_My dearest Sophie:_
I had a parting glimpse of you, Monday forenoon, at your window--and
that image abides by me, looking pale, and not so quiet as is your
wont. I have reproached myself many times since, because I did not
show my face, and then we should both have smiled; and so our
reminiscences would have been sunny instead of shadowy. But I believe
I was so intent on seeing you, that I forgot all about the
desirableness of being myself seen. Perhaps, after all, you did see
me--at least you knew that I was there. I fear that you were not quite
well that morning. Do grow better and better--physically, I mean, for
I protest against any spiritual improvement, until I am better able to
keep pace with you--but do be strong, and full of life--earthly
life--and let there be a glow in your cheeks. And sleep soundly the
whole night long, and get up every morning with a feeling as if you
were newly created; and I pray you to lay up a stock of fresh energy
every day till we meet again; so that we may walk miles and miles,
without your once needing to lean upon my arm. Not but what you
_shall_ lean upon it, as much as you choose--indeed, whether you
choose or not--but I would feel as if you did it to lighten my
footsteps, not to support your own. Am I requiring you to work a
miracle within yourself? Perhaps so--yet, not a greater one than I do
really believe might be wrought by inward faith and outward aids. Try
it, my Dove, and be as lightsome on earth as your sister doves are in
the air.
Tomorrow I shall expect a letter from you; but I am almost in doubt
whether to tell you that I expect it; because then your conscience
will reproach you, if you should happen not to have written. I would
leave you as free as you leave me. But I do wonder whether you were
serious in your last letter, when you asked me whether you wrote too
often, and seemed to think that you might thus interfere with my
occupations. My dear Sophie, your letters are no small portion of my
spiritual food, and help to keep my soul alive, when otherwise it
might languish unto death, or else become hardened and earth-incrusted,
as seems to be the case with almost all the souls with whom I am in
daily intercourse. They never interfere with my worldly business--
neither the reading nor the answering them--(I am speaking of your
letters, not of those "earth-incrusted" souls)--for I keep them to be
the treasure of my still and secret hours, such hours as pious people
spend in prayer; and the communion which my spirit then holds with
yours has something of religion in it. The charm of your letters does
not depend upon their intellectual value, though that is great, but on
the spirit of which they are the utterance, and which is a spirit of
wonderful efficacy. No one, whom you would deem worthy of your
friendship, could enjoy so large a share of it as I do, without
feeling the influence of your character throughout his own--purifying
his aims and desires, enabling him to realise that this is a truer
world than the feverish one around us, and teaching him how to gain
daily entrance into that better world. Such, so far as I have been
able to profit by it, has been your ministration to me. Did you dream
what an angelic guardianship was entrusted to you?
March 7th. Your letter did come. You had not the heart to disappoint
me, as I did you, in not making a parting visit, and shall again, by
keeping this letter to send by Mary. But I disappoint you in these two
instances, only that you may consider it a decree of Fate (or of
Providence, which you please) that we shall not meet on the mornings
of my departure, and that my letters shall not come oftener than on
the alternate Saturday. If you will but believe this, you will be
quiet. Otherwise I know that the Dove will flutter her wings, and
often, by necessity, will flutter them in vain. So forgive me, and let
me have my own way, and believe (for it is true) that I never cause
you the slightest disappointment without pain and remorse on my part.
And yet, I know that when you wish me to do any particular thing you
will always tell me so, and that if my sins of omission or commission
should ever wound your heart, you will by no means conceal it.
I did enjoy that walk infinitely--for certainly the enjoyment was not
all finite. And what a heavenly pleasure we might have enjoyed this
very day; the air was so delicious, that it seemed as if the dismal
old Custom House was situated in Paradise; and this afternoon, I sat
with my window open, to temper the glow of a huge coal fire. It
almost seems to me, now, as if beautiful days were wasted and thrown
away, when we do not feel their beauty and heavenliness through one
another.
Your own friend,