Letter from Charlotte Cushman to Helen Hunt Jackson, n.d.
Dublin Core
Title
Letter from Charlotte Cushman to Helen Hunt Jackson, n.d.
Subject
Cushman, Charlotte Saunders, 1816-1876
Stebbins, Emma, 1815-1882
Cushman, Emma Crow, 1839-1920
Jackson, Helen Hunt
Social Events--Travels
Illness
Description
Charlotte Cushman discusses her current state of health and living situation.
Transcripts courtesy of Nancy Knipe, Colorado College.
Transcripts courtesy of Nancy Knipe, Colorado College.
Creator
Cushman, Charlotte Saunders, 1816-1876
Source
Colorado College, Tutt Library, Helen Hunt Jackson Papers, Part 2, Ms 0156, Box 2, Folder 34, letters from Charlotte Cushman to HH, 1869-70. Transcribed by Nancy Knipe, 2005.
Type
Reference
Letter Item Type Metadata
Text
Bella donna mia -
was there ever any body who seemed half so ungrateful & unmindful & good for nothing, in your bright eyes, as I do? I am ashamed that I have not found, made time, to acknowledge your sweet note of the 10" which came so promptly in response to mine, [thru?] having had great difficulty in getting my letters to any body or from any body else, in less than two days, however short the distance that I half surmise you are in some compact with the postmaster general. That your letters shall go whatever else may stop! You are too good & kind to me, dear, to write me such long nice clear notes, when your poor dear fingers must be wearied to the bone with writing. But I am grateful & not unmindful, though I have remained so long without answering. The truth is dear, that my voyage left me quite miserable with internal strifes, & although I was dragged from Dan to Beersheba by good kind loving hospitable friends & had not the moral courage to deny any body who wanted me, I was really so physically unfit for this that any moment I could sit in my own rooms, I was too wearied to write. Every day I wanted to write, & every day brought such petty but absolute demands upon me, that I never got the right moment for you. Although I was only in New York [twelve?] days, yet I was as completely in the swirl of things, as though I had never been any where else, and when Emma Cushman & the bairns had returned from Boston (where they went to say howdy-do to their aunts & cousins,) & rested on Sunday & Monday 13&14", & tore themselves away from me on the night of the latter [crossed out: to go] to St. Louis to their relatives there, I felt that if I would regain my own torn & disquieted & [frightened?] soul, I must get away to the country as soon as possible. On Tuesday I did as much galioping as I ever did in my life, in the way of trying to do up some of my social [decencies?], finish up my errands & commissions to be ready to get off here on the Tuesday 16", which I did. Of course in my first arrival here, what with unpacking boxes, unpacking ones mind & seeing the minds of my hostesses unpacked as well, exchanging all the thoughts which have arisen since we parted two years ago. I have not been able to write more than a business note or so, & this brings me to the end of my apologies. I will never make any more to you, dear, for if any human being living will make allowances for me, it will be you, & apologies fill all our note[s]. Amen!
What you say about this thin air dear, is absolutely true. I have been up to "F in alt" in my nerves ever since my arrival, not withstanding the physical ills which took me down to double C in [diagram of musical staff with notation in circle imposed on staff]! And [here?] when nature in the repose of fulfilled promise seems so calm, I find myself turned tight up to the very highest notes. The cold is a little nervous as well & this morning we had a snow flurry snow so crystallized that it did not melt as it fell on the roof, but blew away again like sand. I am so happy in the country, I don't wonder, dear, at your staying at Bethlehem just as long as you possibly can. I don't believe I shall stir from here until after Xmas & then, get away to Newport, the very earliest moment. But of course we shall see what time does for us.
I talked with 'he of Newport" & liked him very very much, as I remember I did in Worcester once in the old days. He is sweet & fresh & [forth] minded & mannered, but you are not to tell him that I say this! There was a visitor with me at the same time, so I had not the opportunity of being entirely at my ease, as one is when one talks "a due' & I fear my unsettled ideas as to when I should go to Newport gave him little satisfaction as to whether I really knew what I do want or intend. But it could not be helped I was very distracted in New York & really did not know. I dare say Mrs. Botta may tell you that I was not made more quiet & calm by an opinion I had from her German Dr. [Neftel?] about whom she wrote to me in Europe. But I can do nothing as yet. I am not sufficiently recovered from my last suffering to [risk?] willingly into any more until it is absolutely necessary, but, I learned what gives me infinite anxiety & care, & this also was one of my excuses for shortcomings in all ways.
This letter will just reach you dear before your leaving for Boston. I suppose for Thanksgiving day, then you will be a[t] work in N. Haven.
