Salem, Wednesday, April 5th, 1842
My Dear,
It was thy husband's intention to spend all his leisure time, here at home, in sketching out a tale; but my spirit demands communion with thine so earnestly, that I must needs write to thee, if all the affairs in the world were pressing on me at once. My breast is full of thee; thou art throbbing throughout all my veins. Never, it seems to me, did I know what love was, before. And yet I am not satisfied to let that sentence pass; for it would do wrong to the blissful and holy time that we have already enjoyed together. But our hearts are new-created for one another daily, and they enter upon existence with such up-springing rapture as if nothing had ever existed before as if, at this very now, the physical and spiritual world were but first discovered, and by ourselves only. This is Eternity thus will every moment of forever-and-ever be the first moment of life, and no weariness can gather upon us from the past.
It is a bliss which I never wish to enjoy, when I can attain that of thy presence; but it is nevertheless a fact, that there is a bliss even in being absent from thee. This yearning that disturbs my very breath this earnest stretching out of my soul towards thee this voice of my heart, calling for thee out of its depths, and complaining that thou art not instantly given to it all these are a joy; for they make me know how entirely our beings have blended into one another. After all, these pangs are but symptoms of the completeness of our spiritual union the effort of the outward to respond to the inward. Dearest, I do not express myself clearly on this matter; but what need? wilt not thou know better what I mean than words could tell thee? Dost not thou too rejoice in everything that gives thee a more vivid consciousness that we are one? even if it have something like pain in it. The desire of my soul is to know thee continually, and to know that thou art mine; and absence, as well as presence, gives me this knowledge and as long as I have it, I live. It is, indeed, impossible for us ever to be really absent from one another; the only absence, for those who love, is estrangement or forgetfulness and we can never know what those words mean. Oh, dear me, my mind writes nonsense, because it is an insufficient interpreter for my heart.
... Most beloved, I am thinking at this moment of thy dearest nose! Thou canst nor know how infinitely better I know and love Sophie Hawthorne, since she has yielded up that fortress. And, in requital, I yield my whole self up to her, and kiss her beloved foot, and acknowledge her for my queen and liege-lady forever more. Come into my heart, dearest; for I am about to close my letter. Hitherto, I have kept thee at arms length; because the very act of writing necessarily supposes that thou art apart from me; but now I throw down the pen, in order that thou mayst be the closer to me.
Thine ownest Husband,
NATH. HAWTHORNE.
Miss Sophia A. Peabody,
Care of Dr. N. Peabody,
Boston, Mass.
My Dear,
It was thy husband's intention to spend all his leisure time, here at home, in sketching out a tale; but my spirit demands communion with thine so earnestly, that I must needs write to thee, if all the affairs in the world were pressing on me at once. My breast is full of thee; thou art throbbing throughout all my veins. Never, it seems to me, did I know what love was, before. And yet I am not satisfied to let that sentence pass; for it would do wrong to the blissful and holy time that we have already enjoyed together. But our hearts are new-created for one another daily, and they enter upon existence with such up-springing rapture as if nothing had ever existed before as if, at this very now, the physical and spiritual world were but first discovered, and by ourselves only. This is Eternity thus will every moment of forever-and-ever be the first moment of life, and no weariness can gather upon us from the past.
It is a bliss which I never wish to enjoy, when I can attain that of thy presence; but it is nevertheless a fact, that there is a bliss even in being absent from thee. This yearning that disturbs my very breath this earnest stretching out of my soul towards thee this voice of my heart, calling for thee out of its depths, and complaining that thou art not instantly given to it all these are a joy; for they make me know how entirely our beings have blended into one another. After all, these pangs are but symptoms of the completeness of our spiritual union the effort of the outward to respond to the inward. Dearest, I do not express myself clearly on this matter; but what need? wilt not thou know better what I mean than words could tell thee? Dost not thou too rejoice in everything that gives thee a more vivid consciousness that we are one? even if it have something like pain in it. The desire of my soul is to know thee continually, and to know that thou art mine; and absence, as well as presence, gives me this knowledge and as long as I have it, I live. It is, indeed, impossible for us ever to be really absent from one another; the only absence, for those who love, is estrangement or forgetfulness and we can never know what those words mean. Oh, dear me, my mind writes nonsense, because it is an insufficient interpreter for my heart.
... Most beloved, I am thinking at this moment of thy dearest nose! Thou canst nor know how infinitely better I know and love Sophie Hawthorne, since she has yielded up that fortress. And, in requital, I yield my whole self up to her, and kiss her beloved foot, and acknowledge her for my queen and liege-lady forever more. Come into my heart, dearest; for I am about to close my letter. Hitherto, I have kept thee at arms length; because the very act of writing necessarily supposes that thou art apart from me; but now I throw down the pen, in order that thou mayst be the closer to me.
Thine ownest Husband,
NATH. HAWTHORNE.
Miss Sophia A. Peabody,
Care of Dr. N. Peabody,
Boston, Mass.
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