Part 6

Very dearest, I do wish you would come to see me, this evening. If we could be together in this very parlour of ours, I think you, and both of us, would feel more completely at home than we ever have before in all our lives. Your chamber is but a room in your mother's house, where my Dove cannot claim an independent and separate right; she has a right, to be sure, but it is as a daughter. As a wife, it might be a question whether she has a right. Now this pleasant little room, where I sit, together with the bed-room in which I intend to dream tonight of my Dove, is my dwelling, my castle, mine own place wherein to be, which I have bought, for the time being, with the profits of mine own labor. Then is it not our home?

(Rest of letter missing)

TO MISS PEABODY

_Boston_, Decr. 18th, 1839--nearly 7 P.M.

_Belovedest_,

I wish you could see our parlour to-night--how bright and cheerful it looks, with the blaze of the coal-fire throwing a ruddy tinge over the walls, in spite of the yellow gleam of two lamps. Now if my Dove were sitting in the easiest of our two easy chairs--(for sometimes I should choose to have her sit in a separate chair, in order to realise our individuality, as well as our unity)--then would the included space of these four walls, together with the little contiguous bed-room, seem indeed like home.--But the soul of home is wanting now. Oh, naughtiest, why are you not here to welcome your husband when he comes in at eventide, chilled with his wintry day's toil? Why does he not find the table placed cosily in front of the fire, and a cup of tea steaming fragrantly--or else a bowl of warm bread and milk, such as his Dove feeds upon? A much-to-be-pitied husband am I, naughty wife--a homeless man--a wanderer in the desert of this great city; picking up a precarious subsistence wherever I happen to find a restaurateur or an oyster-shop--and returning at night to a lonely fireside. Dearest, have I brought the tears into your eyes? What an unwise little person is my Dove, to let the tears gather in her eyes for such nonsensical pathos as this! Yet not nonsensical either, inasmuch as it is a sore trial to your husband to be estranged from that which makes life a reality to him, and to be compelled to spend so many God-given days in a dream--in an outward show, which has nothing to satisfy the soul that has become acquainted with truth. But, mine own wife, if you had not taught me what happiness is, I should not have known that there is anything lacking to me now. I am dissatisfied--not because, at any former period of my life, I was ever a thousandth part so happy as now--but because Hope feeds and grows strong on the happiness within me. Good night, belovedest wife. I have a note to write to Mr. Capen, who torments me every now-and-then about a book which he wants me to manufacture. Hereafter, I intend that my Dove shall manage all my correspondence:--indeed, it is my purpose to throw all sorts of trouble upon my Dove's shoulders. Good night now, dearest.--

December 20th--7 P.M. Blessedest wife--has not Sophie Hawthorne been very impatient for this letter, one half of which yet remains undeveloped in my brain and heart? Would that she could enter those inward regions, and read the letter there--together with so much that never can be expressed in written or spoken words. And can she not do this? The Dove can do it, even if Sophie Hawthorne fail. Dearest, would it be unreasonable for me to ask you to manage my share of the correspondence, as well as your own?--to throw yourself into my heart, and make it gush out with more warmth and freedom than my own pen can avail to do? How I should delight to see an epistle from myself to Sophie Hawthorne, written by my Dove!--or to my Dove, Sophie Hawthorne being the amanuensis! I doubt not, that truths would then be spoken, which my heart would recognise as existing within its depths, yet which can never be clothed in words of my own. You know that we are one another's consciousness--then it is not poss--My dearest, George Hillard has come in upon me, in the midst of the foregoing sentence, and I have utterly forgotten what I meant to say. But it is not much matter. Even if I could convince you of the expediency of your writing my letters as well as your own, still, when you attempted to take the pen out of my hand, I believe I should resist very strenuously. For, belovedest, though not an epistolarian by nature, yet the instinct of communicating myself to you makes it a necessity and a joy to write.