Mr. Higginson proposed a very admirable plan, & one which suited me exactly, which was that I should take apartments at Riggs & "be served"-- by that means perhaps if we all go at the same time we might each have separate bed rooms, sufficiently large to [make?] our individual work in, & then I should have a sitting room in which we could all meet. How say you. At all events, you could very likely have rooms in the same house, which would be "perfectly lovely" as Annie [Levin?] says.
I must try Newport for a month or so before I make any decision as to taking a house, & this would be the best plan for all of us. Mrs. Cushmans [sic] house is a very nice pretty "respectable looking private house." That is, the drawing rooms are very prettily furnished, & she is as nice a woman as you will ever meet under the circumstances which force a woman to get her living in such a way. She is refined & intelligent & advanced, but timid & nervous & anxious. She has a very beautiful bright, newly furnished back second floor (over the back drawing room) room, 21 feet by 17 large, two large windows, open fireplace. This room has now a bedstead in it, but it could be easily changed to a sitting room by putting in a sofa bedstead instead of a regular bedstead. I have not seen a prettier room in New York or one with more capabilities of being made lovely. Adjoining it is a small single bedroom, also bright & sunny. The service is good, the food good and simple & well cooked, & the service is good as any private family. I paid for myself & maid in $45 the week. I should think that Mrs. Hunt would do very well to see Mrs. Cushman. Miss [Jane ?] who saw me in these rooms a number of times & who is a friend of Mrs. Hunt, thought they would suit her admirably-about a transient accommodation I could not say, but if you write to her before you come to New York, & ask her, in my name, if she has room & will take you, you can see for yourself. [Grace Sedgewick?] lived with Mrs. Cushman for some time, & Miss Valerie, another of the [Sedgewicks?], & the Elliots lived there also. You might say where that as you will be only transiently there, if she has the opportunity of letting the room (she puts you into) for a permanency, you will let her change you elsewhere & she might be more free to take you. I should like you to establish relations with her. Now goodbye dear, & God beless you. Let me hear from you soon. Miss Stebbins has your letter, sends love & thanks, & will answer very soon.
Ever & ever your faithfully loving
Charlotte Cushman
I am so glad about your book & you are quite right about "by H. H.-it is [pristine? & righter?] You have made the 'nom de plume,' why not keep it! You are HH to the general public & only Helen Hunt to your friends and acquaintances. I am sure you are right, It is much more dignified!
was there ever any body who seemed half so ungrateful & unmindful & good for nothing, in your bright eyes, as I do? I am ashamed that I have not found, made time, to acknowledge your sweet note of the 10" which came so promptly in response to mine, [thru?] having had great difficulty in getting my letters to any body or from any body else, in less than two days, however short the distance that I half surmise you are in some compact with the postmaster general. That your letters shall go whatever else may stop! You are too good & kind to me, dear, to write me such long nice clear notes, when your poor dear fingers must be wearied to the bone with writing. But I am grateful & not unmindful, though I have remained so long without answering. The truth is dear, that my voyage left me quite miserable with internal strifes, & although I was dragged from Dan to Beersheba by good kind loving hospitable friends & had not the moral courage to deny any body who wanted me, I was really so physically unfit for this that any moment I could sit in my own rooms, I was too wearied to write. Every day I wanted to write, & every day brought such petty but absolute demands upon me, that I never got the right moment for you. Although I was only in New York [twelve?] days, yet I was as completely in the swirl of things, as though I had never been any where else, and when Emma Cushman & the bairns had returned from Boston (where they went to say howdy-do to their aunts & cousins,) & rested on Sunday & Monday 13&14", & tore themselves away from me on the night of the latter [crossed out: to go] to St. Louis to their relatives there, I felt that if I would regain my own torn & disquieted & [frightened?] soul, I must get away to the country as soon as possible. On Tuesday I did as much galioping as I ever did in my life, in the way of trying to do up some of my social [decencies?], finish up my errands & commissions to be ready to get off here on the Tuesday 16", which I did. Of course in my first arrival here, what with unpacking boxes, unpacking ones mind & seeing the minds of my hostesses unpacked as well, exchanging all the thoughts which have arisen since we parted two years ago. I have not been able to write more than a business note or so, & this brings me to the end of my apologies. I will never make any more to you, dear, for if any human being living will make allowances for me, it will be you, & apologies fill all our note[s]. Amen!
