Letter from William Hardy to Sallie Johnson; 20 May 1860

              Magnolia Cottage Raleigh Miss.
May 20th 1860

Dear Miss Sallie:
According to promise I write you tonight as I am left alone undisturbed or molested by any one whatever, to my solitary and silent meditations; and were it not for the happy privilege of writing at such times I would indeed wander off into the great sea of mental abstraction, with all the unpleasant vexations and arrogances that are concomitants of the Blues.
I must confess Miss Sallie that I have never before known what it was to bestow upon another that intense affection that in absence becomes almost unpleasant. And while thus situated you cannot imagine what an unfailing source of exquisite and refined pleasure and delight those happy gifts are, you gave me – The Ring!! It speaks volumes more eloquent and significant than the tongue or pen can give utterance to. It cheers the heart with its constant pledge of fidelity, and relieves the treacherous mind from those doubts that so often mar and disturb its equilibrium and tempt it against the rocky shoals of unfaithfulness and inconstancy.