Dutton, 8 January 1861

West Point [Military Academy]
January 8, 1861

My friend,

“De profundis clamavi.” I address you this evening–not exactly from the depths of the tombs, but from the lowest abysses of despair, desperation, discontent & disgust. I despise this world we live in & every human creature in it—you & myself excepted. Perhaps I will be kind enough to except me or two others but certainly not many. Perhaps also I am too hasty in condemning the poor inanimate world itself. Indeed, I believe it is perfect in its way, and all my vituperation should be vented upon the heads of the “bipeds without feathers” who inhabit it. Know there in brief, that I entertain at this moment the most supreme contempt for humanity and I won’t be egotistical, I will include myself in the generalization.

When I used to read in your earlier letters how fond you professed to be inn your fellow creatures, how you would love to take them to your heart, & all that sort of thing, I merely smiled at your unconscious innocence. Now I don’t know whether to pity or envy you. However, as you have of late given indications of a more accurate appreciation of the true nature of those beings you loved so, I will not exhibit either envy or commiseration.

You will doublers say that this language comes with a bad grace from me who used to preach philanthropy at such a great rate. So it does. But if you have the patience, please listen to a short story & see if you can’t sympathize with my emotions & forgive my inconsistency.

About a couple of years ago I was passing a most delightful summer in New England. Among my numerous acquaintances was a lady of nearly my own age who was as far above ordinary beings as the sun is brighter than a “Will o’ the Wisp.” Personally she was most Madonna like in her exquisite beauty. Details of words are too wretchedly cold & expressionless to delineate her loveliness of face & form. Still more so to convey any adequate idea of her refined & most profound intellectual endowments. But the surpassing feature of all was her angelic purity of character. She was by no means one of those wooden angels that sentimental novelists love to picture, but a being who combined every attribute of an earthly organization with the spiritual loveliness of higher forms of existence. She was proud as Marie Antoinette & nevertheless as humble as Mary Magdalene, could weep over the suffering of an insect & herself dare every danger with a wild exultation & suffer agony as though it were joy—quick to have her feelings wounded & a thousand times quicker to forgive even the most deadly injury. Add to the above endowments an extraordinary talent for each & all of the fine arts—a voce soft & musical as the harp of Orpheus—a pencil that literally surpassed that os many professional artists—a mind stored with every acquisition that contributes to mental excellence & you will form some conception of her whom I have striven to describe.

Circumstances threw us together almost constantly for many days. We rode together at sunrise & at sunset, & saw the purple hills & silver streams in their ever varying loveliness. We watched together while the twilight fell over them & the gleaming sunset sky grew dark & draw its shadows over the land. We saw the stars come out one by one, together heard the ocean roll & throw its surf up to our very feet, together sailed over its billows, together sat under shady boughs or rugged rocks & sketched the landscape before us, sung together by starlight & conversed by sunlight, and—and—all that kind of thing. I can’t stop to tell you all we did.

Of course I loved her, but don’t look indignant. It was the strangest kind of love you ever saw—one that no one else ever felt before or since, or shall again—for it was purely & absolutely unselfish. I did not wish to marry her. I would not even entertain the idea. If you wish some idea of what it was, read Plato carefully & you will have some conception—although an indistinct one. I loved her somewhat as Catholics do their Madonna. I believe it was the best & almost elevating emotion of which my poor heart was capable. It made me a better & nobler man. It changed me from a misanthrope to a man-lover.

Incredible as it may seem, she reverenced me almost as I did her. I had never aspired to such happiness but when I first read her heart, I had resolved to devote every energy to win her esteem & when. man makes such a resolution, he never can fail to succeed in it—at least I did not. Circumstances favored me. The previous histories of us both had been somewhat similar & had produced in both a morbid state of mind & a distrust of humanity. I had several opportunities to play the hero, Once I had periled my life for her & another time I endangered it for a ragged little child. But she gave me too much credit for those & a few other trifling actions. My West Point education had rendered danger a plaything to me. Besides, I was not in love with life at that time & would have given it away for a small consideration. Moreover, I was the only man she ever met that could equal her exploits in horsemanship. These & a thousand other fortuitous circumstances placed me in a position that certain other gentlemen would have died of joy, could they have attained it.

Well, we were very happy. We hardly spoke of love except to philosophize on it. The eyes told everything. The understanding between us was so perfect that to explain it to each other in words would have been a burlesque upon nature’s language.

