May 28

  My Dear Nash,

  Brief note. Letter from Prescott yesterday. Usual gossip, nothing worth the ink, except a mention of the review of your book in the Journal. Four pages! No praise is going to be sufficient, but still I wanted to see what they had to say.

  Problem was of course that P didn’t send a copy—he must think that the whole world has access to the same indulgences as in the city. Well, my bookseller in Oakfield usually does stock a few issues, but this week his supplier in Boston is ill and hasn’t gotten around to sending them. Then he told me that Crane’s in Shadd’s Falls also subscribes, and since I was already down-valley, I decided to go there. Two-hour ride, broken by a sudden downpour during which I found shelter at a farmhouse, took tea with the farmer, endured his ramblings about the coming slave revolt spreading up into the North, as if his flocks might be carried off. Then on my way again, pausing for a moment in the road to take in the abandoned farms, the low brush slowly reclaiming a former pasture. What was I doing there? Ah, the Journal! Onward! Another hour to Shadd’s Falls, shop closed: Crane apparently is in New York on business. Now I was in for it—sixteen miles from home, and nothing to show, when it occurred to me that I was but only eight from Bettsbridge, where the general store is a miracle of supply: often stocks the journals for the summer crowd. Anyway, you can see where this is going—I went rambling across half the county and had to spend a night at an inn in Corbury Junction. Bed unfit for a sailor. Shared a plank with some pungent heathen. Downstairs, drunken revelry, and not the good kind. At breakfast: fly wing swirling in my coffee. Beat a defeated retreat before the mist had lifted, stopping at the post to discover that P had sent a copy after all.

  Cursed P. Found a dry spot beneath an elm and read it there, in the Square. Obscene it was—not a review, but a love-making. Your words “no less than ravishments”? “The reader feels the warm breath of Filomena on his own lips”? Oh dear! Not signed…Well, common enough, though here I think the reviewer need not fear reprisal from you but from your wife.

  Of course, none of the praise gave me the same joy as simply seeing our names together in print. “Mr. Nash’s travels on the Continent with the painter William Henry Teale, a journey which gave us not only the former’s Travels, but the latter’s grand canvases of sunsets at Vesuvius.” How often I wish that I hadn’t come home early to attend my father’s illness. Still, I can’t forget our sea journey, those first weeks along the Italian coast.

  Here, news from Katherine is that she will come the second week of June, as planned. I’ll admit I will miss my damselfly days, but if I wait any longer, the children will have forgotten who I am. K is eager to have guests and asked whether I might consider inviting you and Clara if the house is done this summer. I had to read my reply twice to make sure I didn’t sound too eager. You have bewitched her, too, I think. You know she finds most of my artist friends tedious—“unwashed men with easels”—but every time I mention you, I catch a faint fluttering of her lashes. She’d read your Dido when she was fourteen, when novel-reading was cautioned against if not forbidden. Said it did to her everything her mother feared—taught her that a woman could be an active agent of love and not simply the wooed. In other words: gave language to longing. I’d have you come sooner, but she’d be appalled to learn the great Erasmus Nash ate with anything but her best silver. Still, the place is nearing shipshapeness, so expect an invitation. She’ll promise a well-appointed country room, the most gracious comforts. I promise nothing but the bittern, the spring onion, the morel—in sum, the whole freshness of June.

  WHT

  P.S.—On the matter of archaeology. You will recall my description of the house—five bays, central chimney, long descending roof in back—standard stuff, save for the odd little shanty off to the side. Well, one of the workers pulled off the siding today and discovered a stone wall (the Osgood house is post and beam). Very old construction, Trevors thinks. So someone was here even before my Major. Who? If I close my eyes, I can see him. Old Nehemiah, son of Eleazer, son of Adonijah, son of Fearing-God. Tilled the land, kept the Sabbath, and every fortnight, washed his hay-stained hands, pulled back the bearskin, and roused his snoring Prosper from her sleep. No, I can do better: a murderous trapper, who stabbed his partner, made a stew of him. Or better yet, a pair of lovers, who, casting off their Puritan yokes, absconded to this place. He with fair hair and dreaming eyes, a restlessness. She of long black tresses. This their private Arcadia, no one else around.

