Love Letters of Nathaniel Hawthorne Volume I Part 14

Here sits thy husband in his old accustomed chamber, where he used to sit in years gone by, before his soul became acquainted with thine.

Here I have written many tales--many that have been burned to ashes--many that doubtless deserved the same fate. This deserves to be called a haunted chamber, for thousands upon thousands of visions have appeared to me in it; and some few of them have become visible to the world. If ever I should have a biographer, he ought to make great mention of this chamber in my memoirs, because so much of my lonely youth was wasted here, and here my mind and character were formed; and here I have been glad and hopeful, and here I have been despondent; and here I sat a long, long time, waiting patiently for the world to know me, and sometimes wondering why it did not know me sooner, or whether it would ever know me at all--at least, till I were in my grave. And sometimes (for I had no wife then to keep my heart warm) it seemed as if I were already in the grave, with only life enough to be chilled and benumbed. But oftener I was happy--at least, as happy as I then knew how to be, or was aware of the possibility of being. By and bye, the world found me out in my lonely chamber, and called me forth--not, indeed, with a loud roar of acclamation, but rather with a still, small voice; and forth I went, but found nothing in the world that I thought preferable to my old solitude, till at length a certain Dove was revealed to me, in the shadow of a seclusion as deep as my own had been. And I drew nearer and nearer to the Dove, and opened my bosom to her, and she flitted into it, and closed her wings there--and there she nestles now and forever, keeping my heart warm, and renewing my life with her own. So now I begin to understand why I was imprisoned so many years in this lonely chamber, and why I could never break through the viewless bolts and bars; for if I had sooner made my escape into the world, I should have grown hard and rough, and been covered with earthly dust, and my heart would have become callous by rude encounters with the mult.i.tude; so that I should have been all unfit to shelter a heavenly Dove in my arms. But living in solitude till the fulness of time was come, I still kept the dew of my youth and the freshness of my heart, and had these to offer to my Dove.

Well, dearest, I had no notion what I was going to write, when I began, and indeed I doubted whether I should write anything at all; for after such communion as that of our last blissful evening, it seems as if a sheet of paper could only be a veil betwixt us. Ownest, in the times that I have been speaking of, I used to think that I could imagine all pa.s.sions, all feelings, all states of the heart and mind; but how little did I know what it is to be mingled with another's being! Thou only hast taught me that I have a heart--thou only hast thrown a light deep downward, and upward, into my soul. Thou only hast revealed me to myself; for without thy aid, my best knowledge of myself would have been merely to know my own shadow--to watch it flickering on the wall, and mistake its fantasies for my own real actions. Indeed, we are but shadows--we are not endowed with real life, and all that seems most real about us is but the thinnest substance of a dream--till the heart is touched. That touch creates us--then we begin to be--thereby we are beings of reality, and inheritors of eternity. Now, dearest, dost thou comprehend what thou hast done for me? And is it not a somewhat fearful thought, that a few slight circ.u.mstances might have prevented us from meeting, and then I should have returned to my solitude, sooner or later (probably now, when I have thrown down my burthen of coal and salt) and never should [have] been created at all! But this is an idle speculation. If the whole world had stood between us, we must have met--if we had been born in different ages, we could not have been sundered.

Belovedest, how dost thou do? If I mistake not, it was a southern rain yesterday, and, next to the sunshine of Paradise, _that_ seems to be thy element.

Miss Sophia A. Peabody, Care of Dr. N. Peabody, Boston, Ma.s.s.

TO MISS PEABODY

_Salem_, Novr. 27th, Friday [1840]

_Dearest Wife_,

Never was a wife so yearned for as thou art. I wonder how I could have resolved to be absent from thee so long--it is far too long a time to be wasted in a suspension of life. My heart is sometimes faint for want of thee--and sometimes it is violent and tumultuous for the same cause. How is it with thine, mine ownest? Dost thou not feel, when thou goest to bed, that the day is utterly incomplete?--that it has been an unsatisfactory dream, wherein the soul groped wearily for something that it could not obtain? Thus it is with thy husband.

What a history wilt thou have to tell me, when I come back! We shall be a week in getting through it. Poor little Dove, I pity thee now: for I apprehend that, by this time, thou hast got thy husband's dullest of all books to read. And how many pages canst thou read, without falling asleep? Well is it for thee, that thou hast adopted the practice of extending thyself on the sopha, while at thy studies; for now I need be under no apprehension of thy sinking out of a chair.

I would, for thy sake, that thou couldst find anything laudable in this awful little volume; because thou wouldst like to tell thy husband that he has done well.

