Monday Night, December
23d, 1861.
Your dear letter came just in the midst of the business
mail, and it had to lie unopened for an hour or so. It looked pretty and
piteous, like a young maiden asking to be kissed. How often I looked at it and
longed for it! How I hurried the business along — and how I swallowed its
sweetness when I broke it open! Would that I may be able to wield my sword when
in battle, as you wield your pen! Have you ever thought of the conquests you
have made by your pen? . . . The many
verses you have written have given you the easy palm among your sex, wherever
you have been. It makes Phebe acknowledge you as her superior, and Elizabeth
and the boys look up to you as a wonder. And Sister — with what delight I see
her tender admiration for you! . . . But
better than all — is it not — wife of my heart? your husband finds a perpetual feast
in the refined, intellectual culture his nature fits him to appreciate and
enjoy.
It made me sorry to think of your disappointment in not
getting any letters last week; and your next letter will sing the same wail of
Philomela. But before this time, you will have received my few lines of
Saturday, and to-morrow you will get my Sunday letter, and so the love stream
runs free again, with its babbling through the flowery green sward. If I get my
leave from the Board of Visitors to remain two or three weeks after the first
of January, I will write you letters enough to make up for all you have missed.
I wonder how many letters I have sent you since last July? I am sure I have no
idea. And then my profuse journalizing was for you. . . . I wish you would go and see old Mrs. P.
Tell her that General Jackson was very much moved when he heard that her son
was killed, and said that there was no better soldier in the army. I walked
through the woods at midnight, that I might see his face for the last time, and
as they raised the covering, that I might look upon him, I said to those
around, “I knew him from a boy; he was a good soldier, and what is better, a
good Christian. He served his country and his God, and has gone where war is no
more.” It will comfort her. And you may need some one to comfort you soon. God
keep us all.
Your Husband.
P. S. Tuesday morning. Bitter cold. I am to start for
Richmond to-night.
SOURCE: Elizabeth Preston Allan, The Life and
Letters of Margaret Junkin Preston, p. 126-7
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