Your husband has received an invitation, through Mr. Collector Bancroft, to go to Dr. Channing's to-night. What is to be done? Anything, rather than to go. I never will venture into company, unless I can put myself under the protection of Sophie Hawthorne. She, I am sure, will take care that no harm comes to me. Or my Dove might take me "under her wing."

Dearest, you must not expect me too fervently on Christmas eve, because it is very uncertain whether Providence will bring us together then. If not, I shall take care to advise you thereof by letter--which, however, may chance not to come to hand till three o'clock on Christmas day. And there will be my Dove, making herself nervous with waiting for me. Dearest, I wish I could be the source of nothing but happiness to you--and that disquietude, hope deferred, and disappointment, might not ever have aught to do with your affection. Does the joy compensate for the pain? Naughty Sophie Hawthorne--silly Dove--will you let that foolish question bring tears into your eyes?

My Dove's letter was duly received.

Your lovingest

HUSBAND.

Miss Sophia A. Peabody, Care of Dr. N. Peabody, Salem, Mass.

TO MISS PEABODY

_Boston_, December 24th, 1839. 6 or 7 P.M.

_My very dearest_,

While I sit down disconsolately to write this letter, at this very moment is my Dove expecting to hear her husband's footstep upon the threshold. She fully believes, that, within the limits of the hour which is now passing, she will be clasped to my bosom. Belovedest, I cannot bear to have you yearn for me so intensely. By and bye, when you find that I do not come, our head will begin to ache;--but still, being the "hopingest little person" in the world, you will not give me up, perhaps till eight o'clock. But soon it will be bed-time--it will be deep night--and not a spoken word, not a written line, will have come to your heart from your naughtiest of all husbands. Sophie Hawthorne, at least, will deem him the naughtiest of husbands; but my Dove will keep her faith in him just as firmly and fervently, as if she were acquainted with the particular impossibilities which keep him from her. Dearest wife, I did hope, till this afternoon, that I should be able to disburthen myself of the cargo of salt which has been resting on my weary shoulders for a week past; but it does seem as if Heaven's mercy were not meant for us miserable Custom-House officers. The holiest of holydays--the day that brought ransom to all other sinners--leaves us in slavery still.

Nevertheless, dearest, if I did not feel two disappointments in one--your own and mine--I should feel much more comfortable and resigned than I do. If I could have come to you to-night, I must inevitably have returned hither tomorrow evening. But now, in requital of my present heaviness of spirit, I am resolved that my next visit shall be at least one day longer than I could otherwise have ventured to make it. We cannot spend this Christmas eve together, mine own wife; but I have faith that you will see me on the eve of the New Year. Will not you be glad when I come home to spend three whole days, that I was kept away from you for a few brief hours on Christmas eve? For if I went now, I could not be with you then.

My blessedest, write and let me know that you have not been very much disturbed by my non-appearance. I pray you to have the feelings of a wife towards me, dearest--that is, you must feel that my whole life is yours, a life-time of long days, and therefore it is no irreparable nor very grievous loss, though sometimes a few of those days are wasted away from you. A wife should be calm and quiet, in the settled certainty of possessing her husband. Above all, dearest, bear these crosses with philosophy for my sake; for it makes me anxious and depressed, to imagine your anxiety and depression. Oh, that you could be very joyful when I come, and yet not sad when I fail to come! Is that impossible, my sweetest Dove?--is it impossible, my naughtiest Sophie Hawthorne?

TO MISS PEABODY

_Boston_, Jany. 1st, 1840. 6 o'clock P.M.

_Belovedest wife_,

Your husband's heart was exceedingly touched by that little backhanded note, and likewise by the bundle of allumettes--half a dozen of which I have just been kissing with great affection. Would that I might kiss that poor dear finger of mine! Kiss it for my sake, sweetest Dove--and tell naughty Sophie Hawthorne to kiss it too. Nurse it well, dearest; for no small part of my comfort and cheeriness of heart depends upon that beloved finger. If it be not well enough to bear its part in writing me a letter within a few days, do not be surprised if I send down the best surgeon in Boston to effect a speedy cure. Nevertheless, darlingest wife, restrain the good little finger, if it show any inclination to recommence its labors too soon. If your finger be pained in writing, your husband's heart ought to (and I hope would) feel every twinge.

