Love Letters of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Volume 1 of 2

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, "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.

My own Room. August 9th – about 10 A.M. It is so rare a thing for your husband to find himself 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.– I 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-up love, which I would fain mingle with the heart-blood 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.

TO MISS PEABODY 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 (if 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 (but there is no such if) I might toil onward through this life without much outward change, but I should sink down and die utterly upon the threshold of the dreary Future. Were you to find yourself deceived, you would betake 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 be torn up by the roots, and could never bloom again, neither in this soil nor the soil of Paradise.

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, indeed, 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, but, dearest, let it be without expectation of a set response.

When I first looked at that shadow of the Passing Hour, I thought her expression too sad; but 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.

August 23d – between 7 and 8 P.M. Dearest wife, when I think how soon this letter will greet you, it makes my 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. N. Peabody,

Salem, Mass.

TO MISS PEABODY Boston, August 25th, 1839

Dearest Wife,

I did not write you yesterday, for 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 Martineau's 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 of music unheard before, yet 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 wife 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 life in simplicity; for methinks that is the way to realise it most intensely. 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.

August 27th. ½ 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 for 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.

TO MISS PEABODY Boston, September 23d 1839. ½ past 6 P.M.

Belovedest little wife – sweetest Sophie Hawthorne – what a delicious walk that was, last Thursday! It seems to me, now, as it I could really remember every footstep of it. It is almost as distinct as the recollection of those walks, in which my earthly form did really tread beside your own, and my arm upheld you; and, indeed, it has the same character as those heavenly ramblings; – for did we tread on earth ever then? Oh no – our souls went far away among the sunset clouds, and wherever there was ethereal beauty, there were we, our true selves; and it was there we grew into each other, and became a married pair. Dearest, I love to date our marriage as far back as possible, and I feel sure that the tie had been formed, and our union had become indissoluble, even before we sat down together on the steps of the "house of spirits." How beautiful and blessed those hours appear to me! True; we are far more conscious of our relation, and therefore infinitely happier, now, than we were then; but still those remembrances are among the most precious treasures of my soul. It is not past happiness; it makes a portion of our present bliss. And thus, doubtless, even amid the joys of Heaven, we shall love to look back to our earthly bliss, and treasure it forever in the sum of an infinitely accumulating happiness. Perhaps not a single pressure of the hand, not a glance, not a sweet and tender tone, but will be repeated sometime or other in our memory.

Oh, dearest, blessedest Dove, I never felt sure of going to Heaven, till I knew that you loved me; but now I am conscious of God's love in your own. And now, good bye for a little while, mine own wife. I thought it was just on the verge of supper-time when I began to write – and there is the bell now. I was beginning to fear that it had rung unheard while I was communing with my Dove. Should we be the more ethereal, if we did not eat? I have a most human and earthly appetite.

Mine own wife, since supper I have been reading over again (for the third time – the two first being aboard my saltship – the Marcia Cleaves) your letter of yesterday – and a dearest letter it is – and meeting with Sophie Hawthorne twice, I took the liberty to kiss her very fervently. Will she forgive me? Do know yourself by that name, dearest, and think of yourself as Sophie Hawthorne? It thrills my heart to write it, and still more, I think, to read it in the fairy letters of your own hand. Oh, you are my wife, my dearest, truest, tenderest, most beloved wife. I would not be disjoined from you for a moment, for all the world. And how strong, while I write, is the consciousness that I am truly your husband!

My little Dove. I have observed that butterflies – very broad-winged and magnificent butterflies – frequently come on board of the salt ship when I am at work. What have these bright strangers to do on Long Wharf, where there are no flowers or any green thing – nothing but brick stores, stone piles, black ships, and the bustle of toilsome men, who neither look up to the blue sky, nor take note of these wandering gems of air. I cannot account for them, unless, dearest, they are the lovely fantasies of your mind, which you send thither in search of me. There is the supper-bell. Good-bye, darling.

Sept. 25th. Morning. – Dove, I have but a single moment to embrace you. Tell Sophie Hawthorne I love her. Has she a partiality for her own, own

Husband.TO MISS PEABODY Custom House, October 10th, 1839 – ½ past 2 P.M.

Belovedest, your two precious letters have arrived – the first yesterday forenoon, the second today. In regard to the first, there was a little circumstance that affected me so pleasantly, that I cannot help telling my sweetest wife of it. I had read it over three times, I believe, and was reading it again, towards evening in my room; when I discovered, in a remote region of the sheet, two or three lines which I had not before seen, and which Sophie Hawthorne had signed with her own name. It is the strangest thing in the world that I had not read them before – but certainly it was a happy accident; for, finding them so unexpectedly, when I supposed that I already had the whole letter by heart, it seemed as if there had been a sudden revelation of my Dove – as if she had stolen into my room (as, in her last epistle, she dreams of doing) and made me sensible of her presence at that very moment. Dearest, since writing the above, I have been interrupted by some official business; for I am at present filling the place of Colonel Hall as head of the measurers' department – which may account for my writing to you from the Custom House. It is the most ungenial place in the whole world to write a love-letter in: – not but what my heart is full of love, here as elsewhere: but it closes up, and will not give forth its treasure now.