What you say about this thin air dear, is absolutely true. I have been up to "F in alt" in my nerves ever since my arrival, not withstanding the physical ills which took me down to double C in [diagram of musical staff with notation in circle imposed on staff]! And [here?] when nature in the repose of fulfilled promise seems so calm, I find myself turned tight up to the very highest notes. The cold is a little nervous as well & this morning we had a snow flurry snow so crystallized that it did not melt as it fell on the roof, but blew away again like sand. I am so happy in the country, I don't wonder, dear, at your staying at Bethlehem just as long as you possibly can. I don't believe I shall stir from here until after Xmas & then, get away to Newport, the very earliest moment. But of course we shall see what time does for us.
I talked with 'he of Newport" & liked him very very much, as I remember I did in Worcester once in the old days. He is sweet & fresh & [forth] minded & mannered, but you are not to tell him that I say this! There was a visitor with me at the same time, so I had not the opportunity of being entirely at my ease, as one is when one talks "a due' & I fear my unsettled ideas as to when I should go to Newport gave him little satisfaction as to whether I really knew what I do want or intend. But it could not be helped I was very distracted in New York & really did not know. I dare say Mrs. Botta may tell you that I was not made more quiet & calm by an opinion I had from her German Dr. [Neftel?] about whom she wrote to me in Europe. But I can do nothing as yet. I am not sufficiently recovered from my last suffering to [risk?] willingly into any more until it is absolutely necessary, but, I learned what gives me infinite anxiety & care, & this also was one of my excuses for shortcomings in all ways.
This letter will just reach you dear before your leaving for Boston. I suppose for Thanksgiving day, then you will be a[t] work in N. Haven.
Mr. Higginson proposed a very admirable plan, & one which suited me exactly, which was that I should take apartments at Riggs & "be served"-- by that means perhaps if we all go at the same time we might each have separate bed rooms, sufficiently large to [make?] our individual work in, & then I should have a sitting room in which we could all meet. How say you. At all events, you could very likely have rooms in the same house, which would be "perfectly lovely" as Annie [Levin?] says.
I must try Newport for a month or so before I make any decision as to taking a house, & this would be the best plan for all of us. Mrs. Cushmans [sic] house is a very nice pretty "respectable looking private house." That is, the drawing rooms are very prettily furnished, & she is as nice a woman as you will ever meet under the circumstances which force a woman to get her living in such a way. She is refined & intelligent & advanced, but timid & nervous & anxious. She has a very beautiful bright, newly furnished back second floor (over the back drawing room) room, 21 feet by 17 large, two large windows, open fireplace. This room has now a bedstead in it, but it could be easily changed to a sitting room by putting in a sofa bedstead instead of a regular bedstead. I have not seen a prettier room in New York or one with more capabilities of being made lovely. Adjoining it is a small single bedroom, also bright & sunny. The service is good, the food good and simple & well cooked, & the service is good as any private family. I paid for myself & maid in $45 the week. I should think that Mrs. Hunt would do very well to see Mrs. Cushman. Miss [Jane ?] who saw me in these rooms a number of times & who is a friend of Mrs. Hunt, thought they would suit her admirably-about a transient accommodation I could not say, but if you write to her before you come to New York, & ask her, in my name, if she has room & will take you, you can see for yourself. [Grace Sedgewick?] lived with Mrs. Cushman for some time, & Miss Valerie, another of the [Sedgewicks?], & the Elliots lived there also. You might say where that as you will be only transiently there, if she has the opportunity of letting the room (she puts you into) for a permanency, you will let her change you elsewhere & she might be more free to take you. I should like you to establish relations with her. Now goodbye dear, & God beless you. Let me hear from you soon. Miss Stebbins has your letter, sends love & thanks, & will answer very soon.
Ever & ever your faithfully loving
Charlotte Cushman
I am so glad about your book & you are quite right about "by H. H.-it is [pristine? & righter?] You have made the 'nom de plume,' why not keep it! You are HH to the general public & only Helen Hunt to your friends and acquaintances. I am sure you are right, It is much more dignified!
From
Cushman, Charlotte Saunders, 1816-1876
To
Jackson, Helen Hunt, 1830-1885
Location
"The Garland"
Hyde Park
Dutchess [sic] Co
NY, US
Hyde Park
Dutchess [sic] Co
NY, US
Geocode (Latitude)
41.7847232
Geocode (Longitude)
-73.9332461
Social Bookmarking
Geolocation
Collection
Citation
Cushman, Charlotte Saunders, 1816-1876, “Letter from Charlotte Cushman to Helen Hunt Jackson, n.d.,” Archival Gossip Collection, accessed April 25, 2024, https://archivalgossip.com/collection/items/show/445.