Lord (not Master) Letters

1.

My lovely Salem smiles at me I seek his Face so often - but I am past disguises (have dropped -) (have done with guises -)

I confess that I love him - I rejoice that I love him - I thank the maker of Heaven and Earth that gave him me to love - the exultation floods me - I can not find my channel - The Creek turned Sea at thoughts of thee - will you punish it - [turn I] involuntary Bankruptcy as the Debtors say. Could that be a Crime - How could that be crime - Incarcerate me in yourself - that will punish me - Threading with you this lovely maze which is not Life or Death tho it has the intangibleness of one and the flush of the other waking for your sake on Day made magical with [before] you before I went to sleep - What pretty phrase - we went to sleep as if it were a country - let us make it one - we could (will) make it one, my native Land - my Darling come oh bea patriot now - Love is a patriot now Gave her life for its (its) country Has it meaning now - Oh nation of the soul thou hast thy freedom now

2.

Ned and I were talking about God and Ned said "Aunt Emily - does Judge Lord belong to the Church"?
"I think not, Ned, technically."
"Why, I thought he was one of those Boston Fellers who thought it the respectable thing to do." "I think he does nothing ostensible - Ned." "Well - my Father says if there were another Judge in the Commonwealth like him, the practice of Law would amount to something." I told him I thought it probable - though recalling that I had never tried any case in your presence but my own, and that, with your sweet assistance - I was murmurless.
I wanted to fondle the Boy for the ferverent words - but made the distinction. Dont you know you have taken my will away and I "know now where" you "have laid" it? Should I have curbed you sooner? "Spare the 'Nay' and spoil the child"?
Oh, my too beloved, save me from the idolatry which would crush us both -

"And very Sea - Mark of my utmost Sail" -

3.

Dont you know you are happiest while I withhold and not confer - dont you know that "No" is the wildest word we consign to Language?
You do, for you know all things - [top of sheet cut off] . . . to lie so near your longing - to touch it as I passed, for I am but a restive sleeper and often should journey from your Arms through the happy night, but you will lift me back, wont you, for only there I ask to be - I say, if I felt the longing nearer - than in our dear past, perhaps I could not resist to bless it, but must, beacuse it would be right
The "Stile" is God's - My Sweet One - for your great sake - not mine - I will not let you cross - but its all your's, and when it is right I will lift the Bars, and lay you in the Moss - You showed me the word.
I hope it has no different guise when my fingers make it. It is Anguish I long conceal from you to let you leave me, hungry, but you ask the divine Crust and that would doom the Bread.
The unfrequented Flower
Embellish thee - (deserving be) [sheet cut off]
I was reading a little Book - because it broke my Heart I want it to break your's - Will you think that fair? I often have read it, but not before since loving you - I find that makes a difference - it makes a difference with all. Even the whistle of a Boy passing late at Night, or the Low [?] of a Bird - [sheet cut away] Satan" - but then what I have not heard is the sweet majority - the Bible says very roguishly, that the "wayfaring Man, though a Fool - need not err therein"; need the "wayfaring" Woman? Ask your throbbing Scripture.
It may surprise you I speak of God - I know him but a little, but Cupid taught Jehovah to many an untutored Mind - Witchcraft is wiser than we -

3 excerpts from "The Death of Lincoln"

1.

And though by no means proposing to resume the Secession war to-night, I would briefly remind you of the public conditions preceding that contest. For twenty years, and especially during the four or five before the war actually began, the aspect of affairs in the United States, though without the flash of military excitement, presents more than the survey of a battle, or any extended campaign, or series, even of Nature’s convulsions. The hot passions of the South—the strange mixture at the North of inertia, incredulity, and conscious power—the incendiarism of the abolitionists—the rascality and grip of the politicians, unparalle’d in any land, any age. To these I must not omit adding the honesty of the essential bulk of the people everywhere—yet with all the seething fury and contradiction of their natures more arous’d than the Atlantic’s waves in wildest equinox. In politics, what can be more ominous, (though generally unappreciated then)—what more significant than the Presidentiads of Fillmore and Buchanan? proving conclusively that the weakness and wickedness of elected rulers are just as likely to afflict us here, as in the countries of the Old World, under their monarchies, emperors, and aristocracies. In that Old World were everywhere heard underground rumblings, that died out, only to again surely return. While in America the volcano, though civic yet, continued to grow more and more convulsive—more and more stormy and threatening.

2.

