Letter from Helen Hunt to Charlotte Cushman
Dublin Core
Title
Letter from Helen Hunt to Charlotte Cushman
Subject
Jackson, Helen Hunt
Cushman, Charlotte Saunders, 1816-1876
Stebbins, Emma, 1815-1882
Relationships-- Intimate--Same-sex
Relationships--Intimate--Opposite-sex
Marriage
Artists
Journalists/Writers
Gossip--Private
Description
Hunt explains to Charlotte Cushman why she has not sent her any verses as of late, and talks about the poem "Boon" that she did send but is unsure whether she has receieved it. There are mentions of a new poem of Hunt called "The Lost Symphony." Helen Hunt writes about the artist's nature, being dependent on recognition as an artist, and her work as Saxe Holms. Helen mentions Charlotte's retirement to Newport and informs her that the Woolseys are about to buy a house in Newport. She asks Cushman to refrain from telling Sarah Woolsey that Hunt is Saxe Holms, which Sarah only suspects but is not sure of.
Helen Hunt talks about her partner and that she only knows three "pure souled" men.
For transcripts, please also see Colorado College.
Helen Hunt talks about her partner and that she only knows three "pure souled" men.
Credit
Library of Congress, Charlotte Cushman Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.For transcripts, please also see Colorado College.
Creator
Hunt, Helen Jackson, 1830-1885
Source
LoC, CCP 11:3415-3419
Type
Reference
Letter Item Type Metadata
Text
[3415] Sentimental school, and these two last ones have been so much less noticed and praised than the others were, that it has discouraged me. I wish the artistic temperament were not so dependent on praise and recognition. It is a subtle source of strength no doubt as well as of weakness; - this need of recognition; but it is a source of pain. I suppose there is no artist in the world who does not have hours, or days, of feeling that he has no power whatsoever, that it has been all a presumption and mistake. As for the mysterious interdependence of soul
[3416] and body in the artist nature – it frightens me, to realize it. – I, my whole self [underlined], can cease to exist, in a twenty four hours time, if the rascally mucous membrane in which I am sheathed, sees fit to swell up a millionth of an inch, or turn red, a shade or two!
You ask why I do not send you my verses occasionally, Regina. Partly this distrust of them all; - partly an ever increasing dislike of the manual labor of writing; partly because I have written fewer, of late. Last
[reverse 3415] year the two Saxe Holms, and the Colorado Letters were the chief of my work. In Bethlehem, last October, I wrote “Broon[?]” which you seem not to have got. I shall write to Roberts asking him to send it again. It must have missed you on some road. It is the longest poem I have written; too long and too sad to be popular but it was “laid on me” to write it. I am now at work on another long poem “The Lost Symphony” – I hope it will be good.
As soon as you return to Newport my dear friend Miss Sarah Woolsey "Susan Coolidge who wrote the delicious
[reverse 3416] “New Years Bargain”) will come to see you. with a note from me. The Woolseys are probably to buy a house in Newport and I know that Sally will be a woman after your own heart. As for her, the town will become transformed to her once you are in it. She finds it hard to like the place heartily, as indeed any one must who demands clever people in plenty; and Sally has had too long a taste for Boston to like anything else, or less, very much. (Do not tell her I am S.H. She believes but does not know it. She is not one I could trust with the secret.) They have been living in my old rooms
[3417] at Mrs. Dames for two months, and strange to say, like the Newport climate!
I saw Mrs. +++ Hunt in Boston. How I wish I could talk with you about that sad tragedy of those two lives. She seems to me like some grand old heroic creature out of another age. How she has stood in the breach for that untrue soul. Even William Hunt’s art is no longer true to me – I find his falseness between my eyes and the picture all the time; and yet, I know that the picture is the same it always was. -
[3418] If I come East in May, I shall find you in Newport? I think now that I shall come then. Perhaps people will have told you that I have been very near staying here the rest of my life. It has seemed to me almost possibly to do it - but not quite. I think this is one reason I have not written to you. I have thought each week. I might have that to tell you. When I sit at your feet, I will tell you the whole story. It is an uncommon one, and will touch you.
[3417 reverse] It is a strange thing in the life of a woman organized as I am, and who has had the experience that I have, -- that the only man who has compelled her seriously to think of marrying, should be a plain unvarnished, comparatively uneducated business man. – But so it is, and when I [word crossed out] go away from him in the spring, I shall miss his simple-hearted, quiet, patient devotion out of my life, more than I have ever yet missed anything a man had to give me! He is one of the three absolutely pure souled and upright men I have every known. –
[3418 reverse] Did you ever notice any of Gilder’s sonnets in Scribners, in the “Old Cabinet”? – He who has married Helena de Kay? – They were lovelier than anybody’s since Petrarchs[?]; and now I hear that a baby is to come to them: [word crossed out] (to Gilder and Helena I mean, not to the sonnets!) – and much I wonder what soul will be born to that artist [word crossed out] woman [inserted] & poet man. – By the way, he [word crossed out] wrote me last fall, & asked me if I dared ask you for the stick with which you played Meg Merrilies that last immortal time in N. York? He said that he & Helena would keep
[3419] it enshrined as long as they lived.
