Edith Bolling Wilson to Woodrow Wilson
Title
Edith Bolling Wilson to Woodrow Wilson
Creator
Wilson, Edith Bolling Galt, 1872-1961
Identifier
WWP14888
Date
1915 August 28
Source
Edith Bolling Wilson Collection, Library of Congress, Washington, District of Columbia
Language
English
Text
Saturday,
9.30 A.M.
I have just read your message of Thursday night and early yesterday (I was awake at 6 and could not go to sleep again) and I read into it all the weariness I feared you felt from this awful crisis we are facing. Your letter is so full of everything my heart longs for, but tells me so little of yourself. I know the days are pretty much the same with you, but I long to know everything you do and if you find anyone to really interest you. It almost alarms me how you “intuit” my feelings. I am bored here, dreadfully bored, and can't find things to fill the hours of waiting between the blessed early morning hours I spend with you. The rest of the day and night is just one inevitable sequence, and necessary to make possible the next morning.What a wretch you are not to tell me by what magic you have arranged for me to come on Saturday. I have thought of everyone and can settle on nothing that seems likely. But you have promised to write me to New York, so I suppose I must wait. Send your precious letter tomorrow here, as I would get it before leaving, and the one of Monday hold until I can tell you where we will stay in New York. Mr. Rose said he would like to stay up-town as it is easier to get in and out and they will decide on the hotel today. If they do before train time, I will tell you in this, or, if not, surely you would get a letter sent after midnight to-morrow in time on Monday to send me a letter which would reach me on Tuesday.I am so glad it is cooler in Washington. We had just the same sort of gray day yesterday, but I loved the fresh coolness in the air, and Bertha, Mr. R., and I took a long walk before lunch, and after lunch Mr. R. Took us to Atlantic City in the car, and it was really cold driving.Last night we played “auction” till ten, when the Roses went to bed and Mother, Bertha, and I talked untill midnight, and I told them something of our happy days together this summer.I was so interested in the clipping you sent about the most wonderful person in the world, and think it will do good to keep before the public all you have done, though the real history of it must wait for the future. Whenever I read things like that I long to add the many things left out; but even I could never do you justice.I am almost sorry I wrote you what I did yesterday about Col. House, but I can no more keep things from you than I can stop loving you, and so you must forgive me. I know he is fine and true, but I don't think him vigorous and strong. Am I wrong? I will look for the promised big envelope that will probably not come until to-night. There is another Washington mail at 7.30 at night.I will enclose a letter I got yesterday from old Mr. Wilson. You see he is still thrilling on the same note, and I don't know how I can keep him bluffed much longer. But I don't want to tell him yet.Yes, my precious One, I do understand that we will have to stand gossip and try to be callous to it, and do not mean to make your burden heavier by useless heed to such stuff, but I thought right now, when the country thinks you are giving every thought to the complications of the Government, it might be particularly bad to have you discussed. But I know you would not suggest anything that would not be dignified, so I will live in the radiance of the thought that we will be together a week from to-day. It seems a long time, but, in comparison to these past four long weeks, it will be short.You are the tenderest person in the world. What you write about your feeling for Elizabeth makes me feel your bigness as I always do in grave matters, and her letter was as pathetic as anything I ever read. I must confess her wedding and his illness fill me with new forebodings, and I pity the child more and more. I have never heard a word in reply to the letter I wrote her from Geneva, and don't know whether she read it or not, and so I don't know whether to write to her again. What do you think? How naturally I have learned to turn to you for counsel and help, and, oh! no one could know what it means to me, and how sure I am of help and wisdom.It is impossible in this place to get away from people, and I write my letters under difficulties, so please pardon them. Mr. Rose has just come by and I asked him about the hotel in New York, and he says the “Algonquin”. I think it is 44th. Street. So it is not so high up, after all.Unless we have more tire trouble, we expect to get to New York Monday night, have Tuesday there, and leave on Wednesday, they going to Geneva and I to You, where my thoughts and heart are always. They are begging me to go all the way home with them (as you surmised), but I will not think of doing it., and would come straight home, if I could be with you and help you.My precious weary Pilot, I will come and hold those dear strong hands that steer the ship in both my own, and kiss the tired eyes that have strained so to see the right course through the blackness ahead, and try to shut out the tumult that is raging round you on every side by whispering in your listening ears these tender words: “I love you, my precious Woodrow, and I will stand by though the waters dash over the ship, and carry out your orders, knowing that, if devotion to duty, stong purpose and intelligent guidance count for anything in such a storm, the good ship will ride the waves and stand in all her white splendor fixed and calm in the still waters that follow after storms, and send her life boats to rescue and succour those vessels that have gone on the rocks around her; and all because of the strong hand that guided her wheel and the brain that directed her course.”Now I must go. I am so longing for you, and, had I found you by me yesterday when I woke nothing could have had power to hurt or distress me.I am, my Dearest, all, all your own.
