Love Letters of Nathaniel Hawthorne Volume II Part 9

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.

G.o.d 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, Ma.s.s.

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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 pastors.h.i.+p. 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 G.o.d 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. n.o.body 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, Ma.s.s.

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 a.s.sociations,--the home where our love first a.s.sumed 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 correspondent, when there was anything to write about.

Ownest Dove, I think I shall not go back to Hillard's. I shall be ready to go back to Concord whenever thou art; but, not having the opportunity to consult thee, I now propose that we settle our return for Sat.u.r.day, a week from tomorrow. Should anything prevent thee from going then (for instance, the want of a girl) I may go and pay our debts, as far as in my power, and then return. But this need not be antic.i.p.ated. There is no absolute necessity--(except in our hearts, which cannot endure to be away from one another much longer)--for our being at home before the first of January; but if all things are convenient, we will not delay longer than Sat.u.r.day. Oh, what sweet, sweet times we will have.

Give Una a kiss, and her father's blessing. She is very famous here in Salem.

THY HUSBAND.

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

TO MRS. HAWTHORNE

_Salem_, April 14th (Sunday), 1844

_Ownest Phoebe_,

Thy letter reached me yesterday forenoon, and made me truly happy--happier than I can tell. I do not think that I am the more conscious of the baby, by standing aloof from her. She has not yet sufficiently realised herself in my soul; it seems like a dream, therefore, which needs such a.s.surances as thy letter, to convince me that it is more than a dream. Well; I cannot write about her--nor about thee, belovedest, for whom I have at this moment an unutterable yearning. Methinks my hand was never so out of keeping with my heart.

I called at the book room in Boston, and saw there thy mother, thy brother Nat, and Elizabeth!!--besides two or three ladies. It was the most awkward place in the world to talk about Una and other kindred subjects; so I made my escape as soon as possible, promising to return to dine if convenient, and resolving that it should be as inconvenient as possible. I wish thy mother could be so inhospitable as never to ask me--but at all events, I need never go, except when thou art there. I went to George Hillard's office, and he spoke with unmitigable resolution of the necessity of my going to dine with Longfellow before returning to Concord; but I have an almost miraculous power of escaping from necessities of this kind. Destiny itself has often been worsted in the attempt to get me out to dinner.

Possibly, however, I may go. Afterwards I called on Colonel Hall, who held me long in talk about politics and other sweetmeats. Here, likewise, I refused one or two invitations to dinner. Then I stept into a book-auction, not to buy, but merely to observe; and after a few moments, who should come in, with a smile as sweet as sugar (though savoring rather of mola.s.ses) but, to my horror and petrifaction, Mr. Watterson! I antic.i.p.ated a great deal of bore and botheration; but, through Heaven's mercy, he merely spoke a few words, and then left me. This is so unlike his deportment in times past, that I suspect the Celestial Railroad must have given him a pique; and if so, I shall feel as if Providence had sufficiently rewarded me for that pious labor.

In the course of the forenoon, I encountered Mr. Howes in the street.

He looked most exceedingly depressed, and pressing my hand with peculiar emphasis, said that he was in great affliction, having just had news of his son George's death in Cuba. He seemed encompa.s.sed and overwhelmed by the misfortune, and walked the street as in a heavy cloud of his own grief, forth from which he extended his hand to meet my grasp. I expressed my sympathy, which I told him I was now the more capable of feeling in a father's suffering, as being myself the father of a little girl--and, indeed, the being a parent does give one the freedom of a wider range of sorrow as well as happiness. He again pressed my hand, and left me.

Well, dove, when I got to Salem, there was great joy, as you may suppose. Our mother and sisters take as much interest in little Una as can possibly be desired. They think the lock of hair very beautiful, and deny that it has the faintest tinge of red. Mother hinted an apprehension that poor baby would be spoilt--whereupon I irreverently observed, that having spoilt her own three children, it was natural for her to suppose that all other parents would do the same; when she knocked me into a c.o.c.ked hat, by averring that it was impossible to spoil such children as Elizabeth and me, because she had never been able to do anything with us. This I believe to be very true. There was too much gentleness in her nature for such a task. She remonstrates, by the by, against Una's being carried about in anybody's arms, and says that it will soon be impossible to keep her quiet in any other way. This was the case with Elizabeth; and mother never allowed her other children to become habituated to it.

I could scarcely convince them that Una has begun to smile so soon. It surprised even mother; though her own children appear to have been bright specimens of babyhood. Elizabeth could walk and talk at nine months old. I do not understand that thy husband was quite such a miracle of precocity, but should think it not improbable, inasmuch as precocious boys are said to make stupid men.

Ownest wife, I long so much to get back to thee, that it is a mockery to try to say how much. Yet I think I shall be benefitted by the absence, though it be truly an unpalatable medicine. I hope thy father will be able to stay till Friday. It is just possible, if I go out to see Longfellow, that I may not come till Sat.u.r.day night; but this will depend partly on what day the steamer comes. I shall consult thy mother about the necessity of thy father's presence in Boston earlier than that.

Mrs. Sophia A. Hawthorne, Concord, Ma.s.sachusetts.

TO MRS. HAWTHORNE

_Concord_, May 27th, 1844

_Dearest Phoebe_,

I cannot let the day pa.s.s without speaking a little word to thee, to tell thee how strange the old Abbey seems without thy presence, and how strange this life, when thou art away. Nevertheless, I truly rejoice in thy absence, as hoping it will do good to thy dearest brain, which has been over-wrought, as well as thy physical frame. And how does our belovedest little Una? whom I love more than I ever told thee, though not more than thou knowest--for is she not thine and mine, the symbol of the one true union in the world, and of our love in Paradise.

Dearest, my cook does his office admirably. He prepared what I must acknowledge to be the best dish of fried fish and potatoes for dinner to-day, that I ever tasted in this house. I scarcely recognized the fish of our own river. I make him get all the dinners while I confine myself to the much lighter labors of breakfast and tea. He also takes his turn at was.h.i.+ng the dishes. Ellery Channing came to see me this morning, and was very gracious and sociable; and we went a fis.h.i.+ng together. He says his little girl weighed seven pounds at her birth, and is doing very well. Miss Prescott is now there.