But tomorrow I shall surely hear from thee: and even should it be otherwise, I shall yet know, with everlasting faith, that my Dove's heart has been trying to make me sensible of its embraces all this time. My dearest, was not that a sweet time—that Sabbath afternoon and eve? But why didst thou look up in my face, as we walked, and ask why I was so grave? If I was grave I know no cause for it, beloved. Lights and shadows are continually flitting across my inward sky, and I know neither whence they come nor whither they go; nor do I inquire too closely into them. It is dangerous to look too minutely at such phenomena. It is apt to create a substance, where at first there was a mere shadow. If at any time, dearest wife, there should seem—though to me there never does—but if there should ever seem to be an expression unintelligible from one of our souls to another, we will not strive to interpret it into earthly language, but wait for the soul to make itself understood; and were we to wait a thousand years, we need deem it no more time than we can spare. I speak only in reference to such dim and intangible matters as that which suggested this passage of my letter. It is not that I have any love for mystery; but because I abhor it—and because I have felt, a thousand times, that words may be a thick and darksome veil of mystery between the soul and the truth which it seeks. Wretched were we, indeed, if we had no better means of communicating ourselves, no fairer garb in which to array our essential selves, than these poor rags and tatters of Babel. Yet words are not without their use, even for purposes of explanation,—but merely for explaining outward acts, and all sorts of external things, leaving the soul's life and action to explain itself in its own way.
My belovedest, what a misty disquisition have I scribbled! I would not read it over for sixpence. Think not that I supposed it necessary to sermonize thee so; but the sermon created itself from sentence to sentence; and being written, thou knowest that it belongs to thee, and I have no right to keep it back. Dearest, I was up very early this morning, and have had a good deal to do, especially this afternoon. Let me plead this excuse for my dulness and mistiness. I suspect that, hereafter, my little Dove will know how to estimate the difficulty of pouring one's self out in a soul-written letter, amid the distractions of business and society—she herself having experienced these checks upon her outpourings.
Now good bye, mine ownest wife. God bless us both—or may God bless either of us, and that one will bless the other. Dost thou sleep well now-a-nights, belovedest? Of whom dost thou dream? Thy husband's long days and short nights hardly leave him time to dream.
Thine Ownest.
Dearest, just as I was folding this letter, came thy note. Do thou be at the Depot as soon as possible after eleven; and I will move Heaven and earth to meet thee there. Perhaps a little before eleven.
Miss Sophia A. Peabody,
South Street.
TO MISS PEABODY
Boston, May 29th, 1840.—6 P.M.
My dearest,