_Boston_, March 26th, 1840--Afternoon.
_Thou dearest wife_,
Here is thy husband, yearning for thee with his whole heart--thou,
meanwhile, being fast asleep, and perhaps hovering around him in thy
dreams. Very dreary are the first few centuries which elapse after our
separations, and before it is time to look forward hopefully to
another meeting--these are the "dark ages." And hast thou been very
good, my beloved? Dost thou dwell in the past and in the future, so
that the gloomy present is quite swallowed up in sunshine? Do so, mine
ownest, for the sake of thy husband, whose desire it is to make thy
whole life as sunny as the scene beyond those high, dark rocks of the
Menaggio.
Dearest, my thoughts will not flow at all--they are as sluggish as a
stream of half-cold lava. Methinks I could sleep an hour or
two--perhaps thou art calling to me, out of the midst of thy dream, to
come and join thee there. I will take a book, and lie down awhile,
and perhaps resume my pen in the evening. I will not say good bye; for
I am coming to thee now.
March 27th,--Before breakfast.--Good morning, most belovedest. I felt
so infinitely stupid, after my afternoon's nap, that I could not
possibly write another word; and it has required a whole night's sleep
to restore me the moderate share of intellect and vivacity that
naturally belongs to me. Dearest, thou didst not come into my dreams,
last night; but, on the contrary, I was engaged in assisting the
escape of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette from Paris, during the French
revolution. And sometimes, by an unaccountable metamorphosis, it
seemed as if my mother and sister were in the place of the King and
Queen. I think that fairies rule over our dreams--beings who have no
true reason or true feeling, but mere fantasies instead of those
endowments.
Afternoon.--Blessedest, I do think that it is the doom laid upon me,
of murdering so many of the brightest hours of the day at that unblest
Custom-House, that makes such havoc with my wits; for here I am again,
trying to write worthily to my etherealest, and intellectualest, and
feelingest, and imaginativest wife, yet with a sense as if all the
noblest part of man had been left out of my composition--or had
decayed out of it, since my nature was given to my own keeping.
Sweetest Dove, shouldst thou once venture within those precincts, the
atmosphere would immediately be fatal to thee--thy wings would cease
to flutter in a moment--scarcely wouldst thou have time to nestle into
thy husband's bosom, ere thy pure spirit would leave what is mortal of
thee there, and flit away to Heaven. Never comes any bird of Paradise
into that dismal region. A salt, or even a coal-ship is ten million
times preferable; for there the sky is above me, and the fresh breeze
around me, and my thoughts, having hardly anything to do with my
occupation, are as free as air.
Nevertheless, belovedest, thou art not to fancy that the above
paragraph gives thee a correct idea of thy husband's mental and
spiritual state; for he is sometimes prone to the sin of exaggeration.
It is only once in a while that the image and desire of a better and
happier life makes him feel the iron of his chain; for after all, a
human spirit may find no insufficiency of food fit for it, even in the
Custom-House. And with such materials as these, I do think, and feel,
and learn things that are worth knowing, and which I should not know
unless I had learned them there; so that the present portion of my
life shall not be quite left out of the sum of my real existence.
Moreover, I live through my Dove's heart--I live an intellectual life
in Sophie Hawthorne. Therefore ought those two in one to keep
themselves happy and healthy in mind and feelings, inasmuch as they
enjoy more blessed influences than their husband, and likewise have to
provide happiness and moral health for him.
Very dearest, I feel a great deal better now--nay, nothing whatever is
the matter. What a foolish husband hast thou, misfortunate little
Dove, that he will grieve thee with such a long Jeremiad, and after
all find out that there is not the slightest cause for lamentation.
But so it must often be, dearest--this trouble hast thou entailed upon
thyself, by yielding to become my wife. Every cloud that broods
beneath my sky, or that I even fancy is brooding there, must dim thy
sunshine too. But here is no real cloud. It is good for me, on many
accounts, that my life has had this passage in it. Thou canst not
think how much more I know than I did a year ago--what a stronger
sense I have of power to act as a man among men--what worldly wisdom I
have gained, and wisdom also that is not altogether of this world. And
when I quit this earthy cavern, where I am now buried, nothing will
cling to me that ought to be left behind. Men will not perceive, I
trust, by my look, or the tenor of my thoughts and feelings, that I
have been a Custom-House officer.
Belovedest!--what an awful concussion was that of our two heads. It
was as if two worlds had rushed together--as if the Moon (thou art my
Moon, gentlest wife) had met in fierce encounter with the rude,
rock-promontoried Earth. Dearest, art thou sure that thy delicatest
brain has suffered no material harm? A maiden's heart, they say, is
often bruised and broken by her lover's cruelty; it was reserved for
naughtiest me to inflict those injuries upon my mistress's head....
(Portion of letter missing)
To Miss Sophia A. Peabody,
Care of Dr. N. Peabody,
Salem, Mass.