Unadilla Aug 18, 1857
My Olive Herrick,
In attempting to address you through the medium of the pen I fear it to be an entire failure for I feel that words would but conceal what I would wish to secretly reveal to thy ear, I would that I were capable of ____________ on this page language worthy to meet my _____________. Then I might like to prove myself worthy of thy friendship. Ever since our first interview I have indulged in the hope that the day was not far distant when we should be brought into a closer union of friendship than the one in which we then stood. Since that time I have been in various circles, seen many (strangers) faces and those that were good looking too. But what effect. You were preferred before them all. Believe me, Dearest, you have not been forgotten. Pardon me, madam, for the liberty which I have presumed to take – it is natural. I cannot refrain from it. There is nothing like the first assurance, the sober certainty of love. There is no other such crisis in human life. It is firmer than the tempered steel and more attractive than the magnet. No one is so accursed by fate. No one so utter desolate. But some heart through ___________ responds onto its own. Whispers in its _______. Why hast thou stayed so long _____________________.
I do not know but I have already said too much. Chide me gently if I have. I am saying more to you than I have ever said to any person yet. Will you believe me when I say that I have never seen any one (except your own self) yet that I thought I would make my confidential. But I do not believe I can say so anymore.
I feel that I have been to ____________. Then let thy cheek resume the smile and though I left ______ for awhile. I’ll swear to leave thee love no more. Words will fail to _______ the interest that I feel for you, could I properly arrange ______________ __________ this page then I might hope to give you a fair _______ of my feelings when I received your last epistle.
It seems impossible that any one could ________ insensible to such love where have I been for the last year and a half that it has not penetrated through my heart ere this time and shattered it into more than ten thousand fragments. Cupid, that wily little fellow, has done his work. For the first time in my life I willingly surrender. I can resist temptation no longer.
Should these lines which I have penned meet your _________ and we be led to participation in each other’s desires and hopes I shall feel that I have reached the climax of earthly bliss of which love is the culminating point and which shall only terminate when we are called to leave of terrestrial scenes to close the debt of nature.
I know that thou dost love me aye frown as thou wilt and curl that beautiful lip
which I can never gaze upon without the guilt of burning its dew to sip.
I know that my heart is reflected in thine and like flowers that over a brook incline
They toward each other dip I will come in thy dreams at the midnight hour
And thy soul in secret shall own the power it dares to mock by day.
I will steal in thy heart like a thief at night and pilfer its thoughts away. – Hoffman
You will excuse me for copying poetry for it is so __________ _______ adapted to present circumstances that I cannot refrain from selecting such a beautiful part as I have written above. What is all this that I have been saying _____ _____ out such yarns. You will condemn them surely at first sight and say he need not think to flatter me with such stuff. I think upon the whole I had better dry up. The next time I will give you the rest.
Your friend and well wisher,
Donald
Accept the love my ______ beautious fair
Which you may have and ever share
While time permits us here to stay
But when he comes with his sickle keen
And we on earth no more be seem
Shall death divide our love I say.
From McIntyre Family History by Marianna Malkowski and Emily Gubry