Oh, how I do wish that my sweet wife and I could dwell upon a cloud, and follow the sunset round about the earth!

August 27th. 1/2 past 7 o'clock. Very dearest, your husband has been stationed all day at the end of Long Wharf, and I rather think that he had the most eligible situation of anybody in Boston. I was aware that it must be intensely hot in the middle of the city; but there was only a very short space of uncomfortable heat in my region, half-way towards the center of the harbour; and almost all the time there was a pure and delightful breeze, fluttering and palpitating, sometimes shyly kissing my brow, then dying away, and then rushing upon me in livelier sport, so that I was fain to settle my straw hat tighter upon my head. Late in the afternoon, there was a sunny shower, which came down so like a benediction, that it seemed ungrateful to take shelter in the. cabin, or to put up an umbrella. Then there was a rainbow, or a large segment of one, so exceedingly brilliant, and of such long endurance, that I almost fancied it was stained into the sky, and would continue there permanently. And there were clouds floating all about, great clouds and small, of all glorious and lovely hues (save that imperial crimson, which was never revealed save to our united gaze) so glorious, indeed, and so lovely, that I had a fantasy of Heaven's being broken into fleecy fragments, and dispersed throughout space, with its blessed inhabitants yet dwelling blissfully upon those scattered islands. Oh, how I do wish that my sweet wife and I could dwell upon a cloud, and follow the sunset round about the earth! Perhaps she might; but my nature is too earthy to permit me to dwell there with her and I know well that she would not leave me here. Dearest, how I longed tor you to be with me, both in the shower and the sunshine. I did but half see what was to be seen, nor but half feel the emotions which the scene ought to have produced. Had you been there, I do think that we should have remembered this among our most wondrously beautiful sunsets. And the sea was very beautiful too. Would it not be a pleasant life to -- but I will not sketch out any more fantasies tonight.

Beloved, have not I been gone a great while? Truly it seems to me very long; and it is strange what an increase of apparent length is always added by two or three days of the second week. Do not you yearn to see me? I know you do, dearest. How do I know it? How should I, save by my own heart?

Dearest wife, I am tired now, and have scribbled this letter in such slovenly fashion that I fear you will hardly be able to read it, nevertheless, I have been happy in writing it. But now, though it is so early yet, I shall throw aside my pen, especially as the paper is so nearly covered.

My sweet Dove,
Good night.

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

Thus, one way or another, the Sabbath passed away without my pouring out my heart to my sweet wife on paper

Boston, August 25th, 1839

Dearest Wife,

I did not write you yesterday, tor several reasons partly because I was interrupted by company; and also I had a difficult letter to project and execute in behalf of an office-seeker; and in the afternoon I fell asleep amid thoughts of my own Dove; and when I awoke, I took up Miss Martineaifs Deerbrook, and became interested in it because, being myself a lover, nothing that treats earnestly of love can be indifferent to me. Some truth in the book I recognised -- but there seems to be too much of dismal fantasy.

Thus, one way or another, the Sabbath passed away without my pouring out my heart to my sweet wife on paper; but I thought of you, dearest, all day long. Your letter came this forenoon, and I opened it on board of a salt-ship, and snatched portions of it in the intervals of keeping tally. Every letter of yours is as fresh and new as if you had never written a preceding one each is like a strain ot music unheard before, but all are in sweet accordance -- all of them introduce me deeper and deeper into your being, yet there is no sense of surprise at what I see, and feel, and know, therein. I am familiar with your inner heart, as with my home; but yet there is a sense of revelation or perhaps of recovered intimacy with a dearest friend long hidden from me. Were you not my wite in some past eternity?

