_Boston_, Novr. 29th, 1839--6 or 7 P.M.
_Blessedest wife_,
Does our head ache this evening?--and has it ached all or any of the
time to-day? I wish I knew, dearest, for it seems almost too great a
blessing to expect, that my Dove should come quite safe through the
trial which she has encountered. Do, mine own wife, resume all your
usual occupations as soon as possible--your sculpture, your painting,
your music (what a company of sister-arts is combined in the little
person of my Dove!)--and above all, your riding and walking. Write
often to your husband, and let your letters gush from a cheerful
heart; so shall they refresh and gladden me, like draughts from a
sparkling fountain, which leaps from some spot of earth where no grave
has ever been dug. Dearest, for some little time to come, I pray you
not to muse too much upon your brother, even though such musings
should be untinged with gloom, and should appear to make you happier.
In the eternity where he now dwells, it has doubtless become of no
importance to himself whether he died yesterday, or a thousand years
ago; he is already at home in the celestial city--more at home than
ever he was in his mother's house. Then, my beloved, let us leave him
there for the present; and if the shadows and images of this fleeting
time should interpose between us and him, let us not seek to drive
them away, for they are sent of God. By and bye, it will be good and
profitable to commune with your brother's spirit; but so soon after
his release from mortal infirmity, it seems even ungenerous towards
himself, to call him back by yearnings of the heart and too vivid
picturings of what he was.
Little Dove, why did you shed tears the other day, when you supposed
that your husband thought you to blame for regretting the irrevocable
past? Dearest, I never think you to blame; for you positively have no
faults. Not that you always act wisely, or judge wisely, or feel
precisely what it would be wise to feel, in relation to this present
world and state of being; but it is because you are too delicately and
exquisitely wrought in heart, mind, and frame, to dwell in such a
world--because, in short, you are fitter to be in Paradise than here.
You needed, therefore, an interpreter between the world and
yourself--one who should sometimes set you right, not in the abstract
(for there you are never wrong) but relatively to human and earthly
matters;--and such an interpreter is your husband, who can sympathise,
though inadequately, with his wife's heavenly nature, and has likewise
a portion of shrewd earthly sense, enough to guide us both through the
labyrinths of time. Now, dearest, when I criticise any act, word,
thought, or feeling of yours, you must not understand it as a reproof,
or as imputing anything wrong, wherewith you are to burthen your
conscience. Were an angel, however holy and wise, to come and dwell
with mortals, he would need the guidance and instruction of some
mortal; and so will you, my Dove, need mine--and precisely the same
sort of guidance that the angel would. Then do not grieve, nor grieve
your husband's spirit, when he essays to do his office; but remember
that he does it reverently, and in the devout belief that you are, in
immortal reality, both wiser and better than himself, though sometimes
he may chance to interpret the flitting shadows around us more
accurately than you. Hear what I say, dearest, in a cheerful spirit,
and act upon it with cheerful strength. And do not give an undue
weight to my judgment, nor imagine that there is no appeal from it,
and that its decrees are not to be questioned. Rather, make it a rule
always to question them and be satisfied of their correctness;--and so
shall my Dove be improved and perfected in the gift of a human
understanding, till she become even _earthly-wiselier_ than her
sagacious husband. Undine's husband gave her an immortal soul; my
beloved wife must be content with an humbler gift from me, being
already provided with as high and pure a soul as ever was created.
God bless you, belovedest. I bestow three kisses on the air--they are
intended for your eyelids and brow, to drive away the head-ache.