?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
"YOU NEW YORKERS ARE ALTOGETHER MISTAKEN IN YOUR NOTIONS ABOUT CAMBRIDGE" LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH. Autograph Letter Signed, to poet and politician Samuel Ward ("My dear Sam"), remarking that the voice of his sister Louisa reminded him of the last time he was able to see all three sisters [including Julia Ward, soon to become Mrs. Howe], requesting that a package be shipped to Boston, looking forward to attending his lecture, hoping for a visit so that he can hear his opinions about "Skeleton in Armor" and a lengthy unnamed work, expressing sadness about news of "the Philosopher," inquiring after [Joseph Green?] Cogswell, remarking that there is only one transcendentalist in Cambridge, reporting the adoption of Puseyism in Cambridge [Edward Bouverie Pusey's Oxfordianism], and stating that New Yorkers have a mistaken impression of Cambridge. 3½ pages, 4to, written on two sheets, terminal page written above and below address panel; seal tear in second leaf with minor loss to text, folds. Cambridge [MA], 1 December 1840
". . . On Sunday I drove to town to see your sister Louisa . . . . I was very glad to see her fair face again. . . . [A]nd the sound of her voice carried me back to that dripping morning in February last, when I took leave of the sisters three. . . . In ten minutes, I learned more from Louisa about you all in New York than I have learned from your letters in a year; . . . "I am glad to hear (from Louisa) that you lecture this Winter . . . . I shall be there to hear; and will sit down in front right before you, as you did, when I stood in the pulpit. We shall change places. "Why can't you come here for a day or two, little Sam. I want to see you very much; and have a good many things to show you, in the literary way. I will read you the 'Skeleton in Armor' . . . ; and something . . . which as yet no eye but mine has seen, and which I wish to read to you first. I shall . . . have your judgment and criticism upon these, sitting in your oak-wainscotted library. At present, my dear friend, my soul is wrapt up in poetry. Your prophecy was true. The scales fell from eyes suddenly; and I beheld before me a beautiful landscape with figures, which I have transferred to paper almost without an effort, and with a celerity, of which I did not think myself capable. Since my return from Portland, I am almost afraid to look at it, for fear the colors should have faded out. And this is the reason why I do not describe the work to you more particularly; I am not sure it is worth it. . . . Remember, it is my secret; which I cannot help revealing to you, because my heart is running over. ". . . Write me soon, from your own Library--not from Wall Street. The letter must absolutely come from Bond Street. What sad news is that of the Philosopher! after all you have done to save him. And Cogswell--how is he? Is he never coming this way? By the way, Mr. Cox, in the notes to his poems, speaks of the 'Pantheism of Cambridge'. This is too gross! Why, there is in all Cambridge only one Transcendentalist--and he a tutor [Thomas Wentworth Higginson?]. In the Theological School there is none of it. . . . The students there are now inclining to rigid Puseyism. You New Yorkers are altogether mistaken in your notions about Cambridge. Take my word for it, you are."
