It is the sweetest face in all the world, Livy. To-day in the drawing-room, & to-night on the sofa when Miss Mary1explanatory note was playing—& afterward when you were sewing lace & I saw you from the front yard, through the window—these several times to-day this face has amazed me with its sweetness, & I have felt so thankful that God has given into my charge the dear office of chasing the shadows away & coaxing the sunshine to play about it always. It is such a darling face, Livy!—& such a darling little girlish figure—& such a dainty baby-hand! And to think that with all this exquisite comeliness should be joined such rare & beautiful qualities of mind & heart, is a thing that is utterly incomprehensible. Livy, you are as kind, & good, & sweet & unselfish, & just, & truthful, & sensible and intellectual as the homeliest woman I ever saw (for you know that all these qualities never existed before in any but belong peculiarly to homely women.) I have so longed for these qualities in my wife, & have so grieved because she would have to be necessarily a marvel of ugliness—I who do so worship beauty. But with a good fortune which is a very miracle, I have secured all these things in my little wife—and beauty—beauty beyond any beauty that I ever saw in a face before. And not mere statuesque, mathematically proportioned beauty of feature, but pure loveliness. For you are just as lovely & lovable as it is possible for any human being to be, O peerless Livy! If it be possible for one to go crazy with love, Livy, I am doomed to pine in a madhouse yet. And how you do bear with all my faults & foibles, & shame my littleness with the grand nobility of your nature. Heaven knows that I honor you, Livy, with a most true & reverent honor—& that the homage I pay to your virtues is the most unsullied sentiment that emanates from my heart.

You will think, sometimes, of the sad possibility we were speaking of to-night, & fortify yourself against its pernicious effects, my Livy. Pa Misfortunes are not hard to bear if we only get ready for them in time. Part of the afternoon I was thinking this matter over, & I had a great dread of the suffering it might cost you to see your father & mother in misfortune. I even thought it might kill you, because any sorrow of theirs would so weigh upon you. But I am not distressed any more, now. I believe you would rise up to the emergency, & put forth a strength which would comfort them & bravely bear them up. We would not let them be melancholy, would we, Livy? We would make them happy or perish in the attempt—wouldn’t we? Indeed we would, my precious little jewel.2explanatory note

Livy, I lost full two hours of your society this afternoon, & I grieve over it yet. It is gone forever & forever. I can never get it back. Those two hours were so blank & useless & tiresome—& they might have been so perfectly happy. I lived 33 years without you, Livy—lost time, every hour of it. I can’t live without you any more. You Ninth Statue!3explanatory note You little miracle! You darling! I would not part with you for all the kingdoms of the earth & the glory thereof. And I pray that when you die, my widowed heart may break & its pulses cease forever. For what would existence be without you? There would never be joy in the sunshine any more; nor melody in music; nor gladness in the summer air; nor splendor in the expiring day; nor sublimity in the sea; nor beauty in the rainbow; nor worship in the grateful incense of the flowers. For wherewithal wu would Ⓐemendation would ye delight a heart that was dead, & eyes that saw only a memory, & arms that could never know again the little form they so loved to clasp?

Good-night, my sacred idol—& good angels weave the spells of dreamland about you & bless you with their sinless presence.