I rather think, beloved, that I shall come home on Saturday night, and take my chance of being able to come again on Thanksgiving-day. But then I shall not be able to remain the rest of the week. That you want me I know; and, dearest, my head and heart are weary with absence from you; so that it will be best to snatch the first chance that offers. Soon, mine own wife, I shall be able to spend much more time with you.
Your Lovingest Husband.
Does Sophie Hawthorne keep up my Dove's spirits?
Miss Sophia A. Peabody,
Care of Dr. N. Peabody,
Salem, Mass.
TO MISS PEABODY
Boston, Novr. 20th, ½ past 8 P.M., [1839]
Dearest, you know not how your blessed letter strengthens my heart on your account; for I know by it that God and the angels are supporting you. And, mine own wife, though I thought that I reverenced you infinitely before, yet never was so much of that feeling mingled with my love, as now. You are yourself one of the angels who minister to your departing brother – the more an angel, because you triumph over earthly weakness to perform those offices of affection. I feel, now, with what confidence I can rest upon you in all my sorrows and troubles – as confident of your strength as of your love. Dearest, there is nothing in me worthy of you. My heart is weak in comparison with yours. Its strength, it is true, has never been tried; for I have never been called to minister at the dying bed of a dear friend; but I have often thought, that, in such a scene, I should need support from the dying, instead of being able to give it. I bless God that He has made Death so beautiful as he appears in the scene which you describe – that He has caused the light from the other side to shine over and across the chasm of the grave.
My wife, my spirit has never yearned for communion with you so much as it does now. I long to hold you on my bosom – to hold you there silently – for I have no words to write my sympathy, and should have none to speak them. Sometimes, even after all I have now learned of your divine fortitude, I feel as if I shall dread to meet you, lest I should find you quite worn down by this great trial. But, dearest, I will make up my mind to see you pale, and thinner than you were. Only do not be sick – do not give me too much to bear.
Novr. 21st, ½ past 5 P.M. Mine own Dove, your fourth letter came today, and all the rest were duly received, and performed their heaven-appointed mission to my soul. The last has left a very cheering influence on my spirit. Dearest, I love that naughty Sophie Hawthorne with an unspeakable affection, and bless God for her every minute; for what my Dove could do without her, passes my comprehension. And, mine own wife, I have not been born in vain, but to an end worth living for, since you are able to rest your heart on me, and are thereby sustained in this sorrow, and enabled to be a help and comfort to your mother, and a ministering angel to George. Give my love to George. I regret that we have known each other so little in life; but there will be time enough hereafter – in that pleasant region "on the other side."
Beloved, I shall come on Saturday, but probably not till the five o'clock train, unless it should storm; so you must not expect me till seven or thereabouts. I never did yearn for you so much as now. There is a feeling in me as if a great while had passed since we met. Is it so with you?
The days are cold now, the air eager and nipping – yet it suits my health amazingly. I feel as if I could run a hundred miles at a stretch, and jump over all the houses that happen to be in my way. Belovedest, I must bring this letter to a close now, for several reasons – partly that I may carry it to the Post-Office before it closes; for I hate to make your father pay the postage of my wife's letters. Also, I have another short letter of business to write; – and, moreover, I must go forth into the wide world to seek my supper. This life of mine is the perfection of a bachelor-life – so perfectly untrammelled as it is. Do you not fear, my wife, to trust me to live in such a way any longer?
Belovedest, still keep up your heart for your husband's sake. I pray to God for quiet sleeps for my Dove, and cheerful awakings – yes, cheerful; for Death moves with a sweet aspect into your household; and your brother passes away with him as with a friend. And now farewell, dearest of wives. You are the hope and joy of your husband's heart. Never, never forget how very precious you are to him. God bless you, dearest.
Your Ownest Husband.
Miss Sophia A. Peabody,
Care of Dr. N. Peabody,
Salem, Mass.
TO MISS PEABODY
Boston, Novr. 25th, 1839 – 6 P.M.
Belovedest Wife,
This very day I have held you in my arms; and yet, now that I find myself again in my solitary room, it seems as if a long while had already passed – long enough, as I trust my Dove will think, to excuse my troubling her with an epistle. I came off in the two o'clock cars, through such a pouring rain, that doubtless Sophie Hawthorne set it down for certain that I should pass the day and night in Salem. And perhaps she and the Dove are now watching, with beating heart, to hear your husband lift the door-latch. Alas, that they must be disappointed! Dearest, I feel that I ought to be with you now; for it grieves me to imagine you all alone in that chamber, where you "sit and wait" – as you said to me this morning. This, I trust, is the last of your sorrow, mine own wife; in which you will not have all the aid that your husband's bosom, and the profoundest sympathy that exists within it, can impart.
