Augusta County: John D. Imboden to Annie Lockett,
September 18, 1870
Summary:
Imboden writes to a young woman to convince her of his love for her and explains
how his experiences as a widower affect his life and their future marriage. He
also briefly describes business activities.
Sunday Sept. 18
New York [City]
Dear Miss Annie.
How I wish I could drop that "Miss" and substitute "my own darling Annie" for it.
I am so sorry to learn from your letter received yesterday that my precious little sweet heart is sick.
You don't know how I prize the compliment of a letter
written by you when you were suffering so much discomfort. That act more than
[page 2]
all else you have said or done gives me hope, for when we are
sick we do not trouble ourselves about people we are indifferent to. But when
you tell me that in your hours of suffering I am remembered I know that your
dear heart begins to warm a little bit towards me. If I could only have been
with you last week to pet & care for you while sick I believe my
tenderness would have met some little response. I have seen so much of human
suffering, so many
[page 3]
long, sad weary months & years of my life
have been shaped by the Couch on which lay for the time the most loved one of
all the world to me, that I have acquired the tenderness of your own soft sex in
the presence of an invalid - I trust shall never see you sick & a
sufferer, but if such should unhappily at anytime be the case how gently I would
try to alleviate your pains, and dispel by all the arts love could suggest every
thought and feeling of depression.
[page 4]
Your sickness has given my thoughts a direction this morning that I am
conscious will affect the tone of my letter to you. It seems a strange
Providence that those I love should without any known cause suffer more than
falls to the general lot. Will you pardon me for alluding to those who were so
dear to me, and whose memory I shall always reverence with a tenderness of
feeling which their undying virtues merit.
[page 5]
Lovelier women than were my wives never lived on earth and with each
one my happiness was complete till death destroyed [added: it]. I am not conscious of any difference in the degrees of my love
for them. Each had my whole heart - And it is now one of [added: the] sincerest pleasures I can enjoy to talk about them,
& not let their names and memory die in my family. I will & do
love you as well as I loved them, and if you are ever the wife of my bosom as
they were, I want you to appreciate my feelings on this
[page 6]
subject and
to feel that as the living possessor of a heart that was and is so true to them,
you can afford to listen sometimes to the recital of their love history. It is
because they were so good, so noble, so pure & so beloved by me that I
feel that it were better for me to be dead than not to have a living object, in
all respects as lovely as they were, upon which to pour out the pent up
affection of my oft lacerated, wounded, but I know still loving nature. The
human heart is a curious study. It is in my opinion capa
[page 7]
ble of almost
infinite love. And I believe that the man whose whole soul has been dedicated at
the shrine of wedded love to the service & worship of a pure &
noble woman, is after her death capable of more devotion to a similar object of
adoration, than if he had never known the joys of this holiest of all relations
on earth. To be plainer, the widower whose married life was supremely happy can
renew that life with another, and unless he does so his existence becomes more
miserable every day he lives alone.
[page 8]
No man knows fully the incalculable worth of a true woman till he is
called upon to part from one forever, who was "love of his life & flesh
of his flesh." If he would honor her virtues rightly he can best do so by
finding another like her, and then the memory of his past loss makes him
appreciate more highly his newfound treasure. If you were this day my wife, how
I should watch over and guard you from all harm seeing in
[page 9]
you the
impersonation of all your sex I have ever loved. These are unusual topics of
discussion in such a correspondence as ours. But I feel as if I wanted to say
these things to you even before we meet again - for I address myself not alone
to your heart, but to your excellent sense. I know if I ever saw your whole heart, & less I would not have, it must
be after your judgment has passed upon my history and character.
[page 10]
I am not yet prepared to say on what day I will return to Virginia. Colonel Flournoy went home yesterday. On Friday our Board of Directors
ordered books of subscription to be opened here this week for $200,000 cash
banking capital and I was appointed one of a Committee to attend to it. I hope
to get away now in a very few days, but I want you to write here again. If I
have gone the letter will be sent to Richmond after me. I am very anxious to
hear that you are well again. So write at once.
[page 11]
I did promise you that picture & you shall have it, but I
think I would rather take it to you than to send it. I will send your sister one
to Atlanta. How you must miss her. You ought to love her very much for she is a
most loveable woman. If ever she is my sister I shall love her as devotedly as
ever an elder brother loved a sweet sister. Always remember me to her when you
write. I am glad I am sometimes spoken of in your family. Do they tease you about your old widower beau? Did
[page 12]
any body do so at Buffalo? Hang the Knights of that Tournament for their lack
of taste, if you were only second, & not first
at the coronation - I would put you first every where.
I am at the Grand Central Hotel here with a house full of Virginians - Major
Intherlin of Danville & family, General
Anderson & family of Richmond & many others. I spend my evenings
with the old ladies of the party. I wish you were here
as one of the old ladies, matronizing my pretty
daughters Jennie & Russie, who would astonish the folks around in the
Parlor by addressing you as "Mama". Wouldn't you look grand & old? In my
next I can tell you where I will be at Lombardy Grove. Flournoy wants me to go
to Tennessee first
[page 13]
but I won't do it. My business in Mecklenburg is
more important than his in Tennessee. There are but 12 days left in September & my [unclear: hand] is out
to make you answer every time this month. Love to all - God bless you-
Devotedly Yours
J.D. Imboden
