_Salem_, Sept. 3d, 1841--4 o'clock P.M.
Most beloved,--Thou dost not expect a letter from thy husband; and
yet, perhaps, thou wilt not be absolutely displeased should one come
to thee tomorrow. At all events, I feel moved to write; though the
haze and sleepiness, which always settles upon me here, will certainly
be perceptible in every line. But what a letter didst thou write to
me! Thou lovest like a celestial being, (as truly thou art,) and dost
express thy love in heavenly language;--it is like one angel writing
to another angel; but alas! the letter has miscarried, and has been
delivered to a most unworthy mortal. Now wilt thou exclaim against thy
husband's naughtiness! And truly he is very naughty. Well then; the
letter was meant for him, and could not possibly belong to any other
being, mortal or immortal. I will trust that thy idea of me is truer
than my own consciousness of myself.
Dearest, I have been out only once, in the day time, since my arrival.
How immediately and irrecoverably (if thou didst not keep me out of
the abyss) should I relapse into the way of life in which I spent my
youth! If it were not for my Dove, this present world would see no
more of me forever. The sunshine would never fall on me, no more than
on a ghost. Once in a while, people might discern my figure gliding
stealthily through the dim evening--that would be all. I should be
only a shadow of the night; it is thou that givest me reality, and
makest all things real for me. If, in the interval since I quitted
this lonely old chamber, I had found no woman (and thou wast the only
possible one) to impart reality and significance to life, I should
have come back hither ere now, with the feeling that all was a dream
and a mockery. Dost thou rejoice that thou hast saved me from such a
fate? Yes; it is a miracle worthy even of thee, to have converted a
life of shadows into the deepest truth, by thy magic touch.
Belovedest, I have not yet made acquaintance with Miss Polly Metis.
Mr. Foote was not in his office when I called there; so that my
introduction to the erudite Polly was unavoidably deferred. I went to
the Athenaeum this forenoon, and turned over a good many dusty books.
When we dwell together, I intend that my Dove shall do all the
reading that may be necessary, in the concoction of my various
histories; and she shall repeat the substance of her researches to me.
Thus will knowledge fall upon me like heavenly dew.
Sweetest, it seems very long already since I saw thee; but thou hast
been all the time in my thoughts; so that my being has been
continuous. Therefore, in one sense, it does not seem as if we had
parted at all. But really I should judge it to be twenty years since I
left Brook Farm; and I take this to be one proof that my life there
was an unnatural and unsuitable, and therefore an unreal one. It
already looks like a dream behind me. The real Me was never an
associate of the community; there has been a spectral Appearance
there, sounding the horn at day-break, and milking the cows, and
hoeing potatoes, and raking hay, toiling and sweating in the sun, and
doing me the honor to assume my name. But be thou not deceived, Dove,
of my heart. This Spectre was not thy husband. Nevertheless, it is
somewhat remarkable that thy husband's hands have, during the past
summer, grown very brown and rough; insomuch that many people persist
in believing that he, after all, was the aforesaid spectral
horn-sounder, cow-milker, potatoe-hoer, and hay-raker. But such
people do not know a reality from a shadow.
Enough of nonsense. Belovedest, I know not exactly how soon I shall
return to the Farm. Perhaps not sooner than a fortnight from tomorrow;
but, in that case. I shall pay thee an intermediate visit of one day.
Wilt thou expect me on Friday or Saturday next, from ten to twelve
o'clock on each day,--not earlier nor later.
Miss Sophia A. Peabody,
Care of Dr. N. Peabody,
Boston, Mass.