I found your letter in the Measurer's Desk; and though I knew perfectly well that it was there, and had thought of it repeatedly, yet it struck me with a sense of unexpectedness when I saw it. I put it in my breast-pocket, and did not open it till I found myself comfortably settled for the evening; for I took my supper of oysters on my way to my room, and have nothing to do with the busy world till sunrise tomorrow. Oh, mine own beloved, it seems to me the only thing worth living for that I have ever done, or been instrumental in, that God has made me the means of saving you from the heaviest anguish of your brother's loss. Ever, ever, dearest wife, keep my image, or rather my reality, between yourself and pain of every kind. Let me clothe you in my love as in an armour of proof – let me wrap my spirit round about your own, so that no earthly calamity may come in immediate contact with it, but be felt, if at all, through a softening medium. And it is a blessed privilege, and even a happy one, to give such sympathy as my Dove requires – happy to give – and, dearest, is it not also happiness to receive it? Our happiness consists in our sense of the union of our hearts – and has not that union been far more deeply felt within us now, than if all our ties were those of joy and gladness? Thus may every sorrow leave us happier than it found us, by causing our hearts to embrace more closely in the mutual effort to sustain it.
Dearest, I pray God that your strength may not fail you at the close of this scene. My heart is not quite at rest about you. It seems to me, on looking back, that there was a vague inquietude within me all through this last visit; and this it was, perhaps, that made me seem more sportive than usual.
Did I tell my carefullest little wife that I had bought me a fur cap, wherewith my ears may bid defiance to the wintry blast – a poor image, by the way, to talk of ears bidding defiance. The nose might do it, because it is capable of emitting sounds like a trumpet – indeed, Sophie Hawthorne's nose bids defiance without any sound. But what nonsense this is. Also (I have now been a married man long enough to feel these details perfectly natural, in writing to my wife) your husband, having a particular dislike to flannel, is resolved, every cold morning, to put on two shirts, and has already done so on one occasion, wonderfully to his comfort. Perhaps – but this I leave to Sophie Hawthorne's judgment – it might be well to add a daily shirt to my apparel as the winter advances, and to take them off again, one by one, with the approach of spring. Dear me, what a puffed-out heap of cotton-bagging would your husband be, by the middle of January! His Dove would strive in vain to fold her wings around him.
My beloved, this is Thanksgiving week. Do you remember how we were employed, or what our state of feeling was, at this time last year? I have forgotten how far we had advanced into each other's hearts – or rather, how conscious we had become that we were mutually within one another – but I am sure we were already dearest friends. But now our eyes are opened. Now we know that we have found all in each other – all that life has to give – and a foretaste of eternity. At every former Thanksgiving-day I have been so ungrateful to Heaven as to feel that something was wanting, and that my life so far had been abortive; and therefore, I fear, there has often been repining instead of thankfulness in my heart. Now I can thank God that he has given me my Dove, and all the world in her. I wish, dearest, that we could eat our Thanksgiving dinner together; and were it nothing but your bowl of bread and milk, we would both of us be therewith content. But I must sit at our mother's table. One of these days, sweetest wife, we will invite her to our own.
Will my Dove expect a letter from me so soon? I have written this evening, because I expect to be engaged tomorrow – moreover, my heart bade me write. God bless and keep you, dearest.
Your Ownest Deodatus.
Miss Sophia A. Peabody,
Care of Dr. N. Peabody,
Salem, Mass.
TO MISS PEABODY
Boston, Novr. 29th, 1839 – 6 or 7 P.M.
Blessedest wife,
Does our head ache this evening? – and has it ached all or any of the time to-day? I wish I knew, dearest, for it seems almost too great a blessing to expect, that my Dove should come quite safe through the trial which she has encountered. Do, mine own wife, resume all your usual occupations as soon as possible – your sculpture, your painting, your music (what a company of sister-arts is combined in the little person of my Dove!) – and above all, your riding and walking. Write often to your husband, and let your letters gush from a cheerful heart; so shall they refresh and gladden me, like draughts from a sparkling fountain, which leaps from some spot of earth where no grave has ever been dug. Dearest, for some little time to come, I pray you not to muse too much upon your brother, even though such musings should be untinged with gloom, and should appear to make you happier. In the eternity where he now dwells, it has doubtless become of no importance to himself whether he died yesterday, or a thousand years ago; he is already at home in the celestial city – more at home than ever he was in his mother's house. Then, my beloved, let us leave him there for the present; and if the shadows and images of this fleeting time should interpose between us and him, let us not seek to drive them away, for they are sent of God. By and bye, it will be good and profitable to commune with your brother's spirit; but so soon after his release from mortal infirmity, it seems even ungenerous towards himself, to call him back by yearnings of the heart and too vivid picturings of what he was.