Belovedest, I have not yet wished you a Happy New Year! And yet I have--many, many of them; as many, mine own wife, as we can enjoy together--and when we can no more enjoy them together, we shall no longer think of Happy New Years on earth, but look longingly for the New Year's Day of eternity. What a year the last has been! Dearest, you make the same exclamation; but my heart originates it too. It has been the year of years--the year in which the flower of our life has bloomed out--the flower of our life and of our love, which we are to wear in our bosoms forever. Oh, how I love you, belovedest wife!--and how I thank God that He has made me capable to know and love you! Sometimes I feel, deep, deep down in my heart, how dearest above all things you are to me; and those are blissful moments. It is such a happiness to be conscious, at last, of something real. All my life hitherto, I have been walking in a dream, among shadows which could not be pressed to my bosom; but now, even in this dream of time, there is something that takes me out of it, and causes me to be a dreamer no more. Do you not feel, dearest, that we live above time and apart from time, even while we seem to be in the midst of time? Our affection diffuses eternity round about us.

My carefullest little wife will rejoice to know that I have been free to sit by a good fire all this bitter cold day--not but what I have a salt-ship on my hands, but she must have some ballast, before she can discharge any more salt; and ballast cannot be procured till the day after tomorrow. Are not these details very interesting? I have a mind, some day, to send my dearest a journal of all my doings and sufferings, my whole external life, from the time I awake at dawn, till I close my eyes at night. What a dry, dull history would it be! But then, apart from this, I would write another journal of my inward life throughout the self-same day--my fits of pleasant thought, and those likewise which are shadowed by passing clouds--the yearnings of my heart towards my Dove--my pictures of what we are to enjoy together. Nobody would think that the same man could live two such different lives simultaneously. But then, as I have said above, the grosser life is a dream, and the spiritual life a reality.

Very dearest, I wish you would make out a list of books that you would like to be in our library; for I intend, whenever the cash and the opportunity occur together, to buy enough to fill up our new book-case; and I want to feel that I am buying them for both of us. When I next come to Salem, you shall read the list, and we will discuss it, volume by volume. I suppose the book-case will hold about two hundred volumes; but you need not calculate upon making such a vast collection all at once. It shall be accomplished in small lots; and then we shall prize every volume, and receive a separate pleasure from the acquisition of it.

Does it seem a great while since I left you, dearest? Truly, it does to me. These separations lengthen our earthly lives by at least nine-tenths; but then, in our brief seasons of communion, there is the essence of a thousand years. Was it Thursday that I told my Dove would be the day of my next appearance?--or Friday? "Oh, Friday, certainly!" says Sophie Hawthorne. Well; it must be as naughty Sophie says.

Oh, belovedest, I want you. You have given me a new feeling, blessedest wife--a sense, that strong as I may have deemed myself, I am insufficient for my own support; and that there is a tender little Dove, without whose help I cannot get through this weary world at all. God bless you, ownest wife.

YOUR OWNEST HUSBAND.

Miss Sophia A. Peabody, Care of Dr. N. Peabody, Salem, Mass.

TO MISS PEABODY

_Boston_, Jany. 3d, 1840--3 P.M.

What a best of all possible husbands you have, sweetest wife, to be writing to you so soon again, although he has heard nothing from you since the latter part of the year 1839! What a weary length of time that naughty finger has been ill! Unless there are signs of speedy amendment, we must begin to think of "rotation in office," and the left hand must be nominated to the executive duties of which the right is no longer capable. Yet, dearest, do not imagine that I am impatient. I do indeed long to see your delicatest little penmanship; (what an enormity it would be to call my Dove's most feminine of handwritings pen_man_ship!) but it would take away all the happiness of it, when I reflected that each individual letter had been a pain to you. Nay; I would not have you write, if you find that the impediments of this mode of utterance check the flow of your mind and heart.

