LETTER: Autograph letter signed, to Frances Mary Mackay.
“I Hope...You Now and Then Get a Peep into the Mysteries”:
Frances Mary Mackay and the Emersons
Mackay, Jane. Autograph letter signed, “Jane” Mackay, to Frances Mary Mackay, June 22, [ca. 1843]; 1 bifolium, 4 pages; several folding creases; one small chip with possible loss of a word; two small closed tears.
A letter from Jane Mackay, of Plymouth, Mass., to her sister, Frances Mary Mackay of Concord, a neighbor of Emerson’s who found herself at the center of the busy hub of the Transcendentalist movement. Jane writes, in part:
I think you must be having very pleasant times in Concord this summer from what I hear of the doings. . . . From the letters received I should suppose a kind of earthly Paradise had sprung up in Middlesex County, and as far as Mrs. Emerson’s house it seems to be the headquarters of Transcendentalism. I hope F.M. that you now and then get a peep into the mysteries[.] you should stand ready to catch the least whisper, as Mrs. Brown says, there is always something to be gathered from their scatterings. (p. 3)
Whatever she may have gathered from that earthly Paradise, Frances Mary certainly was a supporter of the group’s literary undertakings. She is included on the list of Proprietors (i.e. subscribers to shares) of the Boston Anthenaeum, and a note in Emerson’s journal records payment on behalf of Frances Mary for a subscription to the Dial. Frances Mary also knew Henry David Thoreau, who records in his journal entry of August 15, 1854, “At evening, Mr. Russell showed his microscope at Miss Mackay’s.” Tristram Barnard Mackay, Jane’s and Frances Mary’s brother, was a member of Emerson’s Town & Country club.
The rest of the letter maintains the same good humored tone, and refers to letters received from both Frances Mary and their other sister, Amelia, one of which evidently told of a mishap Frances Mary had, as Jane writes, “I would have given all my earthly possessions to have been there and seen you dragged up from the banks of that river, what a pretty figure you must have been” (p. 1), and recounts a scene wherein Frances Mary is saved from the river by a handsome man. This leads her to tell of an account in the paper of a “young widow rescuing a gentleman from drowning and his offering her his heart and hand the next day” (p. 3). She also writes about the local gossip in Plymouth, the weather, strolls in the woods, and summer plans.
The letter was delivered folded and sealed, with the address written on the outside, and is postmarked June 22 from Plymouth, but no year is given.
(#4653775)
Print Inquire