Dear Queen, this is a long and egotistical letter: - all the suppressed letters of the last four silent months, poured out in one. – I shall be ashamed of it after it is gone.
If Miss Stebbins is with you, give my dear love to her – and to you, oh my beloved [word crossed out] Regina [inserted], goes in this letter, -- the whole soul of allegiance from
Your fond & faithful, H.H.
[3416] and body in the artist nature – it frightens me, to realize it. – I, my whole self [underlined], can cease to exist, in a twenty four hours time, if the rascally mucous membrane in which I am sheathed, sees fit to swell up a millionth of an inch, or turn red, a shade or two!
You ask why I do not send you my verses occasionally, Regina. Partly this distrust of them all; - partly an ever increasing dislike of the manual labor of writing; partly because I have written fewer, of late. Last
[reverse 3415] year the two Saxe Holms, and the Colorado Letters were the chief of my work. In Bethlehem, last October, I wrote “Broon[?]” which you seem not to have got. I shall write to Roberts asking him to send it again. It must have missed you on some road. It is the longest poem I have written; too long and too sad to be popular but it was “laid on me” to write it. I am now at work on another long poem “The Lost Symphony” – I hope it will be good.
As soon as you return to Newport my dear friend Miss Sarah Woolsey "Susan Coolidge who wrote the delicious
[reverse 3416] “New Years Bargain”) will come to see you. with a note from me. The Woolseys are probably to buy a house in Newport and I know that Sally will be a woman after your own heart. As for her, the town will become transformed to her once you are in it. She finds it hard to like the place heartily, as indeed any one must who demands clever people in plenty; and Sally has had too long a taste for Boston to like anything else, or less, very much. (Do not tell her I am S.H. She believes but does not know it. She is not one I could trust with the secret.) They have been living in my old rooms
[3417] at Mrs. Dames for two months, and strange to say, like the Newport climate!
I saw Mrs. +++ Hunt in Boston. How I wish I could talk with you about that sad tragedy of those two lives. She seems to me like some grand old heroic creature out of another age. How she has stood in the breach for that untrue soul. Even William Hunt’s art is no longer true to me – I find his falseness between my eyes and the picture all the time; and yet, I know that the picture is the same it always was. -
[3418] If I come East in May, I shall find you in Newport? I think now that I shall come then. Perhaps people will have told you that I have been very near staying here the rest of my life. It has seemed to me almost possibly to do it - but not quite. I think this is one reason I have not written to you. I have thought each week. I might have that to tell you. When I sit at your feet, I will tell you the whole story. It is an uncommon one, and will touch you.
[3417 reverse] It is a strange thing in the life of a woman organized as I am, and who has had the experience that I have, -- that the only man who has compelled her seriously to think of marrying, should be a plain unvarnished, comparatively uneducated business man. – But so it is, and when I [word crossed out] go away from him in the spring, I shall miss his simple-hearted, quiet, patient devotion out of my life, more than I have ever yet missed anything a man had to give me! He is one of the three absolutely pure souled and upright men I have every known. –
[3418 reverse] Did you ever notice any of Gilder’s sonnets in Scribners, in the “Old Cabinet”? – He who has married Helena de Kay? – They were lovelier than anybody’s since Petrarchs[?]; and now I hear that a baby is to come to them: [word crossed out] (to Gilder and Helena I mean, not to the sonnets!) – and much I wonder what soul will be born to that artist [word crossed out] woman [inserted] & poet man. – By the way, he [word crossed out] wrote me last fall, & asked me if I dared ask you for the stick with which you played Meg Merrilies that last immortal time in N. York? He said that he & Helena would keep
[3419] it enshrined as long as they lived.
Dear Queen, this is a long and egotistical letter: - all the suppressed letters of the last four silent months, poured out in one. – I shall be ashamed of it after it is gone.
If Miss Stebbins is with you, give my dear love to her – and to you, oh my beloved [word crossed out] Regina [inserted], goes in this letter, -- the whole soul of allegiance from
Your fond & faithful, H.H.
From
Hunt, Helen Jackson, 1830-1885
To
Cushman, Charlotte Saunders, 1816-1876
Annotations
added probably by archivist: page 3
the preceding pages [11:3412-3414] are poems by Ellen Hooper, the archivist indicated that they are not by Helen Hunt, which is why they are not included in one of the items
the preceding pages [11:3412-3414] are poems by Ellen Hooper, the archivist indicated that they are not by Helen Hunt, which is why they are not included in one of the items
Social Bookmarking
Collection
Citation
Hunt, Helen Jackson, 1830-1885, “Letter from Helen Hunt to Charlotte Cushman,” Archival Gossip Collection, accessed April 25, 2024, https://archivalgossip.com/collection/items/show/213.