Little Dove, why did you shed tears the other day, when you supposed that your husband thought you to blame for regretting the irrevocable past? Dearest, I never think you to blame; for you positively have no faults. Not that you always act wisely, or judge wisely, or feel precisely what it would be wise to feel, in relation to this present world and state of being; but it is because you are too delicately and exquisitely wrought in heart, mind, and frame, to dwell in such a world – because, in short, you are fitter to be in Paradise than here. You needed, therefore, an interpreter between the world and yourself – one who should sometimes set you right, not in the abstract (for there you are never wrong) but relatively to human and earthly matters; – and such an interpreter is your husband, who can sympathise, though inadequately, with his wife's heavenly nature, and has likewise a portion of shrewd earthly sense, enough to guide us both through the labyrinths of time. Now, dearest, when I criticise any act, word, thought, or feeling of yours, you must not understand it as a reproof, or as imputing anything wrong, wherewith you are to burthen your conscience. Were an angel, however holy and wise, to come and dwell with mortals, he would need the guidance and instruction of some mortal; and so will you, my Dove, need mine – and precisely the same sort of guidance that the angel would. Then do not grieve, nor grieve your husband's spirit, when he essays to do his office; but remember that he does it reverently, and in the devout belief that you are, in immortal reality, both wiser and better than himself, though sometimes he may chance to interpret the flitting shadows around us more accurately than you. Hear what I say, dearest, in a cheerful spirit, and act upon it with cheerful strength. And do not give an undue weight to my judgment, nor imagine that there is no appeal from it, and that its decrees are not to be questioned. Rather, make it a rule always to question them and be satisfied of their correctness; – and so shall my Dove be improved and perfected in the gift of a human understanding, till she become even earthly-wiselier than her sagacious husband. Undine's husband gave her an immortal soul; my beloved wife must be content with an humbler gift from me, being already provided with as high and pure a soul as ever was created.
God bless you, belovedest. I bestow three kisses on the air – they are intended for your eyelids and brow, to drive away the head-ache.
Your Ownest.
Miss Sophia A. Peabody,
Care of Dr. N. Peabody,
Salem, Mass.
TO MISS PEABODY
Custom-House, Novr. 30th [1839]
Mine own Dove,
You will have received my letter, dearest, ere now, and I trust that it will have conveyed the peace of my own heart into yours; for my heart is too calm and peaceful in the sense of our mutual love, to be disturbed even by my sweetest wife's disquietude. Belovedest and blessedest, I cannot feel anything but comfort in you. Rest quietly on my deep, deep, deepest affection. You deserve it all, and infinitely more than all, were it only for the happiness you give me. I apprehended that this cup could not pass from you, without your tasting bitterness among its dregs. You have been too calm, my beloved – you have exhausted your strength. Let your soul lean upon my love, till we meet again – then all your troubles shall be hushed.
Your ownest, happiest,Deodatus.
How does Sophie Hawthorne do? Expect a letter on Tuesday. God bless my dearest.
Miss Sophia A. Peabody,
Care of Dr. N. Peabody,
Salem, Mass.
TO MISS PEABODY
Boston, December 1st, 1839 – 6 or 7 P.M.
