Come to me in dreams, beloved

Boston, Jany. 3rd, 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 finder 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 penmanship!) 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 he 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 it 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 tour 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!? 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 wean 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.