Aug. 14, 1852

My dearly loved and afflicted wife

With how much more pleasure I could commence this grateful duty, if I knew you were free from suffering….

…. Doctor Stevens thinks you will be very much benefited by the water cure. I have been trying to persuade [Martha's] Sister Sue to go along with you, and she is quite anxious so to do but can't make the arrangement.

I feel like reproaching myself every time I thought of you on the boat, for leaving you when in so much suffering. And the only excuse I had to relieve me was the almost absolute necessity of so doing to arrange my business so that I could go. I do hope and pray my beloved wife that I will never again so long as life lasts, leave you even for a day when you are as ill as when I left you. It is almost totally inexcusable. But I hope you will experience a magic cure at the water establishment and enjoy good health the remainder of your life. I feel satisfied that when you pass through the ordeal before you, you will have good health, until in a like state again; which I am determined shall never be.

October 6, 1852

in the joyful and earnest hope, that no accident may happen to either of us on the way, and that we may without a shadow on the heart of either be clasped in a fond embrace tomorrow evening, your own loving Matty.