  P.P.S.—not such a brief note. I’m getting starved for conversation.

  June 15

  My Dear Nash,

  Well, so long to solitude. Katherine and the children arrived on Monday—lovely to see them, but the house now bustles with such noise that it seems they have brought the entire city to the mountain. Linen is unfolded from crates, hats materialize, chinaware replaces the pewter. K at first pleasantly surprised. For the past year, I’ve endured such protests over the move, accusations that I put my art before my family, that I will condemn my children to savagery, &c. Only the news that both the Fitzroys and the De Groots have bought homes in the county seemed to have placated her. Never mind that I would go mad in the city, that I had reached the end of my rope—it is the Fitzroys and the De Groots who have convinced her that one might consider leaving the dust and crowds.

  I should have known that it would only be a matter of time before the honeymoon ended. When we bought the house, she’d told me it was too small. I’d prevailed upon her to wait a season, get used to its country charm, but now I know that I was destined for failure—the only uncertainty was what would become the target of her wrath. My wager would have been on the parlor, which is too small for more than a single family to join us, but instead, the culprit is the chimney. Yes, poor soul, its crime is that it sits there, as most old chimneys do, plop in the middle of everything, blocks the entrance, denies her a grand hallway in which to greet her guests. She’s right, of course, but were we to remove it, the whole affair would come tumbling down. The solution is therefore what I feared from the start—we will build another wing, and this summer. Never mind that the workers have gone back to their fields—Trevors brought a gang of Irish brothers up from the city and will have it done in weeks. So he says. Positively irritating in his enthusiasm, is Trevors. Clearly, patching up an old two-story excited him about as much as painting a portrait of Mr. La-di-da’s ugly little daughter excited me. But now he has his project. At least they won’t be tearing anything down: you know how affectionate I feel for my ghosts. Out here, no one tears down anyway—one just adds upon, agglutinates, house to house, shed to shed, like some monstrous German noun. Everywhere one finds these rambling masses: new wing goes up, old one becomes the servants’ quarters, old servants’ quarters become the barn, old barn becomes the carriage house, and so on. They molt, these houses! As the centuries go on, I would not be surprised to find them traipsing about the country, leaving a trail of former incarnations in their path.

  But yes, the bustle: my Arcadia has been transformed, birdsong has been replaced by hammers, bootstep, the scrape of dressers, the unfurling of rugs, the hushed murmurs of the workers as they debate whether they should confess to Madam that they nicked the dresser on the doorjamb. I escape to the woods if I can, and if not, hunker down within my woodsman’s stone cabin (now back behind new siding), where at times a child wanders in, gazes with mild disappointment at some painting of a tree or fern, and then dashes off to shred the real thing with his hickory saber. Only Ottilie ever pays me any compliment—my studies of the glen are “nice,” the old Landscape with Two Figures is “sad,” and my cataracts earn a puzzled, chicken-y tilt of the head. Were critics so generous!

  WHT

  P.S.—Ants ate the envelope glue so I hadn’t sealed this yet, and then, last night, just happened to pick up your Travels again and opened to your description of the twilight as we left the Azores, the sense of oneness with the world—of dissolving away. Now I wonder if this is what I seek when I paint—a disappearance into. Maybe that is what I had come to hate about my grand canvases. Always I was at the center of it. Not literally: no little WHT, peering backward over his shoulder, sensu Cole in his Oxbow. But the very act of composition, in that specific sense a painter means when he speaks of the act of bringing together various parts into a harmonious whole—this act of cohesion naturally places the subject front and center. Cole is a good example: all meant to be wild nature, but there is no doubt that it is man’s eyes we are looking through. This is not to doubt his skill. But he is always there, and my most exquisite moments are ones of dissolution. But what does this mean anyway? Can there be art without the human in it? Maybe that is what I wish to capture: beast as seen by beast, tree as seen by tree.

