From: Love-Letters of Margaret Fuller, 1845-1846
Author:
Published: 1903 New York
DEAR FRIEND,
Lost too soon, too long; where art thou, where wander thy steps and where thy mind this day?
This day, the last of leisure, I shall pass in the place that was the scene of our meeting when our acquaintance grew with the advance of spring, knew indeed its frequent chills, blights and delays, but also its tender graces, its young joys and at last its flowers.
This place, I think, will always be lovely in my memory. But alas! we shall meet here no more. Strangers to us will haunt the rocks and little green paths, where we gave one another so much childish happiness, so much sacred joy.
Hast thou forgotten any of these things, hast thou ceased to cherish me, O Israel!
I have felt, these last four days, a desire for you that amounted almost to anguish. You are so interwoven with every thought of this place, it seemed as if I could not leave it, till we had walked and talked here once more.
This is such a day as came last year after our reconciliation, when the trees had put on their exquisite white mantles and you gave me the white veil. That evening you went home and wrote me the sweet little letter, in which you likened yourself to the cherry-tree by my window. The tree has again decked itself with blossoms and I see it in its best loveliness before my departure.
But thou dost not return; could you but be here all this day, only one day. So many things have happened, such a crowd of objects come between us! Alas! there is too much to be said we cannot say rightly in letters.
I say Alas! and Alas! and once again Alas!
I send a leaf and flower of the myrtle that grew at the foot of the rock, of which I gave you some the day we seemed to be separated for ever. But we were not.
Where are you? What are you doing? I have not heard from you for more than four months. I do not know whether you passed safe through the East, I do not know whether you have ever reached your home. And I do not know what has been or is in your mind. How unnatural! for such ignorance and darkness to follow on such close communion, such cold eclipse on so sweet a morning. Is it the will of the Angels? Have they drawn the veil between us and given us to other duties, other ties?
We leave this place the last day of April. Mrs. Greeley goes with her child to Brattleboro (Vennont), for the summer. I have taken lodgings in Brooklyn near the Heights for the summer or rather till the 1st August, when I expect to go to England. We intend to go in the steamer from Boston 1st August, on arriving in England to travel about, see Scotland and Westmoreland and be in London in September. Then the plan is to go to Hamburg and from there to see a little of Germany. Then, on the last of September or first of October, if you are there, I shall see you again, at least for an hour or two.
But do write, the moment you receive this, if you have not long before, and tell me everything good and bad. I thought surely to have heard before this, if only to know what to do about sending you Josey. He is now to be left, I don’t know how. Mrs. Greeley has seemed more kindly towards him of late. She has sometimes even fed him herself. He is strong and seems tolerably well now, but he will never be the intelligent and fine creature he might, if you had not left him.
Farewell! for to-day, I have no heart to write any more.
Still no letter from you, I do not yet know that you are safe. And in one fortnight it will be a year, since you went away.
The spring is now at its loveliest. I am not, where I can enjoy its loveliness as at the Farm, yet am happier, for I have a home now, where peace, order and kindness prevail.
Poor Josey remains at the Farm. I suffer much annoyance by continual questions from Mr. Greeley whether I have not heard from you, so as to let him know what to do with the dog, who remains only on sufferance with the new occupants and is exposed to loss or injury.
The affairs of this country are at present disturbed by wars and rumours of wars. Still there seems no likelihood as yet of our being prevented from going to Europe the 1st August. We expect to go in the mail-steamer from Boston. Farewell. Unless I hear from you I shall not write any more. If I do not hear at all, I shall feel great anxiety and shall write to Mr. Delf to ascertain whether you are safe, as there is no one here that can inform me.
Wherever and however you are, that God may bless you always is the prayer of
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