and I, being pervaded with your spirit, would write beautifully and make myself famous for your sake

August 23d -- between 7 and 8 P.M. Dearest wife, when I think how soon this letter will greet you, it makes rny heart yearn towards you so much the more. How much of life we waste! Oh, beloved, if we had but a cottage somewhere beyond the sway of the east wind, yet within the limits of New England, where we could be always together, and have a place to be in -- what could we desire more? Nothing -- save daily bread, (or rather bread and milk, for I think I should adopt your diet) and clean white apparel every day for mine unspotted Dove. Then how happy I would be -- and how good! I could not be other than good and happy, when your kiss would sanctify me at all my outgoings and incomings. And you should draw, and paint, and sculpture, and make music, and poetry too, and your husband would admire and criticise; and I, being pervaded with your spirit, would write beautifully and make myself famous for your sake, because perhaps you would like to have the world acknowledge me but if the whole world glorified me with one voice, it would be a meed of little value in comparison with my wife s smile and kiss. For I shall always read my manuscripts to you, in the summer afternoons or winter evenings; and if they please you I shall expect a smile and a kiss as my reward and if they do not please, I must have a smile and kiss to comfort me.

Good bye -- sweet, sweet, dear, dear, sweetest, dearest wife. I received the kiss you sent me and have treasured it up in my heart. Take one from your own husband.

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