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James T. Fields and Annie Adams Fields — 4 Aug. 1862

To JAMES T. FIELDS and ANNIE ADAMS FIELDS
August 4, [1862], Wheeling

I don’t know which to write to. I cannot separate you, and I do want a good talk to both of you this tropical morning. Such a long time since we looked out on the bay from that ‘glorified’ breakfast room![1] Now that I am at home again in the midst of dust and smoke, I want to take up the old threads and feel as near to you all as I can. Very soon I hope to see and touch you. Very soon, remember – as soon as this air will let you breathe here. Last night my mother asked me when you were coming – one of my brothers looked despairingly out of the dingy street and said, ‘How can we find anything pleasant to show them’? and I selfishly enough said, ‘I don’t care, I’ll see them.’ Where are you? At the seaside with that cheery healthful Lizzy Bartol?[2] I mean healthful every way. Isn’t she?


I want you to write me long gossipy letters, let me feel that I have not left Boston altogether. I meant ‘honour bright’ Annie, to send you the photograph from Baltimore and had three taken – different ones – which every one pronounced to be me without a trace of any expression – so I destroyed them. I am sorry. But, sincerely – I did my best. I console myself by the fact that a ‘thorough beauty never is photographed’ vide London paper.


By the way, what does Mr. MacMillan[3] say? Please tell me soon.


I only came home last Thursday after a happy week in Philadelphia.[4] Baltimore[5] was charitably hospitable and offered me her specialite in the shape of a mob, which detained our carriage in Mt. Vernon place one day. Otherwise it is a beautiful city and has left a most heartsome memory of itself with me. The streets in the evening with lighted drawing rooms and fresh faces grouped on the balconies were so bright after the barred windows of New York. My young lady-friend was never tired of displaying her autographs, and bidding me thank you for them.


You have converted Wilse[6] to a faith in all Boston. What did you do? He thoroughly believes in every animate and inanimate article in No. 37 Charles St. [7]


Many thanks to Miss Peabody[8] for the letters. Was I right, do you think? She told me one day she meant to send them, but entre nous I thought she hardly meant it, and was surprised when they came. Have you heard anything more from Mr. Forster? Annie, tell me if you do hear anything that shakes or confirms your opinion that night. I did not speak of it at home – I could not. Write often, don’t forget that time – so very happy for me. Put Mr. Holmes[9] in mind of me. You don’t know how I hate the word – forget – I enclose a note to Kate Field[10] in place of the photograph I promised, having lost her address.


Yours always truly

R. B. Harding



Notes

  1. RHD has just returned from her trip to see the Fieldses and other friends in New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.

  2. Elizabeth (“Lizzie” or “Lizzy”) Howard Bartol (1842-1927), whom RHD met in Boston. She was the daughter of Rev. Cyrus Augustus Bartol (1813-1900), a Unitarian minister at the West Church, Boston, and Elizabeth Howard Bartol (1803-1883). Elizabeth would soon be known as a talented portrait artist.

  3. Alexander MacMillan (1818-1896), Scottish publisher and cofounder of Macmillan Publishing. RHD repeatedly pressured James T. Fields in these years to find an English publisher for her works.

  4. RHD visited her future husband, L. Clarke Davis, in Philadelphia.

  5. Cyrus Dickson (1839-1881) had been minister of the Second Presbyterian Church in Wheeling from 1848 to 1856; he and his wife became close friends of RHD’s in those years, and she visited them and a “lady friend,” possibly a former schoolmate, in Baltimore on her 1862 trip.

  6. RHD’s eldest brother, Hugh Wilson Harding (1835-1906); he had visited the Fieldses when he was in Boston on business.

  7. Address of the Fieldses’ home in Boston.

  8. Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (1804-1894), an erudite US educator and sister of Sophia Peabody Hawthorne. RHD met her at Nathaniel and Sophia Hawthorne’s home on her 1862 trip.

  9. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894), author, poet, and former editor of the Atlantic Monthly.

  10. Kate Field (1838-1896), American journalist and lecturer whom RHD met through the Fieldses while she was in Boston.


Key Words

Alexander Macmillan, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Elizabeth (Lizzie) Bartol, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Hugh Wilson Harding, Kate Field, L. Clarke Davis, photographs of RHD, Rev. Cyrus Dickson, travel


Source

Huntington Library, San Marino, California


Contributor

S. M. Harris

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