An Englishwoman's Love-Letters

, dear, it contained nothing before, since now it contains you and nothing else. So I have a brand-new heart to give away:

ppy except where shoulders rub socially:-that is to say, have not until now been happy, except dependently on the company and smiles of others. Now, Beloved, I have none of your company, and have had but few of your smiles (I could count them all); yet I have become more happy filling up my solit

days carry round light from northwest to northeast, because so near the horizon, but out

o much through having you in my thoughts: I cannot say how it is, for I have no more knowledge of life than I had before:-yet I am wiser, I believe, knowing much more what lives at the root of things and what men have meant and f

e whole village, rather stern of speech, and no respecter of persons. Yet he made a very generous allowance for those

er lost beauty. "Balder the beautiful is dead, is dead!" it cried: and I thought of you suddenly; you, who are not Balder at all. Too many thorns have been in your life, but not the mistletoe stroke dealt by a blind god ig

not go. Beloved, I have never yet seen death: you have, I know. Do you, I wonder, remember your father better than I mine:-or your brother? Are they more living because you saw them once not living? I

u: so let good-night

bout yourself for my eyes to see: because, chiefly becaus

ving seen it I am the more free to picture it as I like: and to me it is quite full of you:-quite greedil

ife nothing at all. And yet nobody there knows so much about you as I. What you do matters so much less than wh

reams: and when I wake they are there still, and have don

changed? Without change I r

all this while? Think well of me, I beg you: I

name had become true, that from friends we were changed into lovers. It seemed the most natural thing to be, and yet was wonderful-for it was I who loved you first: a thing I could never be ashamed of

it being "in the blues"; I comfort myself with a prettier word for it. To-day, not the Blue-moon itself, but the Man of it came down and ate plum-porridg

of myself, lest I might be unworthy of your fr

g thoughts are like bats among

ly with doubtful vision, yet I have always seen you in as strong a light as my eyes could bear:-blue-moonlight. Belo

he beauty of major, not of minor poetry, though it was a minor poet who wrote it. It is

each

litter all its

soft divine ha

led clu

nly t

lf out of vapo

full of pleas

motion. Not a

arlight with h

d of all tha

d tingled out

eped it: over wh

s of illim

in h

session of its dark world, quite as fully as the brighter sunlight could do. And if I speak

tiently yours before you know it? Good things which are to be, before they happen are already tru

, Beloved,

charming which means magic and spell-binding. That you did from the beginning, dearest. But I think I held you at first in too much awe to discover charm in you: and at last knew you too much to the depths to name you by a word so

o rise, and love you a little better because you have some of that divine foolishness which strikes the very

py, it is because I am also

at must I do that I do not do, to show gladness when we meet and sorrow when we have to part? I am sure that I make no pretense or disguise, e

u do your part, you will only have to look up from your books to find m

my thoughts will surely look truthfully out of its

unreadiness to see that I am already their slave. Not a day now but I th

ite the words, till they become one and the same thing: I can no longe

ave nothing now to say! I think I could very easily die of this great happines

that I have mind enough to take in. I do not think I can love you more than I do: you are no longer my dream but my great waking thought. I am waiting for no blue-moonrise n

ich when I think of your love. Good-ni

have cried to be taken out, saying they were still too shy to be looked at.

r chatterbox, or whatever you like to call it. But "Resurrection P

ER X

erel would never marry again, so I don't ask for him: as for the rest, they are all too excellent for me. They give me the impression o

g hound" in the days of his youth-Crossjay, for i

night: but I dread lest you will find some change in me. I have kept a real white hair to show you, I drew it out of my comb the other morning: wound up into a curl it becomes quite visible, and i

forgive her when I put myself in her place! She may well feel a struggle and some resentment at having to giv

d your coming too soon? Then stay away another day-or two: every day only piles up the joy it will be to have your arms round me once more. I can keep for a lit

ld people: their love of things they are losing is so far more to be reverenced and

e each other's gray hairs in earnest: gray hairs that we shall not laugh at, as at this one I pulled. How dark your dear eyes w

