editors's note: Hawthorne was engaged to Sophie Peabody when he wrote this letter, but he refers to her as "Sophie Hawthorne"; they were married in 1842.
To Sophie Peabody, Boston, 15 March 1840, forenoon
Best-belovedest,
Thy letter by Elizabeth came, I believe, on Thursday, and the two which thou didst entrust to the post reached me not till yesterday whereby I enjoyed a double blessing in recompense of the previous delay. Nevertheless, it were desirable that the new Salem postmaster be forth with ejected, for taking upon himself to withhold the outpourings of thy heart, at their due season. As for letters of business, which involve merely the gain or loss of a few thousand dollars, let him be as careless as he pleases; but when thou wouldst utter thyself to thy husband, dearest wife, there is doubtless a peculiar fitness of thy communications to that point and phase of our existence, at which they ought to be received. However, come when they will, they are sure to make sweetest music with my heart-strings.
Blessedest, what an ugly day is this! and there thou sittest as heavy as thy husband’s heart. And is his heart indeed heavy? Why no it is not heaviness not the heaviness, like a great lump of ice, which I used to feel when I was alone in the world – but – but – in short, dearest, where thou art not, there it is a sort of death. A death, however, in which there is still hope and assurance of a joyful life to come. Methinks, if my spirit were not conscious of thy spirit, this dreary snowstorm would chill me to torpor; the warmth of my fireside would he quite powerless to counteract it. Most absolute little wife, didst thou expressly command me to go to Father Taylor’s church this very Sabbath? (Dinner, or luncheon rather, has intervened since the last sentence). Now, belovedest, it would not be an auspicious day for me to hear the aforesaid Son of Thunder. Thou knowest not how difficult is thy husband to be touched or moved, unless time, and circumstances, and his own inward state, be in a “concatenation accordingly.” A dreadful thing would it be, were Father Taylor to fail in awakening a sympathy from my spirit to thine. Darlingest, pray me stay at home this afternoon. Some sunshine Sunday, when I am wide awake, and warm, and genial, I will go and throw myself open to his blessed influences; but now, there is but one thing (thou being absent) which I feel anywise inclined to do and that is, to go to sleep. May I go to sleep, belovedest? Think what sweet dreams of thee may visit me think how I shall escape this snow-storm think how my heavy mood will change, as the mood of mind almost always does, during the interval that withdraws me from the external world. Yes; thou bidst me sleep. Sleep thou too, my beloved let us pass at one and the same moment mto that misty region, and embrace each other there.
Well, dearest, I have slept; but Sophie Hawthorne has been naughty she would not be dreamed about. And now that I am awake again, here are the same snow-flakes in the air, that were descending when I went to sleep. Would that there were an art of making sunshine! Knowest thou any such art? Truly thou dost, my blessedest, and hast often thrown a heavenly sunshine around thy husband s spirit, when all things else were full of gloom. What a woe what a cloud it is, to be away from thee ! How would my Dove like to have her husband continually with her, twelve or fourteen months out of the next twenty? Would not that be real happiness? – in such long communion, should we not feel as if separation were a dream, something that never had been a reality, nor ever could be? Yes; but for in all earthly happiness there is a but – but, during those twenty months, there would be two intervals of three months each, when thy husband would be five hundred miles away as far away as Wellington. That would be terrible. Would not Sophie Hawthorne fight against it? would not the Dove fold her wings, not in the quietude of bliss, but of despair? Do not be frightened, dearest nor rejoiced either for the thing will not be. It might be, if I chose; but on multitudinous accounts, my present situation seems preferable; and I do pray, that, in one year more, I may find some way of escaping from this unblest Custom-House ; for it is a very grievous thraldom. I do detest all offices all, at least, that are held on a political tenure. And I want nothing to do with politicians they are not men; they cease to be men, in becoming politicians. Their hearts wither away, and die out of their bodies. Their consciences are turned to India-rubber or to some substance as black as that, and which will stretch as much. One thing, if no more, I have gained by my Custom-House experience to know a politician. It is a knowledge which no previous thought, or power of sympathy, could have taught me, because the animal, or the machine rather, is not in nature.
Oh my darlingest wife, thy husband’s soul yearns to embrace thee! Thou art his hope his joy he desires nothing but to be with thee, and to toil for thee, and to make thee a happy wife, wherein would consist his own heavenliest happiness. Dost thou love him? Yes; he knoweth it. God bless thee, most beloved.