My Dearest,
The day must not pass without my speaking a word or two to my belovedest wife, of whom I have thought, with tender anxieties mingled with comfortable hopes, all day long. Dearest, is your heart at peace now? God grant it – and I have faith that He will communicate the peace of my heart to yours. Mine own wife, always when there is trouble within you, let your husband know of it. Strive to fling your burthen upon me; for there is strength enough in me to bear it all, and love enough to make me happy in bearing it. I will not give up any of my conjugal rights – and least of all this most precious right of ministering to you in all sorrow. My bosom was made, among other purposes, for mine ownest wife to shed tears upon. This I have known, ever since we were married – and I had yearnings to be your support and comforter, even before I knew that God was uniting our spirits in immortal wedlock. I used to think that it would be happiness enough, food enough for my heart, it I could be the life-long, familiar friend of your family, and be allowed to see yourself every evening, and to watch around you to keep harm away – though you might never know what an interest I felt in you. And how infinitely more than this has been granted me! Oh, never dream, blessedest wife, that you can be other than a comfort to your husband – or that he can be disappointed in you. Mine own Dove, I hardly know how it is, but nothing that you do or say ever surprises or disappoints me; it must be that my spirit is so thoroughly and intimately conscious of you, that there exists latent within me a prophetic knowledge of all your vicissitudes of joy or sorrow; so that, though I cannot foretell them before-hand, yet I recognize them when they come. Nothing disturbs the preconceived idea of you in my mind. Whether in bliss or agony, still you are mine own Dove – still my blessing – still my peace. Belovedest, since the foregoing sentence, I have been interrupted; so I will leave the rest of the sheet till tomorrow evening. Good night, and in writing these words my soul has flown through the air to give you a fondest kiss. Did you not feel it?
Decr. 2d. – Your letter came to me at the Custom-House, very dearest, at about eleven o'clock; and I opened it with an assured hope of finding good news about my Dove; for I had trusted very much in Sophie Hawthorne's assistance. Well, I am afraid I shall never find in my heart to call that excellent little person "Naughty" again – no; and I have even serious thoughts of giving up all further designs upon her nose, since she hates so much to have it kissed. Yet the poor little nose! – would it not be quite depressed (I do not mean flattened) by my neglect, after becoming accustomed to such marked attention? And besides, I have a particular affection for that nose, insomuch that I intend, one of these days, to offer it an oblation of rich and delicate odours. But I suppose Sophie Hawthorne would apply her handkerchief, so that the poor nose should reap no pleasure nor profit from my incense. Naughty Sophie Hawthorne! There – I have called her "naughty" already – and on a mere supposition, too.
Half a page of nonsense about Sophie Hawthorne's nose! And now have I anything to say to my little Dove? Yes – a reproof. My Dove is to understand, that she entirely exceeds her jurisdiction, in presuming to sit in judgment upon herself, and pass such severe censure as she did upon her Friday's letter – or indeed any censure at all. It was her bounden duty to write that letter; for it was the cry of her heart, which ought and must have reached her husband's ears, wherever in the world he might be. And yet you call it wicked. Was it Sophie Hawthorne or the Dove that called it so? Naughty Sophie Hawthorne – naughty Dove – for I believe they are both partakers of this naughtiness.
Dearest, I have never had the good luck to profit much, or indeed any, by attending lectures; so that I think the ticket had better be bestowed on somebody who can listen to Mr. Emerson more worthily. My evenings are very precious to me; and some of them are unavoidably thrown away in paying or receiving visits, or in writing letters of business; and therefore I prize the rest as if the sands of the hour-glass were gold or diamond dust. I have no other time to sit in my parlor (let me call it ours) and be happy by our own fireside – happy in reveries about a certain little wife of mine, who would fain have me spend my evenings in hearing lectures, lest I should incommode her with too frequent epistles.
Good bye, dearest. I suppose I have left a dozen questions in your letter unanswered; but you shall ask them again when we meet. Do not you long to see me? Mercy on us, – what a pen! It looks as if I had laid a strong emphasis on that sentence. God bless my Dove, and Sophie Hawthorne too. – So prays their ownest husband.
Miss Sophia A. Peabody,
Care of Dr. N. Peabody,
Salem, Mass.
TO MISS PEABODY
Boston, Decr. 5th, 1839 – 5 P.M.
Dearest wife,
I do wish that you would evince the power of your spirit over its outward manifestations, in some other way than by raising an inflammation over your eye. Do, belovedest, work another miracle forthwith, and cause this mountain – for I fancy it as of really mountainous bulk – cause it to be cast into the sea, or anywhere else; so that both eyes may greet your husband, when he comes home. Otherwise, I know not but my eyes will have an inflammation too; – they certainly smarted in a very unwonted manner, last evening. "The naughty swelling!" as my Dove (or Sophie Hawthorne) said of the swollen cheek that afflicted me last summer. Will kisses have any efficacy? No; I am afraid not, for if they were medicinal, my Dove's eyelids have been so imbued with them that no ill would have come there. Nevertheless, though not a preventive, a kiss may chance to be a remedy. Can Sophie Hawthorne be prevailed upon to let me try it?
