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Cite as: L.D. Bradley
Pearce Civil War Collection
Navarro College, Corsicana, Texas
Austin. Sep 4 h 1866.
Little Honey
I received this morning your letter of the 26 h August. My regular time for
writing to you was last Sunday; but on that particular day I felt rather badly, and not having
received your letter which I knew must have been written the Sunday before. I did not have
the heart, or spirits, to write. This morning, however having read your letter, which informs
me that my Little Darling, & little ones are well, although the House is in Session, & then is a
constant buzz of talking, reading & rattling of papers going on all around me, I concluded to
write immediately, & so take advantage of the mail which goes out to-day. If you knew,
Little Honey, how much delight your letters afford me, how much I am relieved from an
uneasiness which accumulates day by day when I didn't hear from you, I think, if you were
not too busy, you would write every mail, instead of only once a week. I know that you love
me, Little Darling, and that it is actually a pleasure to you to confer any kind of pleasure
upon me; and I can assure you, without any exaggeration or without any desire (even if I
could accomplish that kind of thing) to pretend to any kind of feeling which I do not
actually and really entertain that your letters afford me the only real, genuine pleasure which
I have. It is true that it is a sort of gratification to me to undertake and succeed in the
accomplishment of any business with which I am entrusted; it is also true that I am social in
my disposition and habits, and that I derive a certain sort of pleasure in the association of
persons whom I like, but both or all such things, are entirely different from that intense,
perfectly contented and happy pleasure, or complete satisfaction it might be termed, which I
derive with, and from, you. The next thing to being with you, Little Darling, is to get a letter
from you, and to imagine whilst I am searching it, so far as I can, that you and I are sitting
together and alive, and that you are talking to me, You know that I am not in the habit of
complimenting anyone, or in any manner; You must also know that I have rarely
complimented, and never flattered you and that when I say anything of that nature to you I
am perfectly and entirely sincere, and feel very strongly what I say before saying it. You will
therefore know that I feel exactly what I say, when I assure you that your voice, when talking
to me, is the sweetest music to me in the world; and I know that you will think, knowing my
great fondness for music, that I am going very far in making the assertion. I can account for
it though very satisfactorily to myself; it is my intense, pure and undivided love for my sweet
little wife, and my knowledge of her love and affection for me. I could appreciate fully your
remark about the rainy day on which you wrote your letter, and the probability that if I were
at home I could not go up town; I feel sometime Little Darling, when absent from you, that
if I ever get back I will never leave again and I am sure that the first rainy day we have after I
get back, I will spend entirely at home with you, and you shall not have any reason to
complain of not being petted enough. We are likely to have a very long session unless the
Cholera, or something else of that kind, break us up; but I shall be at home anyhow about
the middle of October, or very shortly thereafter. It will be necessary for me to be at home
to attend the District Court, and, by urging important business, I think I can get a leave of
absence. It almost reminds me of the Army, only I live so much better; for one has to get a
leave of absence, granted by vote of the members of the Legislature, before he can leave,
otherwise he would expose himself to censure and perhaps to expulsion. Speaking of the
