_Boston_, October 3d, 1839. ½ past 7 P.M.
_Ownest Dove_;
Did you get home safe and sound, and with a quiet and happy heart?
Providence acted lovingly toward us on Tuesday evening, allowing us to
meet in the wide desert of this world, and mingle our spirits. It
would have seemed all a vision then, now we have the symbol of its
reality. You looked like a vision, beautifullest wife, with the width
of the room between us--so spiritual that my human heart wanted to be
assured that you had an earthly vesture on. What beautiful white doves
those were, on the border of the vase; are they of mine own Dove's
kindred? Do you remember a story of a cat who was changed into a
lovely lady?--and on her bridal night, a mouse happened to run across
the floor; and forthwith the cat-wife leaped out of bed to catch it.
What if mine own Dove, in some woeful hour for her poor husband,
should remember her dove-instincts, and spread her wings upon the
western breeze, and return to him no more! Then would he stretch out
his arms, poor wingless biped, not having the wherewithal to fly, and
say aloud--"Come back, naughty Dove!--whither are you going?--come
back, and fold your wings upon my heart again, or it will freeze!" And
the Dove would flutter her wings, and pause a moment in the air,
meditating whether or no she should come back: for in truth, as her
conscience would tell her, this poor mortal had given her all he had
to give--a resting-place on his bosom--a home in his deepest heart.
But then she would say to herself--"my home is in the gladsome
air--and if I need a resting-place, I can find one on any of the
sunset-clouds. He is unreasonable to call me back; but if he can
follow me, he may!" Then would the poor deserted husband do his best
to fly in pursuit of the faithless Dove; and for that purpose would
ascend to the topmast of a salt-ship, and leap desperately into the
air, and fall down head-foremost upon the deck, and break his neck.
And there should be engraven on his tombstone--"Mate not thyself with
a Dove, unless thou hast wings to fly."
Now will my Dove scold at me for this foolish flight of fancy;--but
the fact is, my goose quill flew away with me. I do think that I
have gotten a bunch of quills from the silliest flock of geese on
earth. But the rest of the letter shall be very sensible. I saw Mr.
Howes in the reading-room of [the] Athenaeum, between one and two
o'clock to-day; for I happened to have had leisure for an early
dinner, and so was spending a half-hour turning over the periodicals.
He spoke of the long time since your husband had been at his house;
and so I promised, on behalf of that respectable personage, that he
would spend an evening there on his next visit to Salem. But if I had
such a sweetest wife as your husband has, I doubt whether I could find
[it] in my heart to keep the engagement. Now, good night, truest Dove
in the world. You will never fly away from me; and it is only the
infinite impossibility of it that enables me to sport with the idea.
Dearest, there was an illegible word in your yesterday's note. I have
pored over it, but cannot make it out. Your words are too precious to
be thus hidden under their own vesture. Good night, wife!
October 4th.--5 or thereabout P.M. Mine own Dove, I dreamed the
queerest dreams last night, about being deserted, and all such
nonsense--so you see how I was punished for that naughty nonsense of
the Faithless Dove. It seems to me that my dreams are generally about
fantasies, and very seldom about what I really think and feel. You did
not appear visibly in my last night's dreams: but they were made up of
desolation; and it was good to awake, and know that my spirit was
forever and irrevocably linked with the soul of my truest and
tenderest Dove. You have warmed my heart, mine own wife: and never
again can I know what it is to be cold and desolate, save in dreams.
You love me dearly--don't you?
And so my Dove has been in great peril since we parted. No--I do not
believe she was; it was only a shadow of peril, not a reality. My
spirit cannot anticipate any harm to you, and I trust you to God with
securest faith. I know not whether I could endure actually to see you
in danger: but when I hear of any risk--as, for instance, when your
steed seemed to be on the point of dashing you to pieces (but I do
quake a little at that thought) against a tree--my mind does not seize
upon it as if it had any substance. Believe me, dearest, the tree
would have stood aside to let you pass, had there been no other means
of salvation. Nevertheless, do not drive your steed against trees
wilfully. Mercy on us, what a peril that was of the fat woman, when
she "smashed herself down" beside my Dove! Poor Dove! Did you not feel
as if an avalanche had all but buried you. I can see my Dove at this
moment, my slender, little delicatest white Dove, squeezed almost out
of Christendom by that great mass of female flesh--that ton of
woman--that beef-eater and beer-guzzler, whose immense cloak, though
broad as a ship's mainsail, could not be made to meet in front--that
picture of an ale-wife--that triple, quadruple, dozen-fold old lady.
Will not my Dove confess that there is a little _nonsense_ in this
epistle? But be not wroth with me, darling wife;--my heart sports with
you because it loves you.
If you happen to see Sophie Hawthorne, kiss her cheek for my sake. I
love her full as well as I do mine own wife. Will that satisfy her, do
you think? If not, she is a very unreasonable little person.
It is my chiefest pleasure to write to you, dearest.