W Hartford, May ‸12th
‸
Wednesday Eve.1
Was there ever such a darling as Livy? I know there never was. She fills my ideal of what a woman should be in order to be enchantingly lovable. And so, what wonder is it that I love her so? And what wonder is [ th ] it that I am deeply grateful for permission to love her? Oh you are such an exquisite little concentration of loveliness, Livy! I am not saying these things because I am [stricken ] in a new place, dearie—no, they are simply the things that are always in my mind—only they are demanding expression more imperiously than usual, maybe, because (9:30 P. M.,) I am just in from one of those prodigious walks I am so fond of taking in these solemn & silent streets by night, & these pilgrimages are pretty thoroughly devoted to thinking of you, my dainty little idol.
How could I walk these sombre avenues at night without thinking of you? For their very associations would invoke you—every flagstone for many a mile is overlaid thick with ‸an‸ invisible fabric of thoughts of you—longings & yearnings & vain caressings of the empty air for you when you were sleeping peacefully & dreaming of other things than me, darling. And so now, & always hereafter, when I tread these stones, these sad phantoms of a time that is gone, (thank God!) will rise about me to claim kinship with these new living thoughts of you that are all radiant with hope, & requited love, & happiness. God bless & keep you always, my Livy!
I am in the same house (but not in the same room—thanks!) where I spent three awful weeks last s fall, worshipping you, & writing letters to you, some of which I mailed in the waste-paper basket & the others never passed from brain to paper.2 But I don’t like to think of those days, or speak of them.
Now that I am well again, dearie, I am not afraid to tell you that I have been sick for a day or two. It was of no particular consequence (I worked nearly all the time,) & it was useless to make you uneasy. This morning I felt almost persuaded that I was going to have a severe attack—but it is all well, now, gone, now, & I am well & cheery, & am enjoying the warm night & writing you in my night-clothes for comfort—& smoking. The good God that is above us all is merciful to me. —from Whom came your precious love—from Whom cometh all good gifts3—& I am grateful.
{Lucky I am, now, to be able to write with two pictures of you before me—& one of dear old Hat. (tie.)4} Give me a kiss, please.
I guess I’ll have to have a letter every day, dearie. Except, of course, when it would be too much of a [hardship. I ] did not hear from you to-day, & I confess & do assure [you] I wanted to. However, this is all pure selfishness & I will not be guilty of it. Write every other day—that is work enough for such a dear little body as you.
I expect to [scribble ] very meagre letters to you, because I confess that I use you as a sort of prize for good behavior—that is, when I [transact ] all my duties, my abundant & ample reward is the luxury of writing to you—& when I fail to finish up my duties, Jack must go without his supper which is to say, I must lose the luxury of writing you. But the other night I did a vast deal of work, h keeping myself to it with the encouraging assurance that I might talk to Livy when it was all done—& so at last I worried through—but alas for my reward, I could hardly sit up, & so I had to go to bed & lose all I had worked for so well. Now I have reached my goal for to-day, for I finished my work before supper.
{The picture of you with Hattie strikes me a little better, now, but it still looks a little thin, & I am haunted with the fear that you are not as well as usual. Am I [right? Excuse ] this solicitude—y for you are very dear to me, Livy—dearer than all things else on earth combined.}
Walking, to-night, I heard the voices of ten million frogs warbling their melancholy dirge on the still air. I wished Mrs. Langdon were there to enjoy the plaintive concert. I mean to [ cath catch ] two or three hundred of them & take them home to Elmira. We can keep ‸some of‸ them in the cage with the mocking-bird, & colonize the rest in the conservatory. They made good music, to-night, especially when it was very still & lonely & a [ s◇ ] long-drawn dog-howl swelled up out of the far distance & blended with it. The shadows seemed to grow more sombre, then, & the stillness more solemn, & the whispering foliage more spiritual, & the mysterious murmur of the [night-wind ] more freighted with ‸the‸ moanings of shrouded wanderers from the grave tombs. The “voices of the night”5 are always eloquent.