  I jest, but not really.

  July 18

  My Good Nash,

  Your letter was handed to me on the road to Oakfield by our cheese-man’s girl. Apparently, it had been mixed up in a stack delivered to Mr. Halfpenny, the lawyer, who gave it to one of his farmhands to bring back to the post, and Billy, thinking he might be helpful, instead turned it over to his sister who works at the butter mill where we buy our cheese. But the silly girl forgot, and it wasn’t until her mistress found it scattered among the butter pots that it resumed its journey. Upshot was that I was on my way to Oakfield when I was hailed by fair Willa, breathlessly fumbling with her bosom in search of the letter, which, understandably, had curled up in those warm recesses and did not want to come out. Eventually she found her quarry and handed it over, blushing. Ran off while I read it there on the road. I still have it before me, translucent with the butter from her fingers, heavenly fragrant. If only every letter were so thoughtfully conveyed.

  Much to write, but I’ll cut to it quickly: yes, visit. Drop everything. Run, swim, fly. Hurry out on the first train, worry about nothing, bring only yourselves. There is a stage, but I will get you at the station. Katherine will protest that the house isn’t finished, that it is not properly appointed, &c., but Trevors has truly worked magic. Wish you were here to see it. Frame, roof, all walls, and half the flooring. Carried the barn over so that it might serve as a carriage house. You read that correctly: carried. It’s an art here—mastered back when they were rolling logs out of the woods. Woke up one morning to find he had the barn up on screw jacks, then twenty-two oxen, snorting like the cattle of Geryon, come rumbling up our road. Barn groans, protests, creaks across the yard—until they settle it snug against the cabin wall. Well, not quite snug—we had to build a short hallway to connect them, and by “we” I mean the Irish do all the work. But now my quondam barn serves as carriage house, and one may walk, without being touched by a single drop of rain, from carriage, through cabin, old house, and into the grand rooms of the new. Of course, this means that the cabin can no longer serve for my studio, at least if I should want any kind of silence. Instead, I’ll take the old servants’ quarters in the back—a bit dark, but we have added a veranda so I can look out onto the old orchards and the chestnuts in their creamy glory. North-facing, so I’ll freeze in winter, but for now at least it feels more part of the forest than of the house. Sketch enclosed: I should have thought of this first, should have painted the place before, so you could appreciate the after. Try this: place your left hand on the barn, your right on the big house, and you’ll have a sense of how I found it, seven months ago.

  Of course, what you can’t see is what matters: there is a room for you and Clara, and a separate one for the children, and if some walls aren’t papered, and if the shelves are empty, I have confidence that you will find a place of comfort and calm. Note that I have a vested interest in your pleasure, lest you dislike it and not wish to come again.

  WHT

  P.S. The country! Apples beginning to fruit. Wild strawberry fruited. Mushrooms broad enough to give one shelter. The goldenrod bobbing as I pass—my nodding acquaintances. Slugs leave hieroglyphs on the beech bark.

  Final observation. A heron in the treetops—really, do they perch so high? I’d always imagined them swamp-walkers. But there, above, I have my answer.

  August 20

  My Dear Nash,

  First apple. Nothing to say save that I wished to race into town with it in my hand, raising the crows with my Hallelujahs. Henceforth, it shall be forbidden to call anything else an apple. Oh, Atalanta! I used to think she was a fool, but I too would have given myself up to any suitor to taste such gold. Never again shall I chuckle when I pass those portraits of Alice and Mary with their La Joconde smiles and their Eve-fruit. Henceforth, every portrait of me will also show one in my hand.

  I nearly wept to think that I had wasted half my life before I tasted of it. Let us tear up our Almanacs, date this life from before and after.

  My first thought: I will send my city friend a bushel, two, in haste, so that he might know its freshness. But what fisherman hands off his lure? Second thought: come so that you may taste it from the tree. If that can’t entice you, I don’t know what will.

