and she is responding to many letters of sympathy, then presumably she recently has lost someone close to her. This was probably her sister, who often was characterized as her twin, though they were not literally twins. Miriam Foster Choate Pratt died on 10 December 1906.
Cabot ... Bradley: Susan Burley Cabot. Key to Correspondents.
Mrs. Bradley may be American painter Susan Hinckley Bradley (1851-1929). Wikipedia.
H. H. Furness's: Horace Howard Furness. Key to Correspondents.
Fitz: A Mrs. Fitz is mentioned several times in letters to Jewett from Katharine Prescott Wormeley,. Key to Correspondents.
However, in this case, it seems more likely Fields refers to Henrietta Goddard Wigglesworth Fitz (1847-1929), sister-in-law of her friend, Robert Sturgis Grew (1834-1910).
Filippo Lippi (Fra Lippo) (1406-1469) was an Italian painter and priest. Wikipedia.
Helen: Of the various Helens who corresponded with Fields and Jewett, this seems likely to be Helen Choate Bell. Key to Correspondents.
Italian architect and painter, Melozzo da Forl (1438-1494), is known for depictions of angels. Wikipeida.
Alice: Probably Alice Greenwood Howe. Key to Correspondents.
is now: This is fairly clearly what Fields has written, and it is not clear what she intended.
Eizel: This appears to be a name, but the transcription is doubtful and the person has not yet been identified.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library of Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Sarah Orne Jewett Additional Correspondence, 100 letters from Annie Adams Fields, bMS Am 1743.1 Box 1, Item 33.
Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Mark Antony DeWolfe Howe
148 Charles Street
Sunday night
[ Winter 1906 ]*
My dear friend, I have been meaning to copy this piece of a late letter from Mr. James -- and now that it is written off I wonder that I didn't just send you the letter itself! He adds [ further corrected from farther ? ] to tell me that if I demand the book he means to wait for a private conveyance -- books going to America meet with such dangers by the way!
[ Page 2 ]
-- I can but smile sadly, and with your "participation" let our dear friend keep it! I didn’t know where it had gone, my only Boston! -- for I wasn’t at that dinner nor did I see him until some weeks later and when he came, later than that, to Berwick he never dared to confess. But isn’t it nice that he
[ Page 3 ]
likes it? I think you ought to have more pleasure than I over the message but I had a great deal. I hope that you wont stop to write about it but come very soon so that we can talk about my borrowing so valued a work, being now in real need!!
Yours affectionately,
S. O. J.
[ On a new page in different ink ]
Mr. James writes me: (after speaking of Mrs. ^J. W.^ Howe* as) -- "the greater, the greatest Mrs. Howe (not less than the lesser) & to convey a renewed benediction to that very pleasant young author=man who was with her at Mrs Fields’s* that day at dinner, the DeWolfe of that ilk, whose big Boston-y book I so handsomely stole" -----
_______________________________
This may seem an incoherent little affectionate message at first sight, but I think you will both make it out as H. J.’s narrative vein!
[ Jewett's Transcription of her letter from Henry James ]
---- And àpropos of books I find I have in my possession a volume of yours, a very valuable one, the presentation copy of DeWolfe Howe’s very handsome and charmingly done "Boston" which you must have lent me the night you and he and I -- and Mrs. Howe under his charge -- dined together at Mrs. Fields’s in so interesting a fashion. It appears to have tumbled recklessly into my luggage on my departing later on -- and the perusal of it here this autumn
[ Page 2 ]
(for I had never time before,) has made up to me a little for my having failed to see again that most engaging youth the Author,* in spite of my having (at the dinner in question) counted on putting my hand on him afresh, -- at a date that never became possible. And all this under the empire of his and yours and every one’s irresistible charm. Will you kindly, if you have the little Boston chance of it, say
[ Page 3 ]
something of this to the said gallant and genial DeWolfe for me, and mention to him by way of a message from me, that the reading of his encyclopaedic little work greatly helped to put me in the mood for writing, 3 months ago, a small impression of the admirable city* (which has yet to be published.) This is a long story to trouble you with, but the moral is that I hold the volume at your disposal (unless you tell me with his participation to cherish
[ Page 4 ]
it forever in memory of that rare evening* -- ) --------------------
Notes
Winter 1906: Penciled in another hand in the top left corner of page 1: "See also H. James". For Henry James, see Key to Correspondents.
In The Gentle Americans (1965), Helen Howe, includes transcriptions of this letter and of Jewett's copy of the Henry James letter. She dates the exchange to 1906, and points out that the book under discussion is Boston, the Place and the People (1903) by Mark DeWolfe Howe.
J. W. Howe: Julia Ward Howe. See Key to Correspondents.
Mrs. Fields's: Annie Adams Fields. See Key to Correspondents.
