I was not at the end of Long Wharf to-day, but in a distant region; my
authority having been put in requisition to quell a rebellion of the
captain and "gang" of shovelers aboard a coal-vessel. . . . Well--I
have conquered the rebels, and proclaimed an amnesty; so to-morrow I
shall return to that Paradise of Measures, the end of Long Wharf. Not
to my former salt-ship, she being now discharged; but to another,
which will probably employ me wellnigh a fortnight longer. The salt
is white and pure--there is something holy in salt.

BOSTON, 1839.

Your wisdom is not of the earth; it has passed through no other mind,
but gushes fresh and pure from your own, and therefore I deem myself
the safer when I receive your outpourings as a revelation from Heaven.
Not but what you have read, and tasted deeply, no doubt, of the
thoughts of other minds; but the thoughts of other minds make no
change in your essence, as they do in almost everybody else's essence.
You are still sweet Sophie Hawthorne, and still your soul and
intellect breathe forth an influence like that of wildflowers, to
which God, not man, gives all their sweetness. . . . If the whole world
had been ransacked for a name, I do not think that another could have
been found to suit you half so well. It is as sweet as a wildflower.
You ought to have been born with that very name--only then I should
have done you an irreparable injury by merging it in my own.

You are fitly expressed to my soul's apprehension by those two magic
words--Sophia Hawthorne! I repeat them to myself sometimes; and always
they have a new charm. I am afraid I do not write very clearly, having
been pretty hard at work since sunrise. You are wiser than I, and will