Oh, this weather!--how dismal it is. A sullen sky above, and mud and "slosh" below! Thy husband needs thy sunshine, thou cheerfullest little wife; for he is quite pervaded and imbued with the sullenness of all nature. Thou knowest that his disposition is never the most gracious in the world; but now he is absolutely intolerable. The days should be all sunshine when he is away from thee; because, if there were twenty suns in the unclouded sky, yet his most essential sunshine would be wanting. Well, there is one good in absence; it makes me realise more adequately how much I love thee--and what an infinite portion of me thou art. It makes me happy even to yearn and sigh for thee as I do; because I love to be conscious of our deep, indissoluble union--and of the impossibility of living without thee. There is something good in me, else thou couldst not have become one with me, thou holy wife. I shall be happy, because G.o.d has made my happiness necessary to that of one whom He loves. Thus is it that I reason with myself; and therefore my soul rejoices to feel the intermingling of our beings, even when it is felt in this longing desire for thee.

Dearest, amongst my other reasons for wishing to be in Boston, wouldst thou believe that I am eager to behold thy alabaster vase--and the little flower-vase, and thy two precious pictures? Even so it is.

Thou, who art the loadstone of my soul, hast magnetised them, therefore they attract me.

I met Frederic Howes last evening, and promised to go there to-night; although he seemed to think that Miss Burley will be in Boston.

Perhaps thou wilt see her there. I wonder if she will not come and settle with us in Mr. Ripley's Utopia. And this reminds me to ask whether thou hast drawn those caricatures--especially the one of thy husband, staggering, and puffing, and toiling onward to the gate of the farm, burthened with the unsaleable remnant of Grandfather's Chair. Dear me, what a ponderous, leaden load it will be!

Dearest, I am utterly ashamed of my handwriting. I wonder how thou canst anywise tolerate what is so ungraceful, being thyself all grace.

But I think I seldom write so shamefully as in this epistle. It is a toil and torment to write upon this sheet of paper; for it seems to be greasy, and feels very unpleasantly to the pen. Moreover the pen itself is very culpable. Yet thou wouldst make the fairest, delicatest strokes upon the same paper, with the same pen. Thou art beautiful throughout, even to the minutest thing.

Miss Sophia A. Peabody, Care of Dr. N. Peabody, Boston, Ma.s.s.

TO MISS PEABODY

_Salem_, Jany. 12th, 1841

Infinitely dearest, I went to the post office yesterday, after dinner, and inquiring for a letter, thy "visible silence" was put into my hands. Canst thou remotely imagine how glad I was? Hast thou also been gladdened by an uncouth scribbling, which thy husband dispatched to thee on Monday? Oh, belovedest, no words can tell how thirsty my spirit is for thine! Surely I was very reprehensible to conceive the idea of spending a whole week and more away from thee. Why didst thou not scold me? and go with me wherever I went? Without thee, I have but the semblance of life. All the world hereabouts seems dull and drowsy--a vision, but without any spirituality--and I, likewise an unspiritual shadow, struggle vainly to catch hold of something real.

Thou art my reality; and nothing else is real for me, unless thou give it that golden quality by thy touch.

Dearest, how camest thou by the headache? Thou shouldst have dreamed of thy husband's breast, instead of that Arabian execution; and then thou wouldst have awaked with a very delicious thrill in thy heart, and no pain in thy head. And what wilt thou do to-day, persecuted little Dove, when thy abiding-place will be a Babel of talkers? Would that Miss Margaret Fuller might lose her tongue!--or my Dove her ears, and so be left wholly to her husband's golden silence! Dearest wife, I truly think that we could dispense with audible speech, and yet never feel the want of an interpreter between our spirits. We have soared into a region where we talk together in a language that can have no earthly echo. Articulate words are a harsh clamor and dissonance. When man arrives at his highest perfection, he will again be dumb!--for I suppose he was dumb at the Creation, and must perform an entire circle in order to return to that blessed state. Cousin Christopher, by thy account, seems to be of the same opinion, and is gradually learning to talk without the use of his voice.

Jany. 15th. Friday.--Oh, belovedest, what a weary week is this! Never did I experience the like. I went to bed last night, positively dismal and comfortless. Wilt thou know thy husband's face, when we meet again? Art thou much changed by the flight of years, my poor little wife? Is thy hair turned gray? Dost thou wear a day-cap, as well as a night cap? How long since didst thou begin to use spectacles?

Perhaps thou wilt not like to have me see thee, now that Time has done his worst to mar thy beauty; but fear thou not, sweetest Dove, for what I have loved and admired in thee is eternal. I shall look through the envious mist of age, and discern thy immortal grace as perfectly as in the light of Paradise. As for thy husband, he is grown quite bald and gray, and has very deep wrinkles across his brow, and crowsfeet and furrows all over his face. His eyesight fails him, so that he can only read the largest print in the broadest day-light; but it is a singular circ.u.mstance, that he makes out to decypher the pygmy characters of thy epistles, even by the faintest twilight. The secret is, that they are characters of light to him, so that he could doubtless read them in midnight darkness. Art thou not glad, belovedest, that thou wast ordained to be a heavenly light to thy husband, amid the dreary twilight of age?