  WHT

  September 8

  My Dear Nash,

  Well! Was it the apples? I know, I know: you were planning to come, regardless, but, ah, the coincidence seems awfully suspicious. But I am not offended—I would travel halfway across the globe for them. Anyhow, confirmed: September 13, the evening train. I will be waiting for you, eagerly. Have told no one, lest the local papers spoil the privacy of our celebrated visitor. Wear your hat low.

  WHT

  September 19

  Nash,

  Grab your pipe, take your chair—this is a long one, but there is no other way.

  How bittersweet your departure! Trust this will find you safe at home after your journey. We cannot decide what mood we find ourselves in, whether to bask in the lingering glow of your presence or to mourn your departure. Ottilie and the boys sulk about the house in search of their playmates—only the promise of your future visit can rouse them. Katherine, meanwhile, alternately reads the copy of Travels you inscribed to her, blurts out, “That was lovely, wasn’t it?,” and frets over the rustic state of your lodgings, unmoved by my assurances that she made a fine host.

  And I? Allied in sentiment, I think, to my children.

  Such joy that your sweet company makes

  Does leave a shadow in its wake.

  To think that you were here but a week! It felt both a minute and a lifetime. You are like no one else I know, have ever met. My sole consolation—and it is a great one—is the realization of my life’s fortune in your friendship. For it is Fortune. To think of all that had to happen so that we might meet, and all that might have happened to prevent it. Had P never held his party, had one of us been taken by the fever circulating that summer…had the rains detained one of our carriages…had one of my melancholies led me to turn down his invitation! Or: had I come, but had we not, on that excursion up Green Hill, found ourselves in such proximity, and talked. How I remember that, and the envious eyes of all upon me, and my incredulity at it all, the agony that came with that sense that at any moment you would find me dull and move on to someone else. Yes, I’d found, I knew, my Life’s friend. How our words tumbled upon each other! I could see others watching—I knew that they wondered what it was we could be speaking of—what magic might have engaged us so. But it was so, and I count from that moment a joy that I have known nowhere else. Well, I hardly need rehearse this history—but I think now how little has changed, how instant our friendship was, how it grew throughout our Tour.

  And yet that is where the mystery in all this lies, for I should be content with this joy, pleased as Katherine is pleased, satisfied as after a good meal. But a meal satiates. You remarked—just yesterday!—that I seemed not myself. If I was not forthcoming, it was not because I intended any deception, but was simply the victim of my moods…

  I fear I am beginning to write in circles. Dear friend, might I offer a confession? When we parted after Herculaneum, it was not, as I said, because of a letter from home, my father’s illness. It was something else—both the joy I had felt until that moment, and the sense that there approached, before us, a precipice which I was afraid to cross. Am I too vague? I cannot help but think that you know the moment I speak of—the evening after our supper in La Spezia, when we returned together up the winding alleys above the Gulf, and at the crossroads to our chambers, bid good night. We had fallen silent—rare for us. And in that silence, I sensed between us something which had been there since Green Hill but had lay slumbering, unable to make itself known before we threw the heavy fetters of Society off. Precipice…slumbering creature…Erasmus, I mix my words, but I trust you might find meaning in them. In sum: that was why I came home: my wish to preserve the wonder of our friendship, and not risk those perfect days by asking greedily for more.

  A malady in the family, but not in the person I might have led you to believe.

  Or this: sometimes, friend, I even wonder if I moved to these north woods not for peace and silence, but that I might get away from you.

  Dear Nash, the inner life lies beyond my ken, perhaps you can put words to it. Were I able to paint what I am trying to say, it would be a simple canvas, two linked spirits in a glen more beautiful than ever I have painted.

  There: I have said what I can. Know that I ask nothing. If anything within offends, please rest assured that I am most capable of resuming our friendship, as is, in perpetuity. When you write back, you may write of the books you read and the parties you attend, and the places you wish to travel. You may ignore these ramblings of affection, knowing simply that I remain,