Author: Jewett may have double underlined the capital A.
the admirable city: It is likely that James's paper on Boston eventually appeared in his collection, The American Scene (1907). Chapter 7 is entitled "Boston." The book arose from James's visit to the United States in 1904-5.
rare evening: In Annie Adams Fields, Rita Gollin summarizes accounts of the evening Henry James spent at Annie Fields's 148 Charles Street home in the company of Mark DeWolfe Howe and Julia Ward Howe in the winter of 1905 (pp. 205-6).
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 Louisa Dresel
26th Decr
[ 1906 ]*
[ Begin letterhead ]
South Berwick, Maine
[ End letterhead ]
My dear Loulie
You seem to have come home from the Pacific Coast like the old Spanish buccaneers! I never saw such splendours{.} The Dragon does not [ frighten ? ] me -- I hope he will not fear South Berwick! and the beautiful other piece of embroidery is a true treasure -- the [ pin ? ] and all my joys! -- but I love best of all your dear and
[ Page 2 ]
constant Christmas remembrance.
It was so nice to meet you on Monday and to see the little cousin. I do not see any likeness to Johanna!* She seemed like a dear and willing child -- Alas, how much easier it is for Johanna and all to be good away from home{.} -- It is at home however that we are surest of love, to match the discipline I daresay --
[ Page 3 ]
I hoped that you would like the Woodbury* drawing for I am very fond of it -- you see all the Beaufort colour -- and it is so surely drawn. I have had it some time and discovered that I wished to give it to you! I forget if you know Quebec and that dear Beauport* road?
Good bye dear Loulie
with love and thanks
from S. O. J.
Notes
1906: This speculative date is based upon Jewett's letter to Dresel tentatively dated 20 November 1906, in which Jewett mentions Johanna, and anticipates Dresel bringing cousins from California to visit in Boston.
Johanna: Johanna probably also was a cousin of Louisa Dresel, descended from her uncle, Julius Dresel, a Sonoma, California wine maker.
Woodbury: Almost certainly, Jewett has given Dresel a drawing by one member of the American artist couple, Charles H.Woodbury and Susan Oakes Woodbury. See Key to Correspondents.
Beauport: Beauport is a borough of Quebec City in Canada.
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Morgan Library & Museum. MA 2932. Purchase, Acquisitions Fund; 1976. Transcription and notes by Terry Heller, Coe College.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Frances Rollins Morse
December 27th
[ 1906 ]*
[ Begin letterhead ]
South Berwick, Maine
[ End letterhead ]
Dearest Fanny
I thank you and your dear mother so much for your lovely gifts -- the Japanese treasure she gave me is a treasure indeed. I wish that the first flower I put in could be a pink 'single' rose from Malt Hall! Do thank her so much -- and* I shall come just as soon as I can when I get back to town to thank her myself -- and your book, dear, -- I am delighted with -- I mean to read it tomorrow. Today and yesterday were poor days for reading as I want a good
[ Page 2 ]
day. I didn't call you a single bad name -- you are making it all up! I knew you would feel about this dear romantic story of old Italy just as I do and the first letter didn't make me doubt -- It is so full of tenderness which strangely enough is sometimes lacking in things that have plenty of "feeling" -- and it make you see Italy, doesn't it? Vernon Lee* is a strange little figure against that background but she is what I call a winter pear and coming late to her best goodness. When
[ Page 3 ]
I come up I shall bring a little book that she calls Hortus Vitae -- but I am not quite so sure about you with that as with the Ariadne -- I hope to begin my winter visit to Mrs. Cabot* on Tuesday --
Thank you for both your letters and for all you both give me to love, in yourselves and in this Christmas remembrance that I hold so dear.
Yours always with
unforgetting love
Sarah
Notes
1906: This date appears in another hand at the top right of page 1. The rationale is not known, but this is a possible date. The earliest likely date is 1903, when Jewett was recovered enough from her 1902 accident and when the Vernon Lee books mentioned here were new. However, in 1903 and 1904, Jewett was in Boston for Christmas. In 1905 and 1906, she was in South Berwick. 1906 was the last Christmas before the death of Mrs. Cabot.
and: Sometimes in this letter, Jewett writes "a" with a long tail for "and." I give these as "and."
Vernon Lee: Pseudonym of the British writer Violet Paget (1856 -1935). She published both Ariadne in Mantua: A Romance in Five Acts and Hortus Vitae: Essays on the Gardening of Life in 1903.
Cabot: Susan Burley Cabot ( d. 23 March 1907).
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.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Harriet Jackson Lee Morse and Frances Rollins Morse
South Berwick
Thursday
[ Christmas time, 1906 ]*
[ Upper left of side 1 -- stamped in green ink,
inside a circle, superimposed initials SOJ ]
Dearest Mrs Morse and Fanny
I think of what I shall put in those Japanese roses and it is going to be boughs of pointed firs or firs in one and pine in the other as befits the State of Maine.* Thank you both ever so much,
[ Page 2 ]
but most of all for your dear Christmas remembrance.
