Hartford, Saturday.
It is a darling good girl to write so regularly & so frequently, & I do thank her with all my heart [for it ]. It makes a spoiled child of me, too—for now that I am used to it I could hardly manage to get along without a letter from my darling every day. It is cruel to exact it, & I don’t, except in longing for it.
Oh don’t you be afraid, dearie, that I can paint you too highly to the Twichells or anybody else. You are not a commonplace, ordinary mortal. I won’t have such language. They will see you with loving eyes, & although they nor any one else can love you as madly as I do, they still have sense & reason & they will see in you a girl that is without a peer among all the girls they ever saw before. I am just as well satisfied of that as I am of my own existence. Therefore don’t you be the least bit afraid. And they are not diffident like Ida.1 They are full of vim & heartiness & will put you so at ease in ten minutes that you will forget all your self-consciousness & be at home.
Livy, what darling fat cheeks you had when that profile was taken. You shall have them again, yet, & be your dear old self again. You must take a good walk twice a day—do you hear? If one walk does you good, two will do you more.
Now I didn’t do anything naughty in showing that picture—because it was just the same as the one I showed them before, only it is porcelain.2 ’Tisn’t as beautiful as you, anyhow. And I wouldn’t show your picture to any but a very particular friend, because I regard it as too sacred. I wish I had a hundred pictures of you. I do want to see you so badly. Pictures are delightful to have, but they are not Livy.
Let Emma read “Introspection” in that little book of Arnold’s poems. It will break heart her heart.3 She is sad & restless & don’t sleep? Why don’t John ‸Dr.‸ Greeves go to her anyhow, in defiance of her edict of banishment? I would. I would override a hundred thousand edicts of banishment. I would go to you over stacks of such edicts as high as the moon. I would go to you through hunger & thirst, disease, insult, death—everything. I would not stop for all the edicts that ever were penned. I would find you even though you hid in the caves of the earth, & I would have you, though the Arch [Fiend ] himself stood watch over you. Greeves not come [ yet? Why ] what is the matter with the man? He will waste precious time until she has fought her battle out & conquered herself, & then she won’t have him at all. Do you suppose he means to give it up? If he does, then I will say, for one, that she served him just right. I wouldn’t have such a man.
I hasten [to] reassure you, darling. I haven’t mentioned Emma’s secret to any soul—which means that I haven’t even remotely hinted at anybody’s broken engagement or anybody’s private affairs of any kind. But I fully understand & appreciate your solicitude, my Livy, remembering that you imposed no secresy upon me—& if the news had come from anybody but you I might have been just thoughtless enough to mention it when I spent the afternoon at the [Hooker’s ],4 inasmuch as it was then so fresh in my mind & taking up so large a share of my thoughts—[ be but ] I knew it was no business of mine to tell repeat things you tell me without [finding out ], first, whether they were ‸are‸ secrets or not. For you & I have no secrets from each other, & I have no right to suppose a thing is not a secret simply because you have told it me without making a reservation. No, I shan’t mention it to any one, little dearie.
Livy dear, the onus of Alice’s request is not upon you. All you have to do is simply ‸to‸ make it, to Emma—that is all. Ask Emma what reply you shall make to Alice, & send that reply to Alice, without any circumlocution. The openest, frankest, straightest road, in pretty much all cases, is the best. You will find that other courses are beset, as a general thing, with secresies, concealments, misunderstandings & various sorts of suspicions. Don’t you see, dear?—all you want is Emma’s answer—you don’t have to account to Alice for any whys & wherefores—your course is plain & easy.5 I am adv advising with a good deal of effrontery, but then it is good advice, darling, & well meant. [in margin: I love you, Livy.]
“Don’t feel that you must write every day if it is a tax to you.” A tax, Livy? It is a luxury. I would not part with it for anything. I never have an idle moment but instantly the impulse [siezes ] me to write you. I often want to write you three or four times a day. Once or twice a week (if I am not well,) I sit & drag along & can’t write, but bless you I love to try, & so where is the “tax?” Don’t distress yourself a bit about this sort of a tax. It is a real, living, & genuine pleasure to me to write you every day, & I would feel that in a large sense a day was lost wherein I was cheated out of this most happy privilege. I am too eager & too willing to commune with you to ever find a hardship in it. Livy, Livy, Livy! how did you ever come to bless me with the imperial riches of your love? It is all a mystery all to me—[an ] splendid vision—an intoxicating dream. It does seem too exquisite a fortune, too beautiful a possession to be real, sometimes. But glad am I, in my heart of hearts, to know that it is real, & that this most holy thing the earth can give me is mine for time & eternity.
Livy dear, it is raining again. It rains pretty much all the time, now. “Showers the thirsty land refreshing,”6 fall day & night. I would like to hear you sing it. Maybe your singing wouldn’t attract attention in a crowd, but I love it. It is a little voice, but very dear to me—& very sweet, too.
Good-bye again, my beloved, my honored, my darling Livy. (I am sorry I am done.)
Sam.
What, Livy, think you are presumptuous in advising me about expunging infelicities from the book? Not a bit of it, darling. I am glad & proud to have you do it. And any suggestion you make about anything shall be honored.
Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
Source text(s):Previous publication:
L3, 233–235; MFMT, 17, excerpt, printed as part of 8 June letter; LLMT, 359, brief paraphrase.
Provenance:see Samossoud Collection, p. 586.
Emendations and textual notes:
for it • fori it [false start; ‘i’ partly formed]
Fiend • Fieend
yet? Why • yet?—|Why
Hooker’s • [sic]
be but • beut
finding out • findouing out [canceled ‘u’ partly formed]
siezes • [sic]
an • [‘n’ partly formed]