Edith.
9.30 A.M.
I have just read your message of Thursday night and early yesterday (I was awake at 6 and could not go to sleep again) and I read into it all the weariness I feared you felt from this awful crisis we are facing. Your letter is so full of everything my heart longs for, but tells me so little of yourself. I know the days are pretty much the same with you, but I long to know everything you do and if you find anyone to really interest you. It almost alarms me how you “intuit” my feelings. I am bored here, dreadfully bored, and can't find things to fill the hours of waiting between the blessed early morning hours I spend with you. The rest of the day and night is just one inevitable sequence, and necessary to make possible the next morning.What a wretch you are not to tell me by what magic you have arranged for me to come on Saturday. I have thought of everyone and can settle on nothing that seems likely. But you have promised to write me to New York, so I suppose I must wait. Send your precious letter tomorrow here, as I would get it before leaving, and the one of Monday hold until I can tell you where we will stay in New York. Mr. Rose said he would like to stay up-town as it is easier to get in and out and they will decide on the hotel today. If they do before train time, I will tell you in this, or, if not, surely you would get a letter sent after midnight to-morrow in time on Monday to send me a letter which would reach me on Tuesday.I am so glad it is cooler in Washington. We had just the same sort of gray day yesterday, but I loved the fresh coolness in the air, and Bertha, Mr. R., and I took a long walk before lunch, and after lunch Mr. R. Took us to Atlantic City in the car, and it was really cold driving.Last night we played “auction” till ten, when the Roses went to bed and Mother, Bertha, and I talked untill midnight, and I told them something of our happy days together this summer.I was so interested in the clipping you sent about the most wonderful person in the world, and think it will do good to keep before the public all you have done, though the real history of it must wait for the future. Whenever I read things like that I long to add the many things left out; but even I could never do you justice.I am almost sorry I wrote you what I did yesterday about Col. House, but I can no more keep things from you than I can stop loving you, and so you must forgive me. I know he is fine and true, but I don't think him vigorous and strong. Am I wrong? I will look for the promised big envelope that will probably not come until to-night. There is another Washington mail at 7.30 at night.I will enclose a letter I got yesterday from old Mr. Wilson. You see he is still thrilling on the same note, and I don't know how I can keep him bluffed much longer. But I don't want to tell him yet.Yes, my precious One, I do understand that we will have to stand gossip and try to be callous to it, and do not mean to make your burden heavier by useless heed to such stuff, but I thought right now, when the country thinks you are giving every thought to the complications of the Government, it might be particularly bad to have you discussed. But I know you would not suggest anything that would not be dignified, so I will live in the radiance of the thought that we will be together a week from to-day. It seems a long time, but, in comparison to these past four long weeks, it will be short.You are the tenderest person in the world. What you write about your feeling for Elizabeth makes me feel your bigness as I always do in grave matters, and her letter was as pathetic as anything I ever read. I must confess her wedding and his illness fill me with new forebodings, and I pity the child more and more. I have never heard a word in reply to the letter I wrote her from Geneva, and don't know whether she read it or not, and so I don't know whether to write to her again. What do you think? How naturally I have learned to turn to you for counsel and help, and, oh! no one could know what it means to me, and how sure I am of help and wisdom.It is impossible in this place to get away from people, and I write my letters under difficulties, so please pardon them. Mr. Rose has just come by and I asked him about the hotel in New York, and he says the “Algonquin”. I think it is 44th. Street. So it is not so high up, after all.Unless we have more tire trouble, we expect to get to New York Monday night, have Tuesday there, and leave on Wednesday, they going to Geneva and I to You, where my thoughts and heart are always. They are begging me to go all the way home with them (as you surmised), but I will not think of doing it., and would come straight home, if I could be with you and help you.My precious weary Pilot, I will come and hold those dear strong hands that steer the ship in both my own, and kiss the tired eyes that have strained so to see the right course through the blackness ahead, and try to shut out the tumult that is raging round you on every side by whispering in your listening ears these tender words: “I love you, my precious Woodrow, and I will stand by though the waters dash over the ship, and carry out your orders, knowing that, if devotion to duty, stong purpose and intelligent guidance count for anything in such a storm, the good ship will ride the waves and stand in all her white splendor fixed and calm in the still waters that follow after storms, and send her life boats to rescue and succour those vessels that have gone on the rocks around her; and all because of the strong hand that guided her wheel and the brain that directed her course.”Now I must go. I am so longing for you, and, had I found you by me yesterday when I woke nothing could have had power to hurt or distress me.I am, my Dearest, all, all your own.
Edith.
Original Format
Letter
To
Wilson, Woodrow, 1856-1924
Files
Collection
Citation
Wilson, Edith Bolling Galt, 1872-1961, “Edith Bolling Wilson to Woodrow Wilson,” 1915 August 28, WWP14888, Edith Bolling Wilson Letters, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.