I suppose you are having summer weather, [now. We ] are—& it is perfectly magnificent. I do love the hot summer weather. If I had had my darling here to-day, & Jim & “our” buggy, we would have had a royal [drive. The town ] is budding out, now—the grass & foliage are, at least—& again Hartford is becoming the pleasantest city, to the eye, that America can [show. The ] park & the little river look beautiful—& yesterday as the sun went down, & flung long shafts of golden light athwart its grassy slopes & among [ is its ] shrubs & elms stately elms & bridges, & gilded the graceful church spires beyond, it was a feast to look upon.6 But it was only a half-way sort of feast, after all, without [ liv ] Livy—a din banquet of one cover, [ & ] as one might say.
Oh you darling little speller!—you spell “terrible” right, this time. And I won’t have it—it is un-Livy-ish. Spell it wrong, next time, for I love everything that is like Livy. Maybe it is wrong for me to put a premium on bad spelling, but I can’t help it if it is. Somehow I love it in you—I have grown used to it,[ — accustomed ] to expect it, & I honestly believe that if, all of a sudden, you fell to spelling every word right, I should feel as pain, as if something very dear to me had ‸been‸ mysteriously spirited away & lost to me. I am not poking fun at you, little sweetheart.
Livy, you must not let Mr. Beecher beat you more than one game in five—you must do credit to your teacher. But you did everlastingly slaughter him on the first game, & that was doing credit to your teacher. It was about the way I beat you, my love.7
From the stillness that reigns in the house, I fancy that I must be the only person up, though I know it is not late. However, the very dearest girl in the wide world has given me strict orders to go to bed early & take care of myself, & I will obey, though I had rather write to her than sleep—for, writing to her, it is as if I were talking to her—& to talk to her so, is in fancy to [ look ] hold her tiny hand, & look into her dear eyes, & hear her voice that is sweet as an [answered ] prayer to me, & clasp her pigmy foot, & hold her dainty form in my arms, & kiss her lips, & cheeks, & hair, & eyes, for love, & her [ f sac ‸sacred‸ ] forehead in honor, in reverent respect, in gratitude & blessing. Out of the depths of my happy heart wells a great tide of love & prayer for this priceless treasure that is confided to my life-long keeping. You cannot see its intangible waves as they flow toward you, darling, but in these lines you may will hear, as it were, the distant beating of its surf.
I leave you [withou ] the ministering spirits that are in the air about you always. Good-night, with a kiss & a blessing, Livy darling.
Sam
Miss Olivia L. Langdon | Elmira | New York. [postmarked] [hartford] conn. may 13 [docketed by OLL:] 67th
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
Source text(s):Previous publication:
L3, 219–223; Wecter 1947, 67, brief quotation; LLMT, 87–90; MTMF, 97, brief excerpt.
Provenance:see Samossoud Collection, p. 586.
Emendations and textual notes:
th • [partly formed]
stricken • strick- e n |en [written off edge of page]
hardship. I • hardship.—|I
scribble • scribllble [corrected miswriting]
transact • tr transact [corrected miswriting]
right? Excuse • right?|Excuse
cath catch • cathch [‘h’ partly formed; possibly ‘calltch’]
s◇ • [‘s’ followed by ‘l’ or partly formed ‘t’ or ‘h’]
night-wind • night-|wind
now. We • now.—|We
drive. The town • drive.—The | town
show. The • show.—|The
is its • ists
liv • [‘iv’ partly formed; possibly ‘lu’]
& • [partly formed]
— accustomed • [‘accustomed’ over dash]
look • [‘k’ partly formed]
answered • an‸swered‸ swere [d] [written off edge of page]
f sac ‸sacred‸ • [f] sac ‸sacred‸ [torn]
withou • [‘u’ partly formed]
hartford
•
ha[r
o]rd
[badly
inked]
