I love you, Livy. That is not what I sat down especially to say; if it were, I might continue to write, now that I am at it, & never stop again. No—I wished to say, particularly, Be sure & send my first Geneseo letter (I mean the one you first wrote me, to that point,) to Hartford. Do I make myself understood? Don’t you see, Livy, I was so bewitched by you, there in Elmira, that I could think of nothing connectedly & collectedly Ⓐemendation but you, & so I forgot to telegraph those Geneseo folks to retain your letter till I came,—& I wrote them from New York, too late—& so of course they had no better sense than to send the letter back to Elmira, directed to Mr Langdon. Now Livy, please don’t tear it up, but forward it to me at Hartford, there’s a darling.2explanatory note

And the next thing I wish to say, is, please tell Charlie to say tell those tailors to make my coat nearly or full three-quarters of an inch higher in the back of the neck than this one. This Ⓐemendation one gives me the lockjaw Ⓐemendation every time I look in the glass. The collar is an unmitigated atrocity. I want the collar of the new coat to be five inches higher than the collar of this one. Tell Charlie, please.3explanatory note

In Geneseo yesterday I got your letter of the 25th. And Ⓐemendation so you are writing me every day? That is right, you dear L Ⓐemendation little Livy—only, don’t you write me or anybody else when you are tired or have are hurried by company. I shall write you every chance I get, just the same; & any time that a letter seems is due from you & I it don’t come, I shall feel satisfied that you needed rest, or something interfered, & so I shall be content. I am at rest & peace in you now, L Ⓐemendation my Livy, & I know perfectly well that when no obstacles intervene, you will be sure to write me regularly—but not a great many weeks ago, the failure of one of your letters to arrive when it was expected, would have terrified me.Ⓐemendation

You have been writing every day, & I only every other day. But my reason was that I had no opportunity to write oftener. I was in Geneseo twenty-four thirty hours, & ought to have been permitted to write from there, but wasn’t. Half a dozen young gentlemen, of Charlie’s 20 to 25 years of age, received me at the depot with a handsome open sleigh, & drove me to the hotel in style—& then took possession of my room, & invited a dozen more in, & ordered cigars, & made themselves entirely happy & contented.4explanatory note But they were hard to entertain, for they took me for a lion, & were ludicrously I had to carry the bulk of the conversation myself, which is a thing that presently grows wearisome. At dinner I begged off from going sleigh-riding, & said I wanted to go to bed in about an hour. After dinner they came up again. Pretty soon I spoke once more of retiring. It produced no effect. Then I rose & said, “Boys, I shall have to bid you a good-afternoon, for I am stupid & sleepy—& you must pardon my bluntness, but I must go to bed.” Poor fellows, they were stricken speechless—they looked mortified, & went blundering out like a flock of sheep, treading on each other’s heels in their confusion. I undressed & went to bed, & tried to go to sleep—but again & again my conscience smote me—again & again I saw that picture of their exodus from the room—again & again I thought of how mean & how shameful a return I had made for their well-meant & whole-hearted friendliness to me a stranger within their gates5explanatory note—& how puppyish it was in me to be angered instead of gladdened by the that Ⓐemendation gushing cordiality of youth, a thing which ought to have won me by its very naivete & its rare honesty. And then I said to myself, I’ll make amends for this—& so got up & dressed & gave the boys all of my time till midnight—& also from this noon till I left at four this afternoon. And so, if any man is thoroughly popular with the young people of Geneseo to-day, it is I. We Ⓐemendation had a full house last night, & a fine success. I just love boys of their age with all my heart—& I don’t see how I ever could have treated them discourteously. {Yes I do, too. I know the secret of it. I wanted to read your letter—& if they had only just allowed me an hour of privacy for that, I would have been with them heart & hand from that time forth.} Some of those boys came fourteen miles, from a college at Lima, & were splendid young scalawags Ⓐemendation.6explanatory note The whole tribe came to the hotel after the lecture, & entertained me with vocal & piano mush music Ⓐemendation in the parlor, & with cider & whole worlds of tobacco smoke—but they drank a little of everything, & made music which you might have heard a mile. I played sedate old gentleman, but never reproved them once, for I couldn’t help saying to myself, You’ll be all the better men for sowing your wild oats while you are young—I’ll go your security. They assembled in the street before the hotel, shortly after I had retired, & gave me three terrific cheers—which was rather more honor than I desired. Of course I half promised to lecture in Geneseo & in the middle of August, at which time they propose to give me a ball & a concert—& I also half-promised to spend my summer vacation there—& I have made that half-promise Ⓐemendation in a good many places, (but always with the thought in my mind, “It will depend entirely upon where Livy is going to spend her vacation”—for I don’t propose to be very far from you, my dear, when vacations fall to my good fortune.}Ⓐemendation