THINE OWNEST HUSBAND.
To Sophie Peabody, Boston, 15 March 1840, forenoon
Best-belovedest,
Thy letter by Elizabeth came, I believe, on Thursday, and the two which thou didst entrust to the post reached me not till yesterday whereby I enjoyed a double blessing in recompense of the previous delay. Nevertheless, it were desirable that the new Salem postmaster be forth with ejected, for taking upon himself to withhold the outpourings of thy heart, at their due season. As for letters of business, which involve merely the gain or loss of a few thousand dollars, let him be as careless as he pleases; but when thou wouldst utter thyself to thy husband, dearest wife, there is doubtless a peculiar fitness of thy communications to that point and phase of our existence, at which they ought to be received. However, come when they will, they are sure to make sweetest music with my heart-strings.
Blessedest, what an ugly day is this! and there thou sittest as heavy as thy husband’s heart. And is his heart indeed heavy? Why no it is not heaviness not the heaviness, like a great lump of ice, which I used to feel when I was alone in the world – but – but – in short, dearest, where thou art not, there it is a sort of death. A death, however, in which there is still hope and assurance of a joyful life to come. Methinks, if my spirit were not conscious of thy spirit, this dreary snowstorm would chill me to torpor; the warmth of my fireside would he quite powerless to counteract it. Most absolute little wife, didst thou expressly command me to go to Father Taylor’s church this very Sabbath? (Dinner, or luncheon rather, has intervened since the last sentence). Now, belovedest, it would not be an auspicious day for me to hear the aforesaid Son of Thunder. Thou knowest not how difficult is thy husband to be touched or moved, unless time, and circumstances, and his own inward state, be in a “concatenation accordingly.” A dreadful thing would it be, were Father Taylor to fail in awakening a sympathy from my spirit to thine. Darlingest, pray me stay at home this afternoon. Some sunshine Sunday, when I am wide awake, and warm, and genial, I will go and throw myself open to his blessed influences; but now, there is but one thing (thou being absent) which I feel anywise inclined to do and that is, to go to sleep. May I go to sleep, belovedest? Think what sweet dreams of thee may visit me think how I shall escape this snow-storm think how my heavy mood will change, as the mood of mind almost always does, during the interval that withdraws me from the external world. Yes; thou bidst me sleep. Sleep thou too, my beloved let us pass at one and the same moment mto that misty region, and embrace each other there.
Well, dearest, I have slept; but Sophie Hawthorne has been naughty she would not be dreamed about. And now that I am awake again, here are the same snow-flakes in the air, that were descending when I went to sleep. Would that there were an art of making sunshine! Knowest thou any such art? Truly thou dost, my blessedest, and hast often thrown a heavenly sunshine around thy husband s spirit, when all things else were full of gloom. What a woe what a cloud it is, to be away from thee ! How would my Dove like to have her husband continually with her, twelve or fourteen months out of the next twenty? Would not that be real happiness? – in such long communion, should we not feel as if separation were a dream, something that never had been a reality, nor ever could be? Yes; but for in all earthly happiness there is a but – but, during those twenty months, there would be two intervals of three months each, when thy husband would be five hundred miles away as far away as Wellington. That would be terrible. Would not Sophie Hawthorne fight against it? would not the Dove fold her wings, not in the quietude of bliss, but of despair? Do not be frightened, dearest nor rejoiced either for the thing will not be. It might be, if I chose; but on multitudinous accounts, my present situation seems preferable; and I do pray, that, in one year more, I may find some way of escaping from this unblest Custom-House ; for it is a very grievous thraldom. I do detest all offices all, at least, that are held on a political tenure. And I want nothing to do with politicians they are not men; they cease to be men, in becoming politicians. Their hearts wither away, and die out of their bodies. Their consciences are turned to India-rubber or to some substance as black as that, and which will stretch as much. One thing, if no more, I have gained by my Custom-House experience to know a politician. It is a knowledge which no previous thought, or power of sympathy, could have taught me, because the animal, or the machine rather, is not in nature.
Oh my darlingest wife, thy husband’s soul yearns to embrace thee! Thou art his hope his joy he desires nothing but to be with thee, and to toil for thee, and to make thee a happy wife, wherein would consist his own heavenliest happiness. Dost thou love him? Yes; he knoweth it. God bless thee, most beloved.
THINE OWNEST HUSBAND.
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