I am very well, dearest, and it seems to me that I am recovering some of the flesh that I lost, during our long Lent. I do not eat quite enough to satisfy mother and Louisa; but thou wouldst be perfectly satisfied, and so am I. My spirits are pretty equable, though there is a great vacuity caused by thy absence out of my daily life—a bottomless abyss, into which all minor contentments might be flung without filling it up. Still, I feel as if our separation were only apparent—at all events, we are at less than an hour's distance from one another, and therefore may find it easier to spend a week apart. The good that I get by remaining here, is a temporary freedom from that vile burthen which had irked and chafed me so long—that consciousness of debt, and pecuniary botheration, and the difficulty of providing even for the day's wants. This trouble does not pursue me here; and even when we go back, I hope not to feel it nearly so much as before. Polk's election has certainly brightened our prospects; and we have a right to expect that our difficulties will vanish, in the course of a few months.
I long to see our little Una; but she is not yet a vital portion of my being. I find that her idea merges in thine. I wish for thee; and our daughter is included in that wish, without being particularly expressed. She has quite conquered the heart of our mother and sisters; and I am glad of it, for now they can transfer their interest from their own sombre lives to her happy one; and so be blest through her. To confess the truth, she is a dear little thing.
Sweetest Phoebe: I don't intend to stay here more than a week, even if Bridge should not arrive;—and should there be any reason for our returning to Concord sooner, thou canst let me know. Otherwise, I purpose to come to Boston in a week from to-day or tomorrow,—to spend two or three days there—and then go back to the old Abbey; of which there is a very dismal picture at present in my imagination, cold, lonely, and desolate, with untrodden snow along the avenue, and on the doorsteps. But its heart will be warm, when we are within. If thou shalt want me sooner, write,—if not so soon, write.
God bless thee, mine ownest. I must close the letter now, because it is dinner-time; and I shall take it to the Post-Office immediately after dinner. I spend almost all my afternoons at the Athenaeum. Kiss our child for me—one kiss for thyself and me together. I love her, and live in thee.
Thy Husband.
Mrs. Sophia A. Hawthorne,
Care of Dr. N. Peabody,
Boston, Mass.
TO MRS. HAWTHORNE
[December, 1844]
Darlingest Phoebe,
I knew that a letter must come to-day; and it cheered and satisfied me, as mine did thee. How we love one another! Blessed we! What a blot I have made of that word "blessed"! But the consciousness of bliss is as clear as crystal in my heart, though now and then, in great stress of earthly perplexities, a mist bedims its surface.
Belovedest, it will not be anywise necessary for thee to see Bridge at all, before I come,—nor then either, if thou preferrest meeting him in Concord. If I find him resolved to go to Concord, at any rate, I shall not bring him to see thee in Boston; because, as a lady ought, thou appearest to best advantage in thine own house. I merely asked him to call at 13 West-street to learn my whereabout—not to be introduced to thee. Indeed; I should prefer thy not seeing him till I come. It was his purpose to be in Boston before this time; but probably he has remained in Washington to see the opening of Congress, and perhaps to try whether he can help forward our official enterprises. Unless he arrive sooner, I purpose to remain here till Wednesday, and to leave on the evening of that day.
I have not yet called on the Pickmen or the Feet, but solemnly purpose so to do, before I leave Salem.
Mr. Upham, it is said, has resigned his pastorship. When he returned from Concord, he told the most pitiable stories about our poverty and misery; so as almost to make it appear that we were suffering for food. Everybody that speaks to me seems tacitly to take it for granted that we are in a very desperate condition, and that a government office is the only alternative of the almshouse. I care not for the reputation of being wealthier than I am; but we never have been quite paupers, and need not have been represented as such.
Now good-bye, mine ownest little wife! I thank God above all things that thou art my wife—next that Una is our child. I shall come back to thee with tenfold as much love as ever I felt before. Nobody but we ever knew what it is to be married. We alone know the bliss and the mystery; if other people knew it, this dull old earth would have a perpetual glow round about it.
Mrs. Sophia A. Hawthorne,
Care of Dr. N. Peabody,
Boston, Mass.
TO MRS. HAWTHORNE
Salem, December 20th (Friday morning), 1844
Sweetest Phoebe,
It will be a week tomorrow since I left thee; and in all that time, I have heard nothing of thee, nor thou of me. Nevertheless, I am not anxious, because I know thou wouldst write to me at once, were anything amiss. But truly my heart is not a little hungry and thirsty for thee; so, of my own accord, or rather of my own necessity, I sit down to write thee a word or two. First of all, I love thee. Also, I love our little Una—and, I think, with a much more adequate comprehension of her loveliness, than before we left Concord. She is partly worthy of being thy daughter;—if not wholly to, it must be her father's fault.
Mine own, I know not what to say to thee. I feel now as when we clasp one another in our arms, and are silent.
Our mother and sisters were rejoiced to see me, and not altogether surprised; for they seem to have had a kind of presentiment of my return. Mother had wished Louisa to write for us both to come back; but I think it would not be wise to bring Una here again, till warm weather. I am not without apprehensions that she will have grown too tender to bear the atmosphere of our cold and windy old Abbey in Concord, after becoming acclimated to the milder temperature of thy father's house. However, we will trust to Providence, and likewise to a good fire in our guest-chamber. Thou wilt write to me when all things are propitious for our return. They wish me to stay here till after Christmas;—which I think is next Wednesday—but I care little about festivals. My only festival is when I have thee. But I suppose we shall not get home before the last of next week;—it will not do to delay our return much longer than that, else we shall be said to have run away from our creditors.
If I had not known it before, I should have been taught by this long separation, that the only real life is to be with thee—to be thy husband—thy intimatest, thy lovingest, thy belovedest—and to share all things, good or evil, with thee. The days and weeks that I have spent away from thee are unsubstantial—there is nothing in them—and yet they have done me good, in making me more conscious of this truth. Now that I stand a little apart from our Concord life, the troubles and incommodities look slighter—our happiness more vast and inestimable. I trust Heaven will not permit us to be greatly pinched by poverty, during the remainder of our stay there. It would be a pity to have our recollection of this first home darkened by such associations,—the home where our love first assumed human life in the form of our darling child.
I hear nothing yet from O'Sullivan—nor from Bridge. I am afraid the latter gentleman must be ill; else, methinks, he would certainly have written; for he has always been a punctual