lookout for you: and I shall be long-sighted every day until you come. It is only doubtful hope deferred which maketh the h

left to put it into words, or words into it. You bless my

ER X

nglish), and why in that of all things should we pretend to be rivals? For this at least seems certain to me, that, being created male and female, no two lovers since the world began ever

feet, and feel yours crowning my life,-why, so it is, you know; you cannot alter it! And if you insist that your love is at my feet, I have only to turn Irish and reply that

nd that is just the little reason why your love mounts till, as I tell you, it crowns me (head or heels): while mine, insufficient and groveling, lies at your feet, and will till they become amputated. And I can give you, but won't, sixty other reasons why

f writing to you! I can send you such any day and be as idle as I like. And you will decide about all the above exactly as you and I think best (or should it be "better" again, being only between us two?). When yo

TER

of quarreling! Well, you must prove them and come quickly that I may see this restoration of health and spi

ay things this morning: listen to

ith variant w

d with her s

life with an

y, that moth

birds to begi

dours ruddy

y was the ea

morrow I sl

urora, with

window loo

her visage p

d sang a lark

overs from

usty morrow d

o. In the four centuries since that was written we have only succeeded in worsening the meaning of certain words, as for instance "spleen," which now means irritation and vexation, but stood then for quite the opposite-what we should call, I suppose, "a full heart." It is what I am always saying-a good digestion is the root of nearly all the good living and high thinking we are capabl

the heat the whole day long. No callers; and as for me, I never call elsewhere. The gossips about here eke out a precarious

mes "from the spleen," which means I am very healthy, and, conditionally, as happy as is good for

a "little death" feeling running over my nerves. I feel the grass growing under me: the reverse of po

ER X

ill bring you this with a touch of the hat and an amused grin under it. I saw you right on the top Sallis Hill: this is to wager that my e

ER X

it will end? it all comes of my not seeing enough of you. Tim

ought it not fair to condemn him on the strength of Mrs. P--'s terrible reporting powers and h

making signals of distress in all directions, and with that and his windy flights of oratory suggests twenty minutes in a balloon-car, till he comes down to earth at the finish with the Doxology for a parachute. His shepherd's crook is one long note of interrogation, with which he tries to hook down the heavens to the understanding of his hearers, and his hearers up to

distress no one, and we all know the cause: her fingers are itching for the knitting which she mayn't do. Your Protestant ignores Lent as a Popi

end down to the town for it, so Monday is all the more welcome: but th

ing, and he seemed quite perfection, for I guessed he was bringing me the thing

got me in a corner, and wanted to unburden herself of invective against your mother, believing that I should be glad, because her coldness to me has become known! What mean things some people can thi

ER X

't say I am not wishing to go; but oh, to be a bird in two places at once! Give thi

at the frontier: and then realized that only a little way ahead lay Berne, with baths, buns, bears, breakfast, and othe

you, all clean-living and high-thinking between these Alpine royal highnesses with snow-white crowns to their heads: and no time for a word more about anything except

we meet again visibly! You will find

ER X

hat by the time she has polished off the butter she feels herself at home? My morning's work has been the buttering of the Mo

ulsion. A most unpleasant addition to sepulchral sentiment is here the fashion: photographs of the departed set into the stone. You see an elegant and genteel marble cross: there on the pedestal above the name is the photo:-a smu

face had a thwarted look. "Dead and rotten" one did not say of these in disgust and involuntarily as one did of the others. And yet I don't suppose the eye picks out the faces that kindled most kindness round them when living, or that one can see well at

I found it become infinitely more beautiful, for everything was mystified by a lovely bloomy haze, out of which the white peaks floated like dreams: and the mountains change a

tivities about halfway between hers and ours, so we make rather a fortunate quintette. The M-- trio join us the day after to-morrow, when the majority of us will head away at once to Florence. Arthur growls and threatens he means to be left behind for a week: and it suits the funny little jea

