Miss Sophia A. Peabody,
Care of Dr. N. Peabody,
Boston, Mass.
_Salem_, Wednesday, April 5th, 1842
_My Dear,_
It was thy husband's intention to spend all his leisure time, here at
home, in sketching out a tale; but my spirit demands communion with
thine so earnestly, that I must needs write to thee, if all the
affairs in the world were pressing on me at once. My breast is full of
thee; thou art throbbing throughout all my veins. Never, it seems to
me, did I know what love was, before. And yet I am not satisfied to
let that sentence pass; for it would do wrong to the blissful and holy
time that we have already enjoyed together. But our hearts are
new-created for one another daily, and they enter upon existence with
such up-springing rapture as if nothing had ever existed before--as
if, at this very _now_, the physical and spiritual world were but
first discovered, and by ourselves only. This is Eternity--thus will
every moment of forever-and-ever be the first moment of life, and no
weariness can gather upon us from the past.
It is a bliss which I never wish to enjoy, when I can attain that of
thy presence; but it is nevertheless a fact, that there is a bliss
even in being absent from thee. This yearning that disturbs my very
breath--this earnest stretching out of my soul towards thee--this
voice of my heart, calling for thee out of its depths, and complaining
that thou art not instantly given to it--all these are a joy; for they
make me know how entirely our beings have blended into one another.
After all, these pangs are but symptoms of the completeness of our
spiritual union--the effort of the outward to respond to the inward.
Dearest, I do not express myself clearly on this matter; but what
need?--wilt not thou know better what I mean than words could tell
thee? Dost not thou too rejoice in everything that gives thee a more
vivid consciousness that we are one?--even if it have something like
pain in it. The desire of my soul is to know thee continually, and to
know that thou art mine; and absence, as well as presence, gives me
this knowledge--and as long as I have it, I live. It is, indeed,
impossible for us ever to be really absent from one another; the only
absence, for those who love, is estrangement or forgetfulness--and we
can never know what those words mean. Oh, dear me, my mind writes
nonsense, because it is an insufficient interpreter for my heart.
... Most beloved, I am thinking at this moment of thy dearest nose!
Thou canst not know how infinitely better I know and love Sophie
Hawthorne, since she has yielded up that fortress. And, in requital, I
yield my whole self up to her, and kiss her beloved foot, and
acknowledge her for my queen and liege-lady forever more. Come into my
heart, dearest; for I am about to close my letter. Hitherto, I have
kept thee at arms' length; because the very act of writing necessarily
supposes that thou art apart from me; but now I throw down the pen, in
order that thou mayst be the closer to me.
Thine ownest Husband,