_Boston_, May 19th, 1840
_My dearest_,
Where in the world art thou?--or hast thou flown away to Paradise,
naughtiest Dove, without bidding thy husband farewell? I know not
whereabout this letter will find thee; but I throw it upon the winds
in the confidence that some breeze of Heaven will bear it to thee; for
I suppose heart never spoke to heart, without being heard, and sooner
or later finding a response. Perhaps some hearts that speak to other
hearts here on earth may find no response till they have passed far
into Eternity; but our hearts catch each other's whispers even here.
Happy we! But, belovedest, how is it that thou hast sent me no token
of thy existence, since we parted on the Hoopers' doorstep, when thou
didst press my hand without a word? It seems an age since then. Thou
saidst, on Sunday, that thou shouldst probably return to Salem to-day;
but surely thou hast not gone. I feel lonely and not cheerful--my
spirit knows not whereabout to seek thee, and so it shivers as if
there were no _Thou_ at all--as if my Dove had been only a dream and a
vision, and now had vanished into unreality and nothingness.
But tomorrow I shall surely hear from thee: and even should it be
otherwise, I shall yet know, with everlasting faith, that my Dove's
heart has been trying to make me sensible of its embraces all this
time. My dearest, was not that a sweet time--that Sabbath afternoon
and eve? But why didst thou look up in my face, as we walked, and ask
why I was so grave? If I was grave I know no cause for it, beloved.
Lights and shadows are continually flitting across my inward sky, and
I know neither whence they come nor whither they go; nor do I inquire
too closely into them. It is dangerous to look too minutely at such
phenomena. It is apt to create a substance, where at first there was a
mere shadow. If at any time, dearest wife, there should seem--though
to me there never does--but if there should ever seem to be an
expression unintelligible from one of our souls to another, we will
not strive to interpret it into earthly language, but wait for the
soul to make itself understood; and were we to wait a thousand years,
we need deem it no more time than we can spare. I speak only in
reference to such dim and intangible matters as that which suggested
this passage of my letter. It is not that I have any love for mystery;
but because I abhor it--and because I have felt, a thousand times,
that words may be a thick and darksome veil of mystery between the
soul and the truth which it seeks. Wretched were we, indeed, if we had
no better means of communicating ourselves, no fairer garb in which to
array our essential selves, than these poor rags and tatters of Babel.
Yet words are not without their use, even for purposes of
explanation,--but merely for explaining outward acts, and all sorts of
external things, leaving the soul's life and action to explain itself
in its own way.
My belovedest, what a misty disquisition have I scribbled! I would not
read it over for sixpence. Think not that I supposed it necessary to
sermonize thee so; but the sermon created itself from sentence to
sentence; and being written, thou knowest that it belongs to thee, and
I have no right to keep it back. Dearest, I was up very early this
morning, and have had a good deal to do, especially this afternoon.
Let me plead this excuse for my dulness and mistiness. I suspect that,
hereafter, my little Dove will know how to estimate the difficulty of
pouring one's self out in a soul-written letter, amid the
distractions of business and society--she herself having experienced
these checks upon her outpourings.
Now good bye, mine ownest wife. God bless us both--or may God bless
either of us, and that one will bless the other. Dost thou sleep well
now-a-nights, belovedest? Of whom dost thou dream? Thy husband's long
days and short nights hardly leave him time to dream.