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ct me ever to spell the names of dead painters correctly: it is a politeness one owes to the living, but the famous dead are exalted by being spelt phonetically as the heart dictates, and become all the better company for that greatest of unspelled and spread-about names-Shakspere, Shakspeare, Shakespeare-his mark, not himself). Such a

p there. You sing notes up into it (or rather you don't, for that is his perquisite), and they fly circling, and flock, and become a single chord

side of the Duomo at Florence. Curiously enough, it doesn't strike me as in the least Christian, only civic and splendid, reminding me of what Ruskin says about church architecture being really a dependant on the feudal or domestic.

twenty-five-centime gratitude to the backs of departed guests. So be patient and forgiving if I seem to have written little. I found two of yours waiting for me, and cannot choose between them which I find most dear. I will say, for a fancy, the shorter, that you may ever be encouraged to write your shortest rather than none at all. One word from you gives me almost as much pleasure as twenty, for it

ER X

pman could empty me of pounds without my becoming conscious of it till I beheld vacuum. But the T--s have been wonderful car

ve to fall alive and unassisted into their hands: they have neither conscience nor gratitu

. The Perseus is so out of proportion as to be ludicrous from one point of view: but another is magnificent enough to make me forgive the scamp his autobiography from now to the day of judgment (when we s

expected: and austerity rather than rich

ebody whom I-like. A photo of him will be coming to you. Also there is a very fine Lely-Vandyck of Charles I. and Henrietta Maria, a quite moral painting, making a triumphant asse

be kissed by St. John:-a composition that takes you up in its arms and rocks you as you look at it. Andrea del Sar

ed that there were no mosquitoes to be had, I have been sadly ravaged. The creatures pick out all foreigners, I think, and only when they have exhausted the sup

table d'h?te at Lucerne, where I talked gladly to polish myself up, have given my tongue a hybrid way of talking without thinking: and I say "ja, ja," and "nein," and "d

f its being really strong yet; and its willing spirits will overcome it som

tle lonely: and yet my thoughts are constantly away with you, wishing, wishing,-what

ER X

you there should be austerity and self-denial in the matter of letter-writi

nd wishes he could show them his boating arms, brown up to the shoulder, as well. Have you noticed that combination in some of the dear

for my taste), so that the gloom is welcome and charming, making even "Gobelins" quite bearable. I find quite a new man here to admire-Pollaiolo, both painter and sculptor, one of the school of "passionate anatomists," as I call them, about the time of Botticelli, I fancy. He

d call him plucky for doing even that much. So he does it, brings down his big game by good luck, and stands posing with a sort of irresistible stateliness to suit the result. He has a laugh something like "little Dick's," only more full of bubbles, and is saying

e spreading long fingers all over his head and face. My notion of it is that it is the Godhead taking his first look at life from the human point of view; and he realizes himself "caught in his own tra

atello and others just turned to and did what they liked most in the way of budding yout

f tiring activity. So we go to the D--s' villa, which they offered us in their absence; it lies about four mi

ound in this one, I think Heaven meant me to be "truly rural"; which all falls in, dearest, with what I mean to be! Beloved, how little I somet

ER X

rs. I have lost count of mine; but I think seven and two postcards is the total, which is

ssion of early Florentine youths, turning into angels when they get to the bay of the window where the altar once stood. The more I see of them, the greater these early men seem to me: I shall be afraid to go to Venice soon; Titian will only half satisfy me, and Tintoretto, I know, will be actively annoying: I shall stay in my go

er's Mona Lisa, draws Christianity and Paganism into one: at least, wherever it reaches perfect expression it has done so. Some of the distinctly primitives are different; their works inclose a charm which is not artistic. Fra Angelico, after being a great disappointment to me in some of his large set pictures in the Academia and elsewhere, shows himself lovely in fresco (though I think the "crumb" element he

lse's. Michel Angelo I feel most when he has left a thing unfinished; then one can put one's finger into the print of the chisel, and bel

e like twelve coming back, all because of Arthur's absurd cross-country instinct, which, after hours of river-bends,

so went to look at the Roman baths and theater: the theater is charming enough, because it is still there: but for the baths-oblongs of stone don't interest me just because they are o

