till she become even earthly-wiselier than her sagacious husband

Boston, Novr. 29th, 1839 -- 6 or 7 P. M.

Blesedest,

Does our head ache this evening? -- and has it ached all or any of the time to-day? I wish I knew, dearest, tor it seems almost too great a blessing to expect, that mv Dove should come quite late through the trial which she has encountered. Do, mine own wife, resume all your usual occupations as soon as possible your sculpture, your painting, your music (what a company of sisterarts is combined in the little person of my Dove!) -- and above all, your riding and walking. Write often to your husband, and let your letters gush from a cheerful heart; so shall they refresh and gladden me, like draughts from a sparkling fountain, which leaps from some spot of earth where no grave has ever been dug. Dearest, for some little time to come, I pray you not to muse too much upon your brother, even though such musings should he untinged with gloom, and should appear to make you happier. In the. eternity where he now dwells, it has doubtless become of no importance to himself whether he died yesterday, or a thousand years ago: -- he is already at home in the celestial city more at home than ever he was inhis mother's house. Then, my beloved, let us leave him there for the present; and if the shallows and images of this fleeting time should interpose between us and him, let us not seek to drive them away, for they are sent of God. By and bye, it will be good and profitable to commune with your brother's spirit: but so soon after his release from mortal infirmity, it seems even ungenerous towards himself, to call him back by yearnings of the heart and too vivid picturing of what he was.

Little Dove, why did you shed tears the other day, when you supposed that your husband thought you to blame for regretting the irrevocable past? Dearest, I never think you to blame: for you positively have no faults. Not that you always act wisely, or judge wisely, or feel precisely what it would be wise to feel, in relation to this present world and state of being: but it is because you are too delicately and exquisitely wrought in heart, mind, and frame, to dwell in such a world because, in short, you are fitter to be in Paradise than here. You needed, therefore, an interpreter between the world and yourself one who should sometimes set you right, not in the abstract (for there you are never wrong) but relatively to human and earthly matters: -- and such an interpreter is your husband, who can sympathise, though inadequately, with his wife's heavenly nature, and has likewise a portion of shrewd earthly sense, enough to guide us both through the labyrinths of time. Now, dearest, when I criticise any act, word, thought, or feeling of yours, you must not understand it as a reproof, or as imputing anything wrong, wherewith you are to bur then your conscience. Were an angel, however holy and wise, to come and dwell with mortals, he would need the guidance and instruction of some mortal; and so will you. my Dove, need mine and precisely the same sort of guidance that the angel would. Then do not grieve, nor grieve your husband's spirit, when he essays to do his office; but remember that he does it reverently, and in the devout belief that you are, in immortal reality, both wiser and better than himself, though sometimes he may chance to interpret the flitting shadows around us more accurately than you. Hear what I say, dearest, in a cheerful spirit, and act upon it with cheerful strength. And do not give an undue weight to my judgment, nor imigine that there is no appeal from it, and that it decrees are not to be questioned. Rather, make it a rule always to question them and be satisfied of their correctness: -- and so shall my Dove he improved and perfected in the gift of a human understanding, till she become even earthly-wiselier than her sagacious husband. Undine's husband gave her an immortal soul; my beloved wife must be content with an humbler gift from me, being already provided with as high and pure a soul as ever was created.

God bless you, belovedest. I bestow three kisses on the air they are intended for your eye lids and brow, to drive away the head-ache.

YOUR OWNEST.