Dearest, perhaps these speculations are not wise. We will not cast dreamy glances too far behind us or before us, but live our present lite in simplicity; tor methinks that is the way to realise it most intense!}. Good night, most beloved. Your husband is presently going to bed; for the bell has just rung (those bells are always interrupting us, whether for dinner, or supper, or bed time) and he rose early this morning, and must be abroad at sunrise tomorrow. Good night, my wife. Receive your husband's kiss upon your eyelids. [continued on the 27th]

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.

you come with flowers of Paradise; some in bloom, many in the bud, and all of them immortal.

August 22d. Five or six o clock P.M. I was interrupted by the supper bell, while writing the foregoing sentence; and much that I might have added has now passed out of my mind or passed into its depths. My beloved wife, let us make no question about our love, whether it be true. Were it otherwise, God would not have left your heart to wreck itself utterly His angels keep watch over you they would have given you early and continued warning of the approach of Evil in any shape.

Two letters has my Dove blessed me with, since that of Monday both beautiful all three, in deed, most beautiful. There is a great deal in all of them that should be especially answered; but how may this be effected in one little sheet? -- moreover, it is my pleasure to write in a more desultory fashion.

Nevertheless, propound as many questions as you see fit, in your letters, hut, dearest, let it he without expectation of a set response.

When I first looked at that shadow of the Passing Hour, I thought her expression too sad; hut the more I looked the sweeter and pleasanter it grew and now I am inclined to think that few mortals are waited on by happier Hours than is my Dove, even in her pensive moods. My beloved, you make a Heaven round about you, and dwell in it continually; and as it is your Heaven, so is it mine. My heart has not been very heavy -- not desperately heavy -- any one time since I loved you; not even your illness and headaches, dearest wife, can make me desperately sad. My stock of sunshine is so infinitely increased by partaking of yours, that even when a cloud flits by, I incomparably prefer its gloom to the sullen, leaden tinge that used to overspread my sky. Were you to bring me, in outward appearance, nothing save a load of grief and pain, yet I do believe that happiness, in no stinted measure, would somehow or other be smuggled into the dismal burthen. But you come to me with no grief -- no pain -- you come with flowers of Paradise; some in bloom, many in the bud, and all of them immortal.

You are my first hope and my last.

Boston, August 21st, 1839

My dearest will be glad to know that her husband has not had to endure the heavy sunshine this afternoon; -- he came home at three o'clock or thereabout, and locking the door, betook himself to sleep first ensuring himself sweet slumber and blissful dreams (it any dreams should come) by reperusing his sweet wife's letter. His wife was with him at the moment of falling asleep, and at the moment of awaking; but she stole away from him during the interval. Naughty wife! Nevertheless, he has slept and is refreshed slept how long he does not know; but the sun has made a far progress downward, since he closed his eyes.

Oh, my wife, if it were possible that you should vanish from me, I feel and know that my soul would be solitary forever and ever. I almost think that there would be no "forever" for me. I could not encounter such a desolate Eternity, were you to leave me. You are my first hope and my last.

If you fail me (hut there is no such if) I might toil onward through this life without much out ward change, hut I should sink down and die utterly upon the threshold of the dreary Future. Were you to find yourself deceived, you would he take yourself at once to God and Heaven, in the certainty of there finding a thousand-fold recompense for all earthly disappointment; but with me, it seems as if hope and happiness would he torn up by the roots, and could never bloom again, neither in this soil nor the soil of Paradise.

My Dove is beautiful, and full of grace; she should not have an ugly mate.

My own Room. August 9th about 10 A.M. It is so rare a thing for your husband to find him self in his own room in the middle of the forenoon, that he cannot help advising his Dove of that remarkable fact. By some misunderstanding, I was sent on a fruitless errand to East Cambridge, and have stopped here, on my return to the Custom House, to rest and refresh myself and what can so rest and refresh me as to hold intercourse with my darling wife? It must be but a word and a kiss, however a written word and a shadowy kiss. Good bye, dearest. I must go now to hold controversy, I suppose, with some plaguy little Frenchman about a peck of coal more or less; but I will give my beloved another word and kiss, when the day's toil is over.