ER X

said "Prato," and he ran up to the fattore's and secured a wondrous shandry-dan with just space enough between its horns to toss the two of us in the direction where we would go. Its gaunt framework was pa

hut in by formidably high walls-always, a charm: a garden should always have something of the jeal

he streets were a seething caldron of cattle-market when we entered, which made us feel like a tea-cup in

t on with a mushroom hood over its head. The main lines of the interior are finely severe, either quite round or quite flat, and proportions good always. An upholstered priest com

quest granted at one of the side-altars (some strictly local Madonna, I imagine), and his gratitude as he departed was q

nd very narrow highroads. But A. has to do the collision-shouting a

our necks over precipices and our hearts down cul-de-sacs that led nowhere, and losing all the ways that were pointed out to us, for lack of a knowledge of the language, we came out again into view of Florence about half a mile nearer than when we started and proportionately far away from home. Whe

t lost a

ER X

with a voice a mile long and is become quite unfordable. The little mill-stream just below has broken its banks and poured itself away over the lower vineyards into the river; a lot of the vi

hael lady is quite wonderful; I think she was in love with him, and her soul went into the painting though he himself did not care for her; and she looks at you and says, "See a miracle: he was able to paint this, and never knew that I loved him!" It is wonderful that; but I suppose it can be done,-a soul pass

our way out. I am clamoring for Verona also; but that will be off our route, so Arthur and I may go there alone for a couple of gr

in his direction. He does not speak of loneliness; and with Anna and her brood next week or

e yourself to be? Dearest and best, when is your holiday to begin; and is it to be with me? Does

ER X

particular Venice I am to find out and send you. So first of all from the heart of it I send you mine: when I have kissed you I will go on. My eyes have been seeing so much that is new, I shall want a

ess opens and shuts its eyes: for truly Venice is a sleepy pla

mney well to the fore: but get near to her and you find her standing on turquoise, her feet set about with jaspers, an

she teaches. The architecture is the song of the lotos-eater built into stone-were I in a more florid mood I would have said "swan-song," for the whole stands f

n which you are not a professor. So you will write and agree that I am to have the pleasure of this return to look forward to? If I know that, I shall be so much m

though all that I send is good for you! No letter from you since Flo

ER X

of protests, and had to go alone-not Arthur even being in the mood just then for a patriotic quest of the uncomfortable. I had myself oared into the lagoons across a racing

h is on the borders of a land called "the Garden of Eden" (being named so after its owners). He-"Charon," I call him-is large and of ruddy countenance, and talks English in blinkers-that is to say, gondola English-out of which he could not find words to summon me a cab even if it were not oppo

he Madonna, ten heads high and ten centuries old, which almost made me become a Mariolatrist on the spot. She stands leaning up the bend with two pale hands lifted in ghostly blessing. Underfoot the floor is all mo

gure always strikes one as enthroned, and not merely riding; if I can't get that, I consider a centaur the nobler creature with its human b

ady I raved over in Florence is no Raphael at all,-which accounts for it being so beautiful and interesting-to me, I hasten to add.

pt that I am as happy as a cut-in-half thing can be. Is it any use sending kind messag

R XXX

e marble overlay I had not understood at all till I saw it. My admiration mounts every time I enter: it has a different gloom from any I have ever been in, more joy

s, or stood on the brink and looked miserable. The effect of rain-pool reflections on the inside of St. Mark's is noticeable, causing it to bloom unexpectedly into fresh subtl

ucal Palace, of which you gave me the engraving. His "Marriage of St. Catherine," which is there also, has all Veronese's charm of col

unset. Venice again looked like a beautified factory town, blue and blue with smoke and evening mists. Down below in the church I met a delightful Capuchin priest w

h with sight-seeing. I can't stop her; while she is on her legs it is her duty, and she will. The consequence is I get rushed through things I want to let soak

gondola and pair has quite a different motion from a one-oared gondola; it is like ridin

any waters walloping under the bellies of the gondolas, and the blows of fighting oars-regular underwater wrestling matches-made it as vivid and amusing as a prolonged Oxford and Cambridge boat-race in fancy costume. Our gondoliers streamed with the exertion, and looked like men fighting a real battle, and yet enjoyed it thoroughly. Violent altercations with police-boats don't ruffle them at all; at one moment it looks daggers drawn; at the next it is shrugs and smiles. Often, from