But you tell me that the wounded finger will be no hindrance to your painting. Very glad am I, dearest; for you cannot think how much delight those pictures are going to give me. I shall sit and gaze at them whole hours together--and these will be my happiest hours, the fullest of you, though all are full of you. I never owned a picture in my life; yet pictures have always been among the earthly possessions (and they are spiritual possessions too) which I most coveted. I know not what value my Dove's pictures might bear at an auction-room; but to me, certainly, they will be incomparably more precious than all the productions of all the painters since Apelles. When we live together in our own home, belovedest, we will paint pictures together--that is, our minds and hearts shall unite to form the conception, to which your hand shall give material existence. I have often felt as if I could be a painter, only I am sure that I could never handle a brush;--now my Dove will show me the images of my inward eye, beautified and etherealised by the mixture of her own spirit. Belovedest, I think I shall get these two pictures put into mahogany frames, because they will harmonize better with the furniture of our parlor than gilt frames would.

While I was writing the foregoing paragraph, Mary has sent to inquire whether I mean to go to Salem tomorrow, intending, if I did, to send a letter by me. But, alas! I am not going. The inquiry, however, has made me feel a great yearning to be there. But it is not possible, because I have an engagement at Cambridge on Saturday evening; and even if it were otherwise, it would be better to wait till the middle of the week, or a little later, when I hope to spend three or four days with you. Oh, what happiness, when we shall be able to look forward to an illimitable time in each other's society--when a day or two of absence will be far more infrequent than the days which we spend together now. Then a quiet will settle down upon us, a passionate quiet, which is the consummation of happiness.

Dearest, I hope you have not found it impracticable to walk, though the atmosphere be so wintry. Did we walk together in any such cold weather, last winter? I believe we did. How strange, that such a flower as our affection should have blossomed amid snow and wintry winds--accompaniments which no poet or novelist, that I know of, has ever introduced into a love-tale. Nothing like our story was ever written--or ever will be--for we shall not feel inclined to make the public our confidant; but if it could be told, methinks it would be such as the angels might take delight to hear. If I mistake not, my Dove has expressed some such idea as this, in one of her recent letters.

Well-a-day! I have strolled thus far through my letter, without once making mention of naughty Sophie Hawthorne. Will she pardon the neglect? Present my profound respects to her beloved nose, and say that I still entreat her to allow my Dove to kiss her cheek. When she complies with this oft-repeated petition, I shall hope that her spirit is beginning to be tamed, and shall then meditate some other and more difficult trials of it. Nonsense! Do not believe me, dear little Sophie Hawthorne. I would not tame you for the whole Universe.

But now good bye, dearest wife. Keep yourself in good heart while I am absent, and grow round and plump and rosy;--eat a whole chicken every day;--go to bed at nine o'clock or earlier, and sleep sound till sunrise. Come to me in dreams, beloved. What should I do in this weary world, without the idea of you, dearest! Give my love to your father and mother, and to Elizabeth.

God bless you, darling.

YOUR OWNEST HUSBAND.

Miss Sophia A. Peabody, Care of Dr. N. Peabody, Salem, Mass.

TO MISS PEABODY

_Boston_, Jany. 24th, 1840--4 P.M.

