_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.