There seems little chance now of my getting you in Venice;

and mos

ER X

y writing to you of all I do helps to keep me in good conscience. Not the other foot gone to the mender's, I hope, with the same obstructive accompaniments

o the wilderness, a lion takes to him, and accompanies him when he pays a call on the monks in a neighboring monastery. Thereupon, holy men of little faith, the entire fraternity take to their heels and rush upstairs, the hindermost clinging to the skirts of the formermost to be hauled the quicker out of harm's way. And all the while the lion stands incorrectly offering the left paw, and Jerome with shrugs tries to explain that even the best butter wouldn't melt in his dear lion's mouth. After that comes the tragedy. St. Jerome lies dying in excessive odor of sanctity, and all the monks crowd round him with prayers and viaticums, and the ordinary stuffy pieties of a "hap

olor and design, but they help me to love Carpaccio to distraction; and when the

nd what I think go so much together now, that you will take what I write as the m

our face! Here, dearest, among these palaces you would be in

d I swore by the nine gods of my ancestry that I was nothing else. But the look is in us: my father had a fo

again. Since I have been in Italy I had not seen one until the other day from the

m was to fall in love with you, and there I stopped for good and all. There I am still, everything included: what do you

TER

hings get so crowded in such a short space of time. Where I left off I know n

e end, as we know,-do not vex her now by any overt signs of preparation as if you assumed already that her final arguments were to be

n longer, and it would be no fairness to hurry them beyond a certain degree of reasonableness with my particular reason for impatience, seeing, moreover, that in your love I have every help for remaining patient. It is too mu

while we came on to Florence. She talked vaguely of being in Venice some time this autumn; and the vagueness continues. Arthur, in consequence, roams round disconsolately with no interest but in hotel books. And for fear lest we should gird up his loins and drag him away with us out of Paradisal possibilities, he is forever praising Venice as a resting-place,

y thumb and the sign of the cross. I hope it will do you good. Also, I have been up among the galleries of St. M

, for I had three pecking food out of my mouth to-day and refusing to take it in any other fashion, and they coo and say thank

s twenty-five feet across, with a flat-beamed roof, windows at each end, and portières along the walls of old blue Venetian linen: a place in which it seems one could only live and think nobly. His face seems to respond to its teachings. What more might not an environment like that brin

TER

to be too restless and uncomfortable for the next few days for me to have a c

that if it passed in time there should be a splendid sunset of smolder and

slow in coming: it lay over the mainland and came creeping along the railway track. Then came the glitter and the sun, and I turned round and found my rainbow. But it wasn't a bow, it was a circle: the Campanile stood up as it were a spoke in the middle,-the

re what chiefly delight me. I had some quiet hours in the Museo, where I fell in love with a little picture by an unknown painter, of Orpheus charming the beasts in a wandering green landscape, with a dance of fauns

saw a man yesterday carrying fishes in the market, each strung through the gills on a twig of myrtle: that

i

hich peep stacks of roses, going off a little from their glory now, and right away stretches an alley of green, that shows at the end, a furlong off, the blue glitter of water. It is a beautifully wild garden: grass and vegetables and trees and roses all grow in a jungle together. There are little groves of bamboo an

iting for you will be perfect happiness now; and your coming seems to color all that is behind as well. I have had a good time indeed, and was only wearying with the plethora of

mpty just one week because of it. I still hope it will come; but what matter?