I went to see my wife's (and of course my own) sister Mary, on Tuesday evening. She appeared very well; and we had a great deal of good talk, wherein my Dove was not utterly forgotten – (now will Sophie Hawthorne, thinking the Dove slighted, pout her lip at that expression) – well then, my Dove was directly or indirectly concerned in all my thoughts, and most of my words. Mrs. Park was not there, being gone, I believe, to some lecture. Mary and your husband talked with the utmost hopefulness and faith of my Dove's future health and well-being. Dearest, you are well (all but the naughty swelling) and you always will be well. I love Mary because she loves you so much; – our affections meet in you, and so we become kindred. But everybody loves my Dove – everybody that knows her – and those that know her not love her also, though unconsciously, whenever they image to themselves something sweeter, and tenderer, and nobler, than they can meet with on earth. It is the likeness of my Dove that has haunted the dreams of poets, ever since the world began. Happy me, to whom that dream has become the reality of all realities – whose bosom has been warmed, and is forever warmed, with the close embrace of her who has flitted shadowlike away from all other mortals! Dearest, I wish your husband had the gift of making rhymes; for methinks there is poetry in his head and heart, since he has been in love with you. You are a Poem, my Dove. Of what sort, then? Epic? – Mercy on me, – no! A sonnet? – no; for that is too labored and artificial. My Dove is a sort of sweet, simple, gay, pathetic ballad, which Nature is singing, sometimes with tears, sometimes with smiles, and sometimes with intermingled smiles and tears.
I was invited to dine at Mr. Bancroft's yesterday with Miss Margaret Fuller; but Providence had given me some business to do; for which I was very thankful. When my Dove and Sophie Hawthorne can go with me, I shall not be afraid to accept invitations to meet literary lions and lionesses, because then I shall put the above-said redoubtable little personage in the front of the battle. What do you think, Dearest, of the expediency of my making a caucus speech? A great many people are very desirous of listening to your husband's eloquence; and that is considered the best method of making my debut. Now, probably, will Sophie Hawthorne utterly refuse to be kissed, unless I give up all notion of speechifying at a caucus. Silly little Sophie! – I would not do it, even if thou thyself besought it of me.
Belovedest, I wish, before declining your ticket to Mr. Emerson's lectures, that I had asked whether you wished me to attend them; for if you do, I should have more pleasure in going, than if the wish were originally my own.
Dearest wife, nobody can come within the circle of my loneliness, save you; – you are my only companion in the world; – at least, when I compare other intercourse with our intimate communion, it seems as [if] other people were the world's width asunder. And yet I love all the world better for my Dove's sake.
Good bye, belovedest. Drive away that "naughty swelling."
Your Ownest Husband.
Do not expect me till seven o'clock on Saturday – as I shall not leave Boston till sunset.
Miss Sophia A. Peabody,
Care of Dr. N. Peabody,
Salem, Mass.
TO MISS PEABODY
Boston, Decr. 11th, 1839 – 7 P.M.
Belovedest,
I am afraid you will expect a letter tomorrow – afraid, because I feel very sure that I shall not be able to fill this sheet tonight. I am well, and happy, and I love you dearly, sweetest wife; – nevertheless, it is next to impossibility for me to put ideas into words. Even in writing these two or three lines, I have fallen into several long fits of musing. I wish there was something in the intellectual world analogous to the Daguerrotype (is that the name of it?) in the visible – something which should print off our deepest, and subtlest, and delicatest thoughts and feelings as minutely and accurately as the above-mentioned instrument paints the various aspects of Nature. Then might my Dove and I interchange our reveries – but my Dove would get only lead in exchange for gold. Dearest, your last letter brought the warmth of your very heart to your husband – Belovedest, I cannot possibly write one word more, to-night.
This striving to talk on paper does but remove you farther from me. It seems as if Sophie Hawthorne fled away into infinite space the moment I try to fix her image before me in order to inspire my pen; – whereas, no sooner do I give myself up to reverie, than here she is again, smiling lightsomely by my side. There will be no writing of letters in Heaven; at least, I shall write none then, though I think it would add considerably to my bliss to receive them from my Dove. Never was I so stupid as to-night; – and yet it is not exactly stupidity, either, for my fancy is bright enough, only it has, just at this time, no command of external symbols. Good night, dearest wife. Love your husband, and dream of him.