I do wish mine own Dove had been with me, on my last passage to Boston. We should assuredly have thought that a miracle had been wrought in our favor – that Providence had put angelic sentinels round about us, to ensure us the quiet enjoyment of our affection – for, as far as Lynn, I was actually the sole occupant of the car in which I had seated myself. What a blissful solitude would that have been, had my whole self been there! Then would we have flown through space like two disembodied spirits – two or one. Are we singular or plural, dearest? Has not each of us a right to use the first person singular, when speaking in behalf of our united being? Does not "I," whether spoken by Sophie Hawthorne's lips or mine, express the one spirit of myself and that darlingest Sophie Hawthorne? But what a wilful little person she is! Does she still refuse my Dove's proffer to kiss her cheek? Well – I shall contrive some suitable punishment: and if my Dove cannot kiss her, I must undertake the task in person. What a painful duty it will be!

October 11th – ½ past 4 P.M. Did my Dove fly in with me in my chamber when I entered just now? If so, let her make herself manifest to me this very moment, for my heart needs her presence. – You are not here dearest. I sit writing in the middle of the chamber, opposite the looking-glass; and as soon as I finish this sentence, I shall look therein – and really I have something like a shadowy notion, that I shall behold mine own white Dove peeping over my shoulder. One moment more – I defer the experiment as long as possible, because there is a pleasure in the slight tremor of the heart that this fantasy has awakened. Dearest, if you can make me sensible of your presence, do it now! – Oh, naughty, naughty Dove! I have looked, and saw nothing but my own dark face and beetle-brow. How could you disappoint me so? Or is it merely the defect in my own eyes, which cannot behold the spiritual? My inward eye can behold you, though but dimly. Perhaps, beloved wife, you did not come when I called, because you mistook the locality whence the call proceeded. You are to know, then, that I have removed from my old apartment, which was wanted as a parlor by Mr. and Mrs. Devens, and am now established in a back chamber – a pleasant enough and comfortable little room. The windows have a better prospect than those of my former chamber, for I can see the summit of the hill on which Gardner Greene's estate was situated; it is the highest point of the city, and the boys at play on it are painted strongly against the sky. No roof ascends as high as this – nothing but the steeple of the Park-street church, which points upward behind it. It is singular that such a hill should have been suffered to remain so long, in the very heart of the city; it affects me somewhat as if a portion of the original forest were still growing here. But they are fast digging it away now; and if they continue their labors, I shall soon be able to see the Park-street steeple as far downward as the dial. Moreover, in another direction, I can see the top of the dome of the State-House; and if my Dove were to take wing and alight there (the easiest thing in the world for a dove to do) she might look directly into my window, and see me writing this letter. I glance thither as I write, but can see no Dove there.

(Rest of letter missing)TO MISS PEABODY Boston, October 3d, 1839. ½ past 7 P.M.

Ownest Dove;

Did you get home safe and sound, and with a quiet and happy heart? Providence acted lovingly toward us on Tuesday evening, allowing us to meet in the wide desert of this world, and mingle our spirits. It would have seemed all a vision then, now we have the symbol of its reality. You looked like a vision, beautifullest wife, with the width of the room between us – so spiritual that my human heart wanted to be assured that you had an earthly vesture on. What beautiful white doves those were, on the border of the vase; are they of mine own Dove's kindred? Do you remember a story of a cat who was changed into a lovely lady? – and on her bridal night, a mouse happened to run across the floor; and forthwith the cat-wife leaped out of bed to catch it. What if mine own Dove, in some woeful hour for her poor husband, should remember her dove-instincts, and spread her wings upon the western breeze, and return to him no more! Then would he stretch out his arms, poor wingless biped, not having the wherewithal to fly, and say aloud – "Come back, naughty Dove! – whither are you going? – come back, and fold your wings upon my heart again, or it will freeze!" And the Dove would flutter her wings, and pause a moment in the air, meditating whether or no she should come back: for in truth, as her conscience would tell her, this poor mortal had given her all he had to give – a resting-place on his bosom – a home in his deepest heart. But then she would say to herself – "my home is in the gladsome air – and if I need a resting-place, I can find one on any of the sunset-clouds. He is unreasonable to call me back; but if he can follow me, he may!" Then would the poor deserted husband do his best to fly in pursuit of the faithless Dove; and for that purpose would ascend to the topmast of a salt-ship, and leap desperately into the air, and fall down head-foremost upon the deck, and break his neck. And there should be engraven on his tombstone – "Mate not thyself with a Dove, unless thou hast wings to fly."

Now will my Dove scold at me for this foolish flight of fancy; – but the fact is, my goose quill flew away with me. I do think that I have gotten a bunch of quills from the silliest flock of geese on earth. But the rest of the letter shall be very sensible. I saw Mr. Howes in the reading-room of [the] Athenaeum, between one and two o'clock to-day; for I happened to have had leisure for an early dinner, and so was spending a half-hour turning over the periodicals. He spoke of the long time since your husband had been at his house; and so I promised, on behalf of that respectable personage, that he would spend an evening there on his next visit to Salem. But if I had such a sweetest wife as your husband has, I doubt whether I could find [it] in my heart to keep the engagement. Now, good night, truest Dove in the world. You will never fly away from me; and it is only the infinite impossibility of it that enables me to sport with the idea.