The President came betimes, and, with his wife, witness’d the play from the large stage-boxes of the second tier, two thrown into one, and profusely draped with the national flag. The acts and scenes of the pieces—one of those singularly written compositions which have at least the merit of giving entire relief to an audience engaged in mental action or business excitements and cares during the day, as it makes not the slightest call on either the moral, emotional, esthetic, or spiritual nature—a piece, (“Our American Cousin,”) in which, among other characters, so call’d, a Yankee, certainly such a one as was never seen, or the least like it ever seen, in North America, is introduce in England, with a varied fol-de-rol of talk, plot, scenery, and such phantasmagoria as goes to make up a modern popular drama—had progress’d through perhaps a couple of its acts, when in the midst of this comedy, or non-such, or whatever it is to be call’d, and to offset it, or finish it out, as if in Nature’s and the great Muse’s mockery of those poor mimes, came interpolated that scene, not really or exactly to be described at all, (for on the many hundreds who were there it seems to this hour to have left a passing blur, a dream, a blotch)—and yet partially to be described as I now proceed to give it. There is a scene in the play representing a modern parlor, in which two unprecedented English ladies are inform’d by the impossible Yankee that he is not a man of fortune, and therefore undesirable for marriage-catching purposes; after which, the comments being finish’d, the dramatic trio make exit, leaving the stage clear for a moment. At this period came the murder of Abraham Lincoln. Great as all its manifold train, circling round it, and stretching into the future for many a century, in the politics, history, art, &c., of the New World, in point of fact the main thing, the actual murder, transpired with the quiet and simplicity of any commonest occurrence—the bursting of a bud or pod in the growth of vegetation, for instance. Through the general hum following the stage pause, with the change of positions, came the muffled sound of a pistol-shot, which not one-hundredth part of the audience heard at the time—and yet a moment’s hush—somehow, surely, a vague startled thrill—and then, through the ornamented, draperied, starr’d and striped space-way of the President’s box, a sudden figure, a man, raises himself with hands and feet, stands a moment on the railing, leaps below to the stage, (a distance of perhaps fourteen or fifteen feet,) falls out of position, catching his boot-heel in the copious drapery, (the American flag,) falls on one knee, quickly recovers himself, rises as if nothing had happen’d, (he really sprains his ankle, but unfelt then)—and so the figure, Booth, the murderer, dress’d in plain black broadcloth, bare-headed, with full, glossy, raven hair, and his eyes like some mad animal’s flashing with light and resolution, yet with a certain strange calmness, holds aloft in one hand a large knife—walks along not much back from the footlights—turns fully toward the audience his face of statuesque beauty, lit by those basilisk eyes, flashing with desperation, perhaps insanity—launches out in a firm and steady voice the words Sic semper tyrannis—and then walks with neither slow nor very rapid pace diagonally across to the back of the stage, and disappears. (Had not all this terrible scene—making the mimic ones preposterous—had it not all been rehears’d, in blank, by Booth, beforehand?)

A moment’s hush—a scream—the cry of murder—Mrs. Lincoln leaning out of the box, with ashy cheeks and lips, with involuntary cry, pointing to the retreating figure, He has kill’d the President. And still a moment’s strange, incredulous suspense—and then the deluge!—then that mixture of horror, noises, uncertainty—(the sound, somewhere back, of a horse’s hoofs clattering with speed)—the people burst through chairs and railings, and break them up—there is inextricable confusion and terror—women faint—quite feeble persons fall, and are trampled on—many cries of agony are heard—the broad stage suddenly fills to suffocation with a dense and motley crowd, like some horrible carnival—the audience rush generally upon it, at least the strong men do—the actors and actresses are all there in their play-costumes and painted faces, with mortal fright showing through the rouge—the screams and calls, confused talk—redoubled, trebled—two or three manage to pass up water from the stage to the President’s box—others try to clamber up—&c., &c.

3.

  I repeat it—the grand deaths of the race—the dramatic deaths of every nationality—are its most important inheritance-value—in some respects beyond its literature and art—(as the hero is beyond his finest portrait, and the battle itself beyond its choicest song or epic.) Is not here indeed the point underlying all tragedy? the famous pieces of the Grecian masters—and all masters? Why, if the old Greeks had had this man, what trilogies of plays—what epics—would have been made out of him! How the rhapsodes would have recited him! How quickly that quaint tall form would have enter’d into the region where men vitalize gods, and gods divinify men! But Lincoln, his times, his death—great as any, any age—belong altogether to our own, and are autochthonic. (Sometimes indeed I think our American days, our own stage—the actors we know and have shaken hands, or talk’d with—more fateful than any thing in Eschylus—more heroic than the fighters around Troy—afford kings of men for our Democracy prouder than Agamemnon—models of character cute and hardy as Ulysses—deaths more pitiful than Priam’s.)

When, centuries hence, (as it must, in my opinion, be centuries hence before the life of these States, or of Democracy, can be really written and illustrated,) the leading historians and dramatists seek for some personage, some special event, incisive enough to mark with deepest cut, and mnemonize, this turbulent Nineteenth century of ours, (not only these States, but all over the political and social world)—something, perhaps, to close that gorgeous procession of European feudalism, with all its pomp and caste-prejudices, (of whose long train we in America are yet so inextricably the heirs)—something to identify with terrible identification, by far the greatest revolutionary step in the history of the United States, (perhaps the greatest of the world, our century)—the absolute extirpation and erasure of slavery from the States—those historians will seek in vain for any point to serve more thoroughly their purpose, than Abraham Lincoln’s death.

Dear to the Muse—thrice dear to Nationality—to the whole human race—precious to this Union—precious to Democracy—unspeakably and forever precious—their first great Martyr Chief.