It is heart-warming to find a woman who possesses great spiritual as well as physical beauty; a woman who, of her own accord, seeks the promptings of the Spirit and strives to rise upward in all things.
Such a remarkable woman was Fanny Appleton Longfellow, wife of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Longfellow lost his first wife, Mary, in November of 1835 while he was studying abroad for a year in preparation for a professorship at Harvard. Both she and the child she had been carrying died.
Half a year later he met Fanny Appleton and her family in Switzerland, and the first part of their courtship took place abroad. Her father, Nathan Appleton, one of the founders of the city of Lowell, was a brilliant, insightful leader in trade, the textile industry and politics. Her mother, Maria Gold, also of a prominent family, died in February 1833, when Frances (Fanny) was not yet 16, but old enough to partake of the beauty and courage of her mother's last days.
Fanny was raised amid privilege and ease, yet she was deeply religious in nature and sought the depths of spiritual experiences. After one of these, she recorded in her journal, speaking in third person, "O most merciful Father, receive the overflowing love and gratitude of thy child for this crowning blessing … cleanse her heart that it may be worthy for the indwelling of thy Spirit. Teach it how near thou ever art."
Henry and Fanny did not marry until July of 1843 when, after eight years, their relationship had grown and matured. Longfellow had been lodging at the historic Craigie House in Cambridge, which George Washington used as his headquarters during the siege of Boston. Fanny's father purchased the house as a wedding gift for the couple, and Fanny never changed the room where George and Martha had celebrated their 17th wedding anniversary amid the sorrows and uncertainties of war. She and Henry loved the quiet peaceful spirit of Craigie House. In a letter to her husband's sister, Anne, she wrote, "I have no eloquence equal to expressing our delight in being at home again; the silence here is alone such a blessing that I often stop to listen to it as to the most exquisite music, or as Leigh Hunt says when removed from noise to rest, 'I drink in the quiet at my ears as if they were thirsty.' "
On July 13, 1844, she wrote in her journal, "The celebration of our wedding day … I wonder if these old walls ever looked upon happier faces or through them down into happier hearts."
Fanny's first daughter, whom she had so passionately desired, was born April 7, 1847, at which time Fanny became the first woman in the Western world to bear a child under the influence of ether. She had already given birth to two sons, Charley and Ernest.
A tender and conscientious mother, Fanny recorded her apprehension at the responsibility that was hers:
"My little Charley is now nearly four years old, and yesterday … I spoke to him for the first time of loving and obeying another being than his earthly parents. … It is with great awe and timidity I venture upon planting the first seeds of that faith, which is to be the life of my child's soul forever. … I never taught before a virgin soul, and most holy and precious does my office seem to me."
On Sept. 11, 1848, her precious daughter, her namesake, Fanny, died before reaching her second birthday. It was a loss from which she never truly recovered.
Three other daughters were born to them: "grave Alice and laughing Allegra, and Edith, with golden hair," as Longfellow described them in his poem, "The Children's Hour."
Fanny was a great source of encouragement and inspiration to her husband in his creative work. At one time she wrote: "I specially love to have his beautiful spirit occupied in subjects which must better humanity and freshen men's memories. … I long to have him always inspired by the responsibility of his holy mission — of poet."
On July 7, 1861, she wrote to Erny, "I miss you much today, dear boy. It seems strange to have you away on Sunday, but I am glad you are getting the good of the change. At night your room seems very lonely."
On July 9, she was sitting in the library, placing small locks of her children's hair in an envelope. As she sealed the package with wax, a small breeze blew through the open window and the light sleeve of her dress caught fire. With screams of terror and pain, she ran into the study where Henry was writing a poem. He grabbed a nearby rug and tried to wrap it around her, then drew her into his arms, embracing the flames that engulfed her, but protecting her lovely face from their devastation.
Fanny, not yet 44 years old, died the following morning, and her husband was too severely burned to attend her funeral.
Fanny had been described as "very beautiful, very intelligent, and very pious."
A close friend, Cornelius Felton, wrote of the funeral to Charles Sumner, "The head, in its magnificent and tender beauty, was adorned with a wreath of orange blossoms … a cross of white roses lay upon her breast … the placid countenance more lovely, at the very last moment, than ever."
A poem Longfellow wrote for Fanny contains these lines:
O my beloved, my sweet Hesperus!
My morning and my evening star of love!
My best and gentlest lady! even thus,
As that fair planet in the sky above,
Dost thou retired unto thy rest at night,
And from thy darkened window fades the light.
Longfellow's loneliness stayed with him for the remainder of his life, but his work, and his goodly nature were purified by his sufferings and lifted to a level they would never have known otherwise. He was able to write in his "Psalm of Life," "Life is real, life is earnest/ And the grave is not its goal/ Dust thou art, to dust returneth/ Was not written of the soul." And, on Christmas Day, 1864, after his son, Charles, had been severely wounded, he was able to attest in glorious verse, "Then pealed the bells more loud and deep, God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; the wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth, good will to men."
Henry Longfellow died a month after his 75th birthday — in the same bed where Fanny's life had ended 21 years before.
"Not enjoyment, and not sorrow/Is our destined end or way/But to act that each tomorrow/Find us farther than today."
The imprint of Fanny's flawless life had upheld his own, and her example shines as a light pure and unfaltering for all women who strive to be Christ-like to emulate.
Susan Evans McCloud is author of more than 40 books, including historical fiction, biography and mystery. She is the mother of six children.