Now if you have kept up your letter a day, I ought to find a perfect feast awaiting me at Hartford—& I do hope it is the case. Remember, “148 Asylum street,” Livy dear. But since you have a house full of company to entertain, I am a little afraid you won’t have time to write, except after your bed-time,—& you must not do that, Livy. If either of us must suffer, let it be me.

Bless you I am glad to be in your apple sauce—or even in your soup, Livy—for it is a sign that I am in your thoughts, & therefore in your heart, the daintiest mansion that I Ⓐemendation ever I inhabited, my darling. And Ⓐemendation I pray that its doors may never be closed against me until one or the other of us shall go forth forever from among the living. You were brave, Livy—it was like you to come out & acknowledge that you ◇ Ⓐemendation what was in your mind, wh without Ⓐemendation adopting one of those false little subterfuges usual in such circumstances & commonly regarded as permissable.

I still look among the faces in my audiences for one like yours—for one that shall give token of a nature like yours—& I still look in vain. And so I grow prouder & prouder of you day by day, & as each new evidence comes that there is none like you in all the world. If ever a man had reason to be grateful to Divine Providence, it is I. And often & often again I sit & think of the wonder, the curious mystery, the strangeness of it, that there should be only one woman among the hundreds & hundreds of thousands whose features I have critically scanned, & whose characters I have read in ther their Ⓐemendation faces—only one woman among Ⓐemendation them all that whom I could love with all my whole heart, & that it should be my amazing good fortune to secure that woman’s love. And more, that it should be revealed to me in a single instant of time, when I r first saw you, that you were that woman.7explanatory note It passes my comprehension. I have stated the case truly—& I can swear to it as I have stated it. I have known many, very many estimable & lovely women, but they all betrayed one or more unpleasant qualities—& all this time, twelve long years, I have been n Ⓐemendation growing naturally more & more critical & hard to please, as is the way of old bachelors—but behold, I have found you at last, & in you I can discover no bles blemish Ⓐemendation.8explanatory note It is Ⓐemendation strange, it is very strange. The hand of Providence is in it. When I cease to be grateful, deeply grateful to you for your priceless love, my honored Livy, I shall be—dead. Never before, Livy—never before.

I have been reading—I am reading—Gulliver’s Travels., & am much more charmed with it than I was when I read it last, in boyhood—for now I can see what a scathing satire it is upon the English government, ; whereas, before, I only gloated over its prodigies & its marvels. Poor Swift—under the placid surface of this simply-worded book flows the full tide of his venom—the turbid sea of his matchless hate. You would not like the volume, Livy—that is, a part of it. Some of it you would. If you would like to read it, though, I will mark it & tear t it until it is fit for your eyes—for portions of it are very coarse & indelicate. I am sorry enough that I didn’t ask you to let me prepare Don Quixote for your perusal, in the same way. It pains me to think of your reading that book just it as it stands. I have thought of it with regret, time & again. If you haven’t finished it, Livy, don’t do it. You are as pure as snow, & I would have you always so—untainted, untouched even by the impure thoughts of others. You are the purest woman that ever I knew—& your purity is your most uncommon & most precious ornament. Preserve it, Livy. Read Ⓐemendation nothing that is not perfectly pure. I had rather you read fifty “Jumping Frogs” than one Don Quixote.9explanatory note Don Quixote is one of the most exquisite books that was ever written, & to lose it from the world’s literature would be as the pass wresting of a constellation from the symmetry & perfection of the firmament—but neither it nor Shakspeare are proper books for virgins to read until some hand has culled them of their grossness. No gross speech is ever harmless. “A man cannot handle pitch & escape defilement,” saith the proverb.10explanatory note I did not mean to write a sermon, but still I have done it. However Ⓐemendation, it is good sense, & it was a matter that lay near my heart; & so I am not sorry that it is written.

It is high time you were in bed, Livy—& so if you will put your arms about my neck & kiss me, while I look for a moment into the eyes that are dearer to me than the light that streams out of the Heavens, you may go. And take you these two kisses & place them as I would if I were there—& so Goodnight, & God bless you always, my own darling.