Decr. 12th – 6 P.M. Blessedest – Dove-ward and Sophie Hawthorne-ward doth your husband acknowledge himself "very reprehensible," for leaving his poor wife destitute of news from him such an interminable time – one, two, three, four days tomorrow noon. After seven years' absence, without communication, a marriage, if I mistake not, is deemed to be legally dissolved. Does it not appear at least seven years to my Dove, since we parted? It does to me. And will my Dove, or naughty Sophie Hawthorne, choose to take advantage of the law, and declare our marriage null and void? Oh, naughty, naughty, naughtiest Sophie Hawthorne, to suffer such an idea to come into your head! The Dove, I am sure, would not disown her husband, but would keep her heart warm with faith and love for a million of years; so that when he returned to her (as he surely would, at some period of Eternity, to spend the rest of eternal existence with her) he would seem to find in her bosom the warmth which his parting embrace had left there.
Very dearest, I do wish you would come to see me, this evening. If we could be together in this very parlour of ours, I think you, and both of us, would feel more completely at home than we ever have before in all our lives. Your chamber is but a room in your mother's house, where my Dove cannot claim an independent and separate right; she has a right, to be sure, but it is as a daughter. As a wife, it might be a question whether she has a right. Now this pleasant little room, where I sit, together with the bed-room in which I intend to dream tonight of my Dove, is my dwelling, my castle, mine own place wherein to be, which I have bought, for the time being, with the profits of mine own labor. Then is it not our home?
(Rest of letter missing)
TO MISS PEABODY
Boston, Decr. 18th, 1839 – nearly 7 P.M.
Belovedest,
I wish you could see our parlour to-night – how bright and cheerful it looks, with the blaze of the coal-fire throwing a ruddy tinge over the walls, in spite of the yellow gleam of two lamps. Now if my Dove were sitting in the easiest of our two easy chairs – (for sometimes I should choose to have her sit in a separate chair, in order to realise our individuality, as well as our unity) – then would the included space of these four walls, together with the little contiguous bed-room, seem indeed like home. – But the soul of home is wanting now. Oh, naughtiest, why are you not here to welcome your husband when he comes in at eventide, chilled with his wintry day's toil? Why does he not find the table placed cosily in front of the fire, and a cup of tea steaming fragrantly – or else a bowl of warm bread and milk, such as his Dove feeds upon? A much-to-be-pitied husband am I, naughty wife – a homeless man – a wanderer in the desert of this great city; picking up a precarious subsistence wherever I happen to find a restaurateur or an oyster-shop – and returning at night to a lonely fireside. Dearest, have I brought the tears into your eyes? What an unwise little person is my Dove, to let the tears gather in her eyes for such nonsensical pathos as this! Yet not nonsensical either, inasmuch as it is a sore trial to your husband to be estranged from that which makes life a reality to him, and to be compelled to spend so many God-given days in a dream – in an outward show, which has nothing to satisfy the soul that has become acquainted with truth. But, mine own wife, if you had not taught me what happiness is, I should not have known that there is anything lacking to me now. I am dissatisfied – not because, at any former period of my life, I was ever a thousandth part so happy as now – but because Hope feeds and grows strong on the happiness within me. Good night, belovedest wife. I have a note to write to Mr. Capen, who torments me every now-and-then about a book which he wants me to manufacture. Hereafter, I intend that my Dove shall manage all my correspondence: – indeed, it is my purpose to throw all sorts of trouble upon my Dove's shoulders. Good night now, dearest. —
December 20th – 7 P.M. Blessedest wife – has not Sophie Hawthorne been very impatient for this letter, one half of which yet remains undeveloped in my brain and heart? Would that she could enter those inward regions, and read the letter there – together with so much that never can be expressed in written or spoken words. And can she not do this? The Dove can do it, even if Sophie Hawthorne fail. Dearest, would it be unreasonable for me to ask you to manage my share of the correspondence, as well as your own? – to throw yourself into my heart, and make it gush out with more warmth and freedom than my own pen can avail to do? How I should delight to see an epistle from myself to Sophie Hawthorne, written by my Dove! – or to my Dove, Sophie Hawthorne being the amanuensis! I doubt not, that truths would then be spoken, which my heart would recognise as existing within its depths, yet which can never be clothed in words of my own. You know that we are one another's consciousness – then it is not poss – My dearest, George Hillard has come in upon me, in the midst of the foregoing sentence, and I have utterly forgotten what I meant to say. But it is not much matter. Even if I could convince you of the expediency of your writing my letters as well as your own, still, when you attempted to take the pen out of my hand, I believe I should resist very strenuously. For, belovedest, though not an epistolarian by nature, yet the instinct of communicating myself to you makes it a necessity and a joy to write.