MY DEAREST MARY,--I received your letter of April 2 late last evening. It is one, I am sure, which might call a response out of a heart of adamant; and mine, being of a tenderer substance, it answers with all its chords. Dear, sweet, tender, loving Mary, you are more like Herder's Swan than anything else I can think of. The spirits of your translated babes bring you airs from heaven. What a lovely trinity of souls; what a fair star they form, according to Swedenborg's beautiful idea. I doubt not there is a path of descent, like that of Jacob's ladder, from their Father's bosom to your heart, and they ascend and descend, like those angels of his dream. Dear Mary, just imagine my husband in reality, as faintly shadowed in his productions. Fresh as a young fountain, with childlike, transparent emotions; vivid as the flash of a sword in the sun with sharp wit and penetration; of such an unworn, unworldly observance of all that is enacted and thought under the sun; as free from prejudice and party or sectarian bias as the birds, and therefore wise with a large wisdom that is as impartial as God's winds and sunbeams. His frolic is like the sport of Milton's "unarmed youth of heaven." But I will not pretend to describe his intellect; and I have by no means yet searched it out. I repose in it as upon some elemental force, which always seems just created, though we cannot tell when it began to be. Of his beautiful, genial, tender, and great nature I can still less adequately discourse. His magnanimity, strength, and sweetness alternately, and together, charm me. He fascinates, wins, and commands. We have passed the winter delightfully, reading to each other, and lately studying German. I knew a little, just enough to empower me to hold the rod, and be somewhat impertinent, and I have entire preeminence in the way of pronunciation. But ever and anon I am made quite humble by being helped out of thick forests by my knight, instead of guiding him. So we teach each other in the most charming manner, and I call it the royal road to knowledge, finally discovered by us. Mr. Hawthorne writes all the morning. Do you see "The Democratic Review"? In the March number is "The Procession of Life." Mr. Jonathan Phillips told Elizabeth he thought it a great production, and immediately undertook to read all else my husband had written. "The Celestial Railroad," for the April number, is unique, and of deep significance. It is a rare privilege to hear him read his manuscript aloud with the true expression.