14 Mull street, Monday, [Salem,] 16th April, 1849
Ownest wife,
I suppose thou wilt not expect (nor wish for) a letter from me; but it is so desolate and lonesome here that I needs must write. This is a miserable time. Thy and the children's absence; and this dreary bluster of the wind, which at once exasperates and depresses me to the very last degree; and finally, a breakfast (the repetition of yesterday's) of pease and Indian pudding!! It is a strange miscellany of grievances; but it does my business—it makes me curse my day. This matter of the breakfast is the most intolerable, just at this moment; because the taste of it is still in my mouth, and the nausea and disgust overwhelms me like the consciousness of sin. Hell is nothing else but eating pease and baked Indian pudding! If thou lovest me, never let me see either of them again. Keep such things for thy and my worst enemies. Give thy husband bread, 203 or cold potatoes; and he never will complain—but pease and Indian pudding! God forgive me for ever having burthened my conscience with such abominations. They are the Unpardonable Sin and the Intolerable Punishment, in one and the same accursed spoonfull!
I think I hardly ever had such a dismal time as yesterday. I cannot bear the loneliness of the house. I need the sunshine of the children; even their little quarrels and naughtinesses would be a blessing to me. I need thee, above all, and find myself, at every absence, so much the less able to endure it. Come home come home!
Where dost thou think I was on Saturday afternoon? Thou wilt never guess.
In haste; for it is almost Custom House time.
Thy Husband.
Mrs. Sophia A. Hawthorne,
Care of Dr. N. Peabody,
13 West Street,
Boston, Mass.