_Ownest Dove_,

Your letter came this forenoon, announcing the advent of the pictures; so I came home as soon as I possibly could--and there was the package! I naturally trembled as I undid it, so eager was I to behold them. Dearissima, there never was anything so lovely and precious in this world. They are perfect. So soon as the dust and smoke of my fire had evaporated, I put them on the mantelpiece, and sat a long time before them with clasped hands, gazing, and gazing, and gazing, and painting a fac-simile of them in my heart, in whose most sacred chamber they shall keep a place forever and ever. Belovedest, I was not long in finding out the Dove in the Menaggio. In fact, she was the very first object that my eyes rested on, when I uncovered the picture. She flew straightway into my heart--and yet she remains just where you placed her. Dearest, if it had not been for your strict injunctions that nobody nor anything should touch the pictures, I do believe that my lips would have touched that naughty Sophie Hawthorne, as she stands on the bridge. Do you think the perverse little damsel would have vanished beneath my kiss? What a misfortune would that have been to her poor lover!--to find that he kissed away his mistress. But, at worst, she would have remained on my lips. However, I shall refrain from all endearments, till you tell me that a kiss may be hazarded without fear of her taking it in ill part and absenting herself without leave.

Mine ownest, it is a very noble-looking cavalier with whom Sophie is standing on the bridge. Are you quite sure that her own husband is the companion of her walk? Yet I need not ask--for there is the Dove to bear witness to his identity. That true and tender bird would never have alighted on another hand--never have rested so near another bosom. Yes; it must be my very self; and from henceforth it shall be held for an absolute and indisputable truth. It is not my picture, but the very I; and as my inner self belongs to you, there is no doubt that you have caused my soul to pervade the figure. There we are, unchangeable. Years cannot alter us, nor our relation to each other.

Ownest, we will talk about these pictures all our lives and longer; so there is no need that I should say all that I think and feel about them now; especially as I have yet only begun to understand and feel them. I have put them into my bed-room for the present, being afraid to trust them on the mantel-piece; but I cannot help going to feast my eyes upon them, every little while. I have determined not to hang them up till after I have been to Salem, for fear of the dust and of the fingers of the chamber-maid and other visitants. Whenever I am away, they will be safely locked up, either in the bureau or in my closet. I shall want your express directions as to the height at which they ought to be hung, and the width of the space between them, and other minutest particulars. We will discuss these matters, when I come home to my wife.

Belovedest, there are several obstacles to my coming home immediately. At present, two of the Measurers are employed, and another is detained at his home in Chelsea by the sickness of his family, and Colonel Hall continues too unwell to be at the Custom-House; so that I am the only one in attendance there; and moreover I have a coal vessel to discharge to-morrow. But this state of affairs will not continue long. I think I cannot fail to be at liberty by Tuesday or Wednesday at furthest; and at all events, next week shall not pass without our meeting; even if I should have barely time to press you in my arms, and say goodbye. But the probability is, that I shall come to spend a week.

Dearissima, be patient--Sophie Hawthorne as well as the Dove.

My carefullest little wife, I am of opinion that Elizabeth has been misinformed as to the increased prevalence of the small-pox. It could not be so generally diffused among the merchants and business-people without my being aware of it; nor do I hear of its committing such fearful ravages anywhere. The folks at the Custom-House know of no such matter; nor does George Hillard. In truth, I had supposed (till I heard otherwise from you) that all cause for alarm was past. Trust me, dearest, there is no need of heart-quake on my account. You have been in greater danger than your husband.

God be with you, blessedest and blessingest. I did ...

(Remainder of letter missing)

Miss Sophia A. Peabody, Care of Dr. N. Peabody, Salem, Mass.

TO MISS PEABODY

_Boston_, February 7th, 1840--½ past 3 P.M.

_Ownest Dove_,

Can you reckon the ages that have elapsed since our last embrace? It quite surpasses my powers of computation. I only know that, in some long by-gone time, I had a wife--and that now I am a widowed man, living not in the present, but in the past and future. My life would be empty indeed, if I could neither remember nor anticipate; but I can do both; and so my heart continues to keep itself full of light and warmth. Belovedest, let it be so likewise with you. You promised me--did you not?--to be happy during our separation, and really I must insist upon holding you to your word even if it should involve a miracle.