Grandfather is very anxious to know what has become of his chair, and the Famous Old People who sat in it. I tell him that it will probably arrive in the course of to-day; and that he need not be so impatient; for the public will be very well content to wait, even were it till Doomsday. He acquiesces, but scolds, nevertheless.

I saw thy cousin Mary Tappan yesterday, and felt the better for it, because she is connected with thee in my mind. Dearest, I love thee very much!!!! Art thou not astonished? I wish to ask thee a question, but will reserve it for the extreme end of this letter.

I trust that thou art quite well, belovedest. That headache took a very unfair advantage, in attacking thee while thou wast away from thy husband. It is his province to guard thee both from head-ache and heart-ache; and thou performest the same blessed office for him, so far as regards the heart-ache--as to the head-ache, he knows it not, probably because his head is like a block of wood.

Now good-bye, dearest, sweetest, loveliest, holiest, truest, suitablest little wife. I worship thee. Thou art my type of womanly perfection. Thou keepest my heart pure, and elevatest me above the world. Thou enablest me to interpret the riddle of life, and fillest me with faith in the unseen and better land, because thou leadest me thither continually. G.o.d bless thee forever.

Dost thou love me?

Miss Sophia A. Peabody, Care of Dr. N. Peabody, Boston, Ma.s.s.

TO MISS PEABODY

_Salem_, Jany. 27th, 1841-- past 2 P.M.

Very dearest, what a dismal sky is this that hangs over us! Thy husband doth but half live to-day--his soul lies asleep, or rather torpid. As for thee, thou hast been prating at a great rate, and has spoken many wonderful truths in to-day's conversation.

Belovedest, thou wast very sweet and lovely in our walk yesterday morning; and it gladdens me much that Providence brought us together.

Dost thou not think that there is always some especial blessing granted us, when we are to be divided for any length of time? Thou rememberest what a blissful evening came down from Heaven to us, before our last separation; insomuch that our hearts glowed with its influence, all through the ensuing week. And yesterday there came a heavenly morning, and thou camest with it like a rosy vision, which still lingers with me, and will not quite fade away, till it be time for it to brighten into reality. Surely, thou art beloved of Heaven, and all these blessings are vouchsafed for thy sake; for I do not remember that such things used to happen to me, while I was a solitary sinner. Thou bringest a rich portion to thy husband, dearest--even the blessing of thy Heavenly Father.

Whenever I return to Salem, I feel how dark my life would be, without the light that thou shedst upon it--how cold, without the warmth of thy love. Sitting in this chamber, where my youth wasted itself in vain, I can partly estimate the change that has been wrought. It seems as it the better part of me had been born, since then. I had walked those many years in darkness, and might so have walked through life, with only a dreamy notion that there was any light in the universe, if thou hadst not kissed mine eye-lids, and given me to see. Thou, belovedest, hast always been positively happy. Not so thy husband--he has only been not miserable. Then which of us has gained the most? Thy husband, a.s.suredly.

When a beam of heavenly sunshine incorporates itself with a dark cloud, is not the cloud benefitted more than the sunshine? What a happy image is this!--my soul is the cloud, and thine the sunshine--but a gentler, sweeter sunshine than ever melted into any other cloud.

Dearest wife, nothing at all has happened to me, since I left thee. It puzzles me to conceive how thou meetest with so many more events than thy husband. Thou wilt have a volume to tell me, when we meet, and wilt pour thy beloved voice into mine ears, in a stream of two hours'

long. At length thou wilt pause, and say--"But what has _thy_ life been?"--and then will thy stupid husband look back upon what he calls his life, for three or four days past, and behold a blank! Thou livest ten times as much [as] he; because thy spirit takes so much more note of things.

I met our friend Mr. Howes in the street, yesterday, and held a brief confabulation. He did not inquire how my wife's health is. Was not this a sin against etiquette? Dearest, thy husband's stupid book seems to meet more approbation here, than the former volume did--though _that_ was greeted more favorably than it deserved. There is a superfluity of newspaper puffs here, and a deficiency in Boston, where they are much needed. I ought to love Salem better than I do; for the people have always had a pretty generous faith in me, ever since they knew me at all. I fear I must be undeserving of their praise, else I should never get it. What an ungrateful blockhead thy husband is!

Miss Sophia A. Peabody, Care of Dr. N. Peabody, Boston, Ma.s.s.

TO MISS PEABODY

54 Pinckney St., 12 o'clock A.M. Monday [1841]

_Truest Heart_,

I cannot come to thee this evening, because my friend Bridge is in town, whom I hardly have seen for years past. Alas! I know not whether I am a very faithful friend to him; for I cannot rejoice that he is here, since it will keep me from my Dove. Thou art my only reality--all other people are but shadows to me: all events and actions, in which thou dost not mingle, are but dreams.