‸I love you, Livy—Livy dear—Livy love—I love you Livy—
‸I kiss you, Livy—on forehead, cheek & lips.‸
‸I love you, Livy.
gillette
house,‸
I love only Livy—nobody but Livy.‸
ravenna, ohio,
Feb. [16 15 ] 186 9.
Livy, darling, how are you this morning? For it is morning, I guess, inasmuch as it is only half past 9, & I have not got up yet. I only awoke a little while ago, & naturally thought of you the first thing. I don’t intend to get up till noon.
I wrote to our Mother,—if she will allow me to call her so—& the letter is gone.1 If I had it back I would write it over again. I see that in letting the letter “write itself” it took entirely too unconventional a form. I forgot, that occasionally, ‸the fact‸ that I was really writing to the public, instead of to her. And so I elaborated what needed no elaboration, & merely touched upon matters which should have been treated more fully. But don’t you see?—if I had kept the public in my mind, the sense of being questioned & cross-questioned by outsiders, upon matters entire essentially private & personal, would have been so oppressive that I could not have written at all. It is hard to know that what you are writing (confessing) about your most delicate & private affairs is to be read by strangers and unlovingly criticised & commented on at tea-tables & among miscellaneous groups who would often rather say a smart thing than a kind one. So I think that maybe, after all, there may have been a little natural impulse to hold back, instead of speaking out freely., though I was not really conscious of such an impulse. I do not think I am more sensitive than others would be under like circumstances.
I told Mrs. Fairbanks to have the ring made, & then express it to me at Elmira so that it would reach there about the 20th. And so you see I can put it on your finger myself, my precious little wife.
I wrote Twichell a short note yesterday to thank him for his kind efforts in forwarding our affairs. I told him we meant to lead a useful, c unostentatious & earnest religious life, & that I should unite with the church as soon as I was settled; & that both of us, on these accounts, would prefer the quiet, moral atmosphere of Hartford to the driving, ambitious ways of Cleveland. I wanted him to understand that what we want is a home—we are done with the shows & vanities of life & are ready to enter upon its realities—that we are tired of chasing its phantoms & shadows, & are ready to grasp its substance. At least I am—& “ I” means both of us, & “both of us” means I of course—for are not we Twain one flesh?2
I read a great deal in the Testament last night—why didn’t we read the Testament more, instead of carrying loads of books into the drawing—room which we never read? I thought of it lay Several times==
Clouding up again—well, is it never going to clear off? I will go to sleep again. Take this loving kiss & go to bed yourself, my idol.
Sam. 3
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not
read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and
female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave
father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain
shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh.
What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put
asunder.
Source text(s):Previous publication:
L3, 102–103; Wecter 1947, 66–67; LLMT, 357, brief quotation; MTMF, 71 (misdated 13 February) and 73, brief quotations.
Provenance:see Samossoud Collection, p. 586.
Emendations and textual notes:
16 15 • 165 [‘6’ partly formed]