About 8 o clock P.M. l received your letter, your sweet, sweet letter, my sweetest wife, on reaching the Custom House. Now as to that swelled face of ours it had begun to swell when we last met; but I did not tell you, because I knew that you would associate the idea of pain with it, whereas, it was attended with no pain at all. Very glad am I, that my Dove did not see me when one side of my face was swollen as big as two, for the image of such a monstrous one-sidedness, or double-sidedness, might have haunted her memory through the whole fortnight. Dearest, is it a weakness that your husband wishes to look tolerably comely always in your eyes? -- and beautiful if he could!! My Dove is beautiful, and full of grace; she should not have an ugly mate. But to return to this "naughty swelling" -- it began to subside on Tuesday, and has now, I think, entirely disappeared, leaving my visage in its former admirable proportion. Nothing is now the matter with me; save that my heart is as much swollen as my cheek was swollen with love, with pent-uplove, which I would tain mingle with the heartflood of mine own sweet wife. Oh, dearest, how much I have to say to you! how many fond thoughts.

Dearest, I dare not give you permission to go out in the east winds. The west wind will come very often I am sure, if it were only for the sake of my Dove. Have nothing to do with that hateful east wind.

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

True it is, that I never look heavenward without thinking of you

Custom House, August 8th, 1839

Your letter, my beloved wife, was duly received into your husband's heart yesterday. I found it impossible to keep it all day long, with unbroken seal, in my pocket; and so I opened and read it on board of a salt vessel, where I was at work, amid all sorts of bustle, and gabble of Irishmen, and other incommodities. Nevertheless its effect was very blessed, even as if I had gazed upward from the deck of the vessel, and beheld my wife's sweet face looking down upon me from a sun-brightened cloud. Dearest, it your dove-wings will not carry you so far, I beseech you to alight upon such a cloud sometimes, and let it bear you to me. True it is, that I never look heavenward without thinking of you, and I doubt whether it would much surprise me to catch a glimpse of you among those upper regions. Then would all that is spiritual within me so yearn towards you, that I should leave my earthly incumbrances behind, and float upward and embrace you in the heavenly sunshine. Yet methinks I shall he more content to spend a lifetime of earthly and heavenly happiness intermixed. So human am I, my beloved, rhat I would not give up the hope of loving and cherishing you by a fireside of our own, not for any unimaginable bliss of higher spheres. Your influence shall purify me and tit me for a better world but it shall be by means of our happiness here below.

Was such a rhapsody as the foregoing ever written in the Custom House before? I have almost felt it a sin to write to my Dove here, because her image comes before me so vividly and the place is not worthy of it. Nevertheless, I cast aside my scruples, because, having been awake ever since four o'clock this morning (now thirteen hours) and abroad since sunrise, I shall feel more like holding intercourse in dreams than with my pen, when secluded in my room. I am not quite hopeless, now, of meeting you in dreams. Did you not  know, beloved, that I dreamed of you, as it seemed to me, all night long, after that last blissful meeting? It is true, when I looked back upon the dream, it immediately became confused; but it had been vivid, and most happy, and left a sense of happiness in my heart. Come again, sweet wife! Force your way through the mists and vapors that envelope my slumbers illumine me with a radiance that shall not vanish when I awake. I throw my heart as wide open to you as I can. Come and rest within it, Dove.

Oh, how happy you make me by calling me your husband by subscribing yourself my wife. I kiss that word when I meet it in your letters; and I repeat over and over to myself, lt she is my wife -- I am her husband." Dearest, I could almost think that the institution of marriage was ordained, first of all, for you and me, and for you and me alone; it seems so fresh and new so unlike anything that the people around us enjoy or are acquainted with. Nobody ever- had a wife but me nobody a husband, save my Dove. Would that the husband were worthier of his wife; but she loves him and her wise and prophetic heart could never do so if he were utterly unworthy. [continued the next day]