Friday, 3 May 1839
My dearest, ten million occupations and interruptions, and intrusions, have kept me from going on with my letter; but my spirit has visited you continually, and yours has come to me. I have had to be out a good deal in the east winds; but your spell has proved sovereign against all harm, though sometimes I have shuddered and shivered for your sake. How have you borne it, my poor dear little Dove? Have you been able to flit abroad on today's east wind, and go to Marblehead, as you designed? You will not have seen Mrs. Hooper, because she came up to Boston in the cars on Monday morning. I had a brief talk with her, and we made mutual inquiries, she about you, and I about little C----. I will not attempt to tell you how it rejoices me that we are to spend a whole month together in the same city. Looking forward to it, it seems to me as if that month would never come to an end, because there will be so much of eternity in it. I wish you had read that dream-letter through, and could remember its contents. I am very sure that it could not have [been] written by me, however, because I should not think of addressing you as “My dear Sister”; nor should I like to have you call me brother nor even should have liked it, from the very first of our acquaintance. I trust, kindred spirits, but not brother and sister. And then what a cold and dry annunciation of that awful contingency the “continuance or not of our acquaintance.” Mine own Dove, you are to blame for dreaming such letters, or parts of letters, as coming from me. It was you that wrote it not I. Yet I will not believe that it shows a want of faith in the steadfastness of my affection, but only in the continuance of circumstances prosperous for our earthly and external connection. Let us trust in GOD for that. Pray to GOD for it, my Dove for you know how to pray better than I do. Pray, for my sake, that no shadows of earth may ever come between us, because my only hope of being a happy man depends upon the permanence of our union. I have great comfort in such thoughts as those you suggest that our hearts here draw towards one another so unusually that we have not cultivated our friendship, but let it grow, that we have thrown ourselves upon one another with such perfect trust; and even the deficiency of worldly wisdom, that some people would ascribe to us in following the guidance of our hearts so implicitly, is proof to me that there is a deep wisdom within us. Oh, let us not think but that all will be well! And even it, to worldly eyes, it should appear that our lot is not a fortunate one, still we shall have glimpses, at least and I trust a pervading sunshine of a happiness that we could never have found, if we had unquietly struggled for it, and made our own selection of the means and species of it, instead of trusting all to something diviner than our reason.
My Dove, there were a good many things that I meant to have written in this letter; but I have continually lapsed into fits of musing, and when I have written, the soul of my thoughts has not readily assumed the earthly garments of language. It is now time to earn the letter to Mary. I kiss you, dearest did you feel it?
Your own friend,
NATH. HAWTHORNE, Eso,.
(Dear me! What an effect that Esquire gives to the whole letter!)
Miss Sophia A. Peabody,
Care of Dr. N. Peabody,
Salem, Mass.
My dearest, ten million occupations and interruptions, and intrusions, have kept me from going on with my letter; but my spirit has visited you continually, and yours has come to me. I have had to be out a good deal in the east winds; but your spell has proved sovereign against all harm, though sometimes I have shuddered and shivered for your sake. How have you borne it, my poor dear little Dove? Have you been able to flit abroad on today's east wind, and go to Marblehead, as you designed? You will not have seen Mrs. Hooper, because she came up to Boston in the cars on Monday morning. I had a brief talk with her, and we made mutual inquiries, she about you, and I about little C----. I will not attempt to tell you how it rejoices me that we are to spend a whole month together in the same city. Looking forward to it, it seems to me as if that month would never come to an end, because there will be so much of eternity in it. I wish you had read that dream-letter through, and could remember its contents. I am very sure that it could not have [been] written by me, however, because I should not think of addressing you as “My dear Sister”; nor should I like to have you call me brother nor even should have liked it, from the very first of our acquaintance. I trust, kindred spirits, but not brother and sister. And then what a cold and dry annunciation of that awful contingency the “continuance or not of our acquaintance.” Mine own Dove, you are to blame for dreaming such letters, or parts of letters, as coming from me. It was you that wrote it not I. Yet I will not believe that it shows a want of faith in the steadfastness of my affection, but only in the continuance of circumstances prosperous for our earthly and external connection. Let us trust in GOD for that. Pray to GOD for it, my Dove for you know how to pray better than I do. Pray, for my sake, that no shadows of earth may ever come between us, because my only hope of being a happy man depends upon the permanence of our union. I have great comfort in such thoughts as those you suggest that our hearts here draw towards one another so unusually that we have not cultivated our friendship, but let it grow, that we have thrown ourselves upon one another with such perfect trust; and even the deficiency of worldly wisdom, that some people would ascribe to us in following the guidance of our hearts so implicitly, is proof to me that there is a deep wisdom within us. Oh, let us not think but that all will be well! And even it, to worldly eyes, it should appear that our lot is not a fortunate one, still we shall have glimpses, at least and I trust a pervading sunshine of a happiness that we could never have found, if we had unquietly struggled for it, and made our own selection of the means and species of it, instead of trusting all to something diviner than our reason.
My Dove, there were a good many things that I meant to have written in this letter; but I have continually lapsed into fits of musing, and when I have written, the soul of my thoughts has not readily assumed the earthly garments of language. It is now time to earn the letter to Mary. I kiss you, dearest did you feel it?
Your own friend,
NATH. HAWTHORNE, Eso,.
(Dear me! What an effect that Esquire gives to the whole letter!)
Miss Sophia A. Peabody,
Care of Dr. N. Peabody,
Salem, Mass.
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