Of course we were soon parted. Uncle Sam required my services & I bade her goodbye. Tears came to her beautiful eyes & my lips quivered. If I had not been a soldier, I should have “boo-hooed” also. She gave me both hands at parting & I held them long in my own for the the first & only time—& at last tore myself away—sped to New York—drowned recollection at the opera—theatre—and billiard room & finally grew calm.

At very long intervals she permitted me to write, & replied to my letters. No woman ever wrote like her. Her letters more prized by me than riches, wealth, honor, fame & all those other bubbles men run after. Still I did not love her as the world has it—nor she me. On the contrary, I looked among my acquaintances to find one fit for her to marry. From the then thousand I selected two—either of whom it would have given me infinite joy to have seen united to her. But ‘l’homie propose Dien dispose.”

A few weeks ago, a kind letter arrived stating that perhaps our correspondence must cease. Today came another letter, informing me of her engagement. Now I had long been expecting this. Hence I was not unprepared. But I certainly was not prepared to learn what individual was to be thus transferred from earth to Heaven. Judge then of my consternation, indignation, my almost insanity when upon learning is name, I recognized him as a little chap, slightly over five feet high, with homely face, limited education, white hair, false teeth, & whose accomplishments were so limited that he could not even be accused of spelling correctly the words in his love letters.

Pity me, O Hattie, for I am the most wretched of mortals, and tell me did you ever hear of such sacrilege> Was Abraham’s offering of Isaac a circumstance to this sacrifice? Was the   immolation of Jepthah’s daughter to be compared with it? Echo answers no!!

I am “hors de moi mûne” [beside myself] tonight. I shall do something fearful. I shall join Garibaldi or go to the South American republics. I would like a good old fashioned fight—something like Thermopylae for instance. It would do me good to kill six or eight of my fellow beings. Is life worth having any longer? If you know of any inducement for a protracted existence, please inform your humble servant & you shall be liberally rewarded.

There! I won’t write any more about it. My feelings won’t stand it. Arthur, you have been a consummate fool—be a man and more. Never mind. I would, however, advise the young gentleman above described to keep at a safe distance from me now & hereafter.

I am never going to see you Miss Hattie. You are a woman and hence not worth a straw. I don’t intend to be disappointed again. I find I am growing to like you much to well already and I am going to put a stop to it or the first I know you will go & marry some old fellow with no hair at all. Just let me catch you marrying anything less than a perfect man, Miss Hattie! If you dare. I will bribe a gypsy to bewitch all your children or failing in that, will make you a widow in a few weeks, I give you fair warning.

Please pardon me for inflicting this long story on you. I feel that I must express myself to someone or lose what few brains I ever possessed. Locksley Hall has been running in my head ever since I heard the fatal news. Now to more pleasant themes.

You were perfectly right in declining to accede to that silly request of mine. It was a momentary freak & I was aware of its absurdity as soon as my letter was dispatched, but to late to remedy it. Your critical description of your correspondents & correspondence was much more entertaining than the letters themselves would have been.

I must administer to you another small quota of praise. The last effusion of yours that appeared in that Journal of American Literature called the Mercury was worthy of yourself. I have forgotten the title—it was about a great shipwreck. It was one of the most powerfully written things for a mere fragment that I ever read. I showed it to a friend who went into raptures over it. How is it possible for you to write so about love & how can your pen bring to the reader’s mind a living picture of the might ocean, when you have never loved & have never gazed upon the eternal depths? I shall insist upon you accompanying me to Europe when I make my trip. What would be mere amusement if I were alone, would be intense delight if shared by you. Would would call up a thousand “spirits from the gray old ocean—the shades of Dante, Petrach, & a million Roman heroes from Italy, green soil,…. Will you go with me—over all the lands Childe Harold saw? Will you penetrate even to Damascus the city of minuets & to Bagdad, that Tennyson sings of & even to Jerusalem and the land where fought brave Richard, Godfry, and Saladin?

Are you a politician, Miss Hattie? I am not. I will leave our Congress to do the talking but when it comes to cold steel, I’m there, and hurrah for glory or a grave. I go through the saber manual half an hour every day and tramp over the hills much of my spare time. Scott has the utmost of discipline & the troops here are to be in readiness to march at a day’s notice, taking a light battery of four pieces with them. That looks martial. Goodbye. Write immediately. Yours, — A. H. D.

Hurrah for Major Anderson. Doesn’t it look like delightful work down south of 36° 30′?