Manuscript:
Transcription:
at whose side in fancy, you walked the livelong day; and
when you come home, Susie, we must speak of these
things.
How dull our lives must seem to the bride, and the plighted
maiden, whose days are fed with gold, and who gathers
pearls every evening; but to the wife, Susie, sometimes the
wife forgotten, our lives perhaps seem dearer than all
others in the world; you have seen flowers at morning,
satisfied with the dew, and those same sweet flowers at
noon with their heads bowed in anguish before the mighty
sun; think you these thirsty blossoms will now need naught
but - dew? No, they will cry for sunlight, and pine for the
burning noon, tho' it scorches them, scathes them; they
have got through with peace - they know that the man of
noon, is mightier than the morning and their life is
henceforth to him. Oh, Susie, it is dangerous, and it is all
too dear, these simple trusting spirits, and the spirits
mightier, which we cannot resist! It does so rend me, Susie,
the thought of it when it comes, that I tremble lest at
sometime I, too, am yielded up.
Susie, you will forgive me my amatory strain -it has been a
very long one, and if this saucy page did not here bind
[Marginalia on third page:]
When will you come again, in a week? Let it be a swift
When will you come again, in a week? Let it be a swift
week!
