October 2, 1904
Beloved lady:
I come to my desk this sweet Sabbath afternoon to write to you, not knowing what I shall say, but only that I must write. Of all the week this is my loneliest hour. In other days, if I was at home this was the time when our blessed Louise and I sat together and gave ourselves to each other in spiritual converse which the cares of the work-day week did not allow us. If I was away this was the hour for writing her. She looked to me for all the springs of happiness.
In this regard my mourning for her loss is peculiar. It is not for one whom I depended on to keep spirit uplifted, but for one whose courage and hope and gladness I held in custody and which she never had at command except as I gave it. She was strong and sweet, yet for all the brightness of life it was a necessity of her dear nature to depend upon others, and upon me of all others. This is what makes my sorrow for her taking-away a thing I never could have understood except by this actual having of it. My arms are emptied of a care and burden and task that had become more a part of me then hands and feet.
When I come to you for solace I find another new strangeness. Deeply as I should delight in the blessed work (and play) of keeping you happy, my impulse is to look to you for happiness as I cannot look to any other soul on earth. Whether I say this utterly in vain or not you need not tell me now; I know only, now, that it is a crumb of comfort just to tell you. I do not mean that I can have no happiness without you; that would be craven as well as selfish, and I should be ashamed ever to ask you for happiness on such ground. I never shall. But you can make joy easy and spontaneous in me and you can touch with a gilding of sunlight every joy and every care, alike, that is mine.
The third hymn this morning--you may already have forgotten the fact--was "Lead Kindly Light." It brought back all at once, (taking me completely by surprise,) all the heart break of half a year ago--and all the more because it brought me face to face with my tender and merciful Heavenly Father who has so kindly lighted my daily and my benighted steps unto this hour. For a thousand sweet blessings I thank him, and among them for the light of your spirit and your companionship though of the latter I have been allowed so scant a portion.
I do not doubt I shall send you this letter when it is written, but I doubt if I can help the fear that it will seem to you an uncourageous and correspondingly uninteresting missive.
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Here I was interrupted by a young gentleman calling to ask me for a letter of recommendation to Mr. Scribner, which I have now written and given him.
This leads me to say that one of the less cheerless ways in which I long to seek pleasure and easement in you is bringing to you the honors, however small, which from time to time help me to realize that I am not without some use in this world of great needs and splendid achievements. This very tiny matter of writing a letter of introduction which may help a young man to turn an angle in his life-journey I value as an honor. The last mail brought me a fond letter from Henry van Dyke, and at once I longed for you to read it with me. When I was last at your home I had three or four such pleasant matters in my pocket, which I yearned to ask you to share with me-- Oh! my empty partnership! It is like having empty veins! Here, within touch of my hands, lies, in the wrapper in which it reached me weeks and weeks ago, the diploma of an honorary degree bestowed by a college notedly chary of such bestowals. All such things once went into the silent treasury of one to whom they were worth more than gold or gems. Now--I wonder--if our lost could lean down and speak to us--if she would not say to you, "I would rather you would maintain that office for me than to wish me back from the bliss of heaven and my Maker's smile."
To-day when I went to her grave and sat down at her feet I seemed to hear--in my heart aching from that hymn--I seemed to hear the old, sweet helpless expostulation with which her unskilled power of speech always met a distress of mine--her old, habitual, uncompanioned word--"Don't!--Don't!" As surely as she looks back upon earth at all, if she has a solicitude for any person or thing left behind, she is troubled if I let myself be unhappy. Oh Clara! help me to honor her with joy and gladness and with these unforced and growing out of the common human sources!
This morning Margaret invited you to dinner. I wish you to know that I did not prompt the impulse. I should have stopped her, had I known. I knew you could not comfortably say yes, and I would not have made you uncomfortably say no.
Did you get the fern? I wanted you to have it in commemoration of the evening before. When may I hope for another such? Please tell me. It seems an interminable time to wait till next Saturday or Friday. Oh! that it might seem too long to you! Oh, for one word from you to assure me that I am not preparing for myself another heartrending trouble.
Let me beg this: that you will tell me as early as you can when I may come again, even though I may not have your leave to come early.
Good-bye! I am ashamed to be so dolefully lovelorn, but if I should try to write differently today it would be like trying to suppress a torrent.
When you reply, if you want to give me a keen joy which will cost you nothing, address me as I sign myself here.
