Congressman Rutherford B. Hayes to Lucy Webb Hayes, June 17, 1866

WASHINGTON, D. C., June 17, 1866.

MY DARLING: I don't believe I told you my feelings when I got your letter that you were not coming to be with me the rest of this session. I feel more and more the desire to be with you all the time. Oh, an occasional absence of a week or two is a good thing to give one the happiness of meeting again, but this living apart is in all ways bad. We have had our share of separate life during the four years of war. There is nothing in the small ambition of Congressional life, or in the gratified vanity which it sometimes affords, to compensate for separation from you. We must manage to live together hereafter. I can't stand this, and will not. Don't you want to be with me? Love to all the boys.

Affectionately ever,

R.

MRS. HAYES.

SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 3, p. 27