And please thank [ Miss corrected ] Allen* for the charming photograph -- it makes me want to see Nantucket more than ever. I saw you all at the Rose & the Ring* but I could not get to speak to you. I shall hope to be in Boston again next week{.}
yours always most lovingly
Sarah
Notes
1906: Jewett's is known to have used of this stationary between 1903 and 1909. She probably was in South Berwick for Christmas each year 1905-1908. I have placed this transcription in the earliest of these years, for which there is not another Christmas letter from Jewett to Morse.
See also Jewett's letter to Fanny Morse of 27 December, probably from 1906, in which she mentions the gift of a Japanese treasure.
Maine: Maine has long been called " the Pine Tree State."
Allen: This person has not yet been identified.
Rose & the Ring: Wikipedia says that The Rose and the Ring is a satirical fantasy, published on Christmas in 1854, authored by British novelist William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863). It has been adapted to other media, including staged performances, given particularly at Christmas time.
Harvard Latin professor, James B. Greenough (1833-1901), adapted the book into a pantomime for private theatricals in 1880. Presumably, Jewett and the Morses attended one of these at Christmas in the year this card was written.
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.
Lily M Hoppin to Sarah Orne Jewett
[ Begin Letterhead ]
Bertram Hall,*
Cambridge
[ End Letterhead ]
Dec. 28. '06
Dear Miss Jewett,
How can I thank you for your kind remembrance of me -- & for putting that beautiful book in my way! I had not seen these last last "Verses" though I have several of the earlier ones from Miss Woolsey's*
[ Page 2 ]
own hand, [ since ? ] an Easter morning in the happy days at 77 Mt. Vernon St.* These [ verses corrected ] seem to me to breathe all the beauty of that nearer vision that came to her in the last years. She was able to put into words for us, all that
[ Page 3 ]
one's heart longed to say. I have found the ones you marked for me. I am so happy to have them. Those lines to Virginia will sing my my memory,
"And the Eternal world, so dim, so fair.
- - - - -
Nearer and friendlier seems now she is there."
Thank you many times over. May I hope to see you again
[ Page 4 ]
some time not very far off?
Thine most gratefully
Lily M. Hoppin.
[ Up the left margin, from the bottom of page 4
penciled, probably in another hand ]
One of the Whitmanites*
Notes
Bertram Hall: The first dormitory built by Radcliffe College, in Cambridge. MA. Hoppin was the first "Mistress of Bertram Hall" (1901-1918).
Miss Woolsey's: Sarah Chauncey Woolsey. See Key to Correspondents. Published under her pen name, Susan Coolidge, Woolsey's Last Verses appeared in 1906. Hoppin quotes from "Virginia," (164-5):
77 Mt. Vernon St: The address of Sarah Wyman Whitman, who died in 1904. See Key to Correspondents.But like a star she hovers through our tears,
And the Eternal world, so dim, so fair,
Which holds the secret of our mortal years,
Nearer and friendlier seems now she is there.
Whitmanites: Almost certainly a reference to Sarah Wyman Whitman, suggesting that Hoppin was one of her friends and supporters. Whitman provided several works of art for Radcliffe, including a portrait of Elizabeth Cabot Cary Agassiz, Radcliffe's first president, a window, and the design for the Radcliffe Seal. See "Radcliffe Art Treasures" in The Radcliffe News 2 (9 October 1914).
The manuscript of this letter is held by the Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Hoppin, Lily M. 1 letter; 1906. Jewett, Sarah Orne, 1849-1909. Sarah Orne Jewett additional correspondence 1868-1930. MS Am 1743.1 (50).
Sarah Orne Jewett to Sarah Perkins Cabot Wheelwright
South BerwickDear S.
Saturday
[ 29 December 1906 ]*
I meant to tell you sooner that I shall not come back to town until Monday, but I hope that you and Mrs. Crane* may get to Charles Street all the same. I doubt me about any [unrecognized word] next week. Thank you, and thank Mary* for your letters -- but I put the thanks for the green Berwick boughs at my sister Mary's* door where they belonged! -- Affectionately
S.O.J.
Notes
1906: This postcard is addressed to Mrs. A. C. Wheelwright, 73 Mount Vernon Street, Boston, and it appears to be cancelled on December 29, 1906.
Mrs. Crane: While this can only be speculative, Mrs. Wheelwright is likely to have been acquainted with Josephine Porter Boardman Crane (1873-1972), second wife of the Massachusetts businessman and politician, Winthrop Murray Crane (1853-1920). A more likely candidate, perhaps, would be Mr. Crane's mother, Louise Frances Laflin Crane (1830-1916).
Mary: Mrs. Wheelwright's daughter. See Key to Correspondents.
sister Mary: Mary Rice Jewett. See Key to Correspondents.
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.
Edited by Terry Heller, Coe College.
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