ER X

f riding, and that the sidesaddle was a foolish and affected invention. The horse was fine, and so was the young ma

up to 9.30 P.M. without wraps, and on our heads only our "widows' caps." (The M.-A. persists in a style which suggests that Uncle N. has gone to a better world.) Mine was too flimsy a work of fiction, and a day before I had been for a climb and got wet through, so a ch

-tops, so close and near, lies a quarter circle of white crests. You are told that in winter creatures come dow

"I think the Tyrolese are a good people: they are not given over to Mariolatry like those poor priest-ridden Italians." I think, however, that they merely have that fundamental grace, religious simplicity, worshiping-just what the

ck hats with long streamers behind and a gold tassel, and the spacious apron. Blue satin i

the filterings: and morning along the Brenner Pass was perfect. I think the mountains

e and resting nowhere because of my impatience to have you. The Mother-Aunt concedes a whole month, but Arthur will have to leave earlier for the beginning of term.

ER X

hat touches me as so strangely complete about it is that you should have got that impression and momentary romantic delusion as a child, and now hear, years after, of his disappearing out of life thus fittingly and mysteriously, so that his name wil

angely, this Johnnie Kigarrow will seem more to me than him; touching a more heroic strain

h all about yourself. Yet for that very reason think how much I loved doing it! I am jealous of those days before I knew you, and want to have all their wild-honey flavor for myself. Do remember more, and tell

losu

nd I were do

night to the W

even and

knees of the

ole day's wo

ends with the

rough as his ar

s merry and

hen set by t

erriest man

ch at his b

gs I had don

wlders ove

river and fi

de of the hi

he, "and did

e, "but the sq

et with Johnn

I, "and who

be Johnnie K

son said unde

garrow may

ere, and kee

rrow bides u

ow stands o

the river to

ll when he

on the hills b

e one fires

bed, and he mo

with the firs

y over the m

stride he has cr

fast, has Joh

hed and hal

ugged at the str

s brave as a

see, he didn

old of me: wh

oof rose the

t of him fro

d, "am Johnn

onder, what

-he had calle

mb, and hard

laughed and

e, "but the sq

ught by John

, after yea

ws how he

ut one nigh

bed, and kee

darkness

where his b

k-if his to

nce,-how per

er, and Tw

r my Johnni

ER X

ally wise, I mean, and physically foolish. Do you guess?-Disob

elief is that, waking, you hold me subjugated: but, once your godhead has put on its spiritual nightcap, and begun nodding, your mesmer

night, trying to see you out of it. And oh, how close it kept bringing me! I almost heard you breathe, and was forever wondering-Can we ever be nearer, or love each other more than we do? For that we should each want a sixth sense, an

feel I am sending you a dull letter,

window, throned in a big arm-chair with many pillows, a spirit-lamp, cocoa, bread and butter, and buns; so I fared well. Just after the pheasants and the first querulous fidgetings of hungry blackbirds comes a soft pattering along the path below: and Benjy, secretive and important, is fussing his way to the shrubbery, when instinct or real sentiment prompts him to look up at my window; he gives a whim

cy, disputing over a question of boundaries. And he comes in for breakfast, t

he other morning I was-well, Benjy hears splashing: and tires of waiting-or his mouth waters. An extra can of hot water happens to stand at the door; and therein he deposits his treasure (mine, I mean), and retires saying nothing. The consequen

n the up-above order of things, which I never took in when I was merely young and frivolous. One mu

cause I wrote "grave side." It shouldn't, but loving has made me superstitious: the happiness seems

n't, what shall I believe? That Love cannot outdo space: that when you are away I cannot reach you by willing. But I can: come to

against the treason. With us it is not "till death us do par

heart: I love you! I post this to show how ce

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language in order to tell you, in all sorts of roundabout ways, what you know already as well as I do. And yet, though that is all it can do, you complain of not having had

I couldn't give any answer to, and I hoped you would come yourself before I need. Then I hoped s

you never flourish your words about as I do: so, believing that, I would like to write again differently; only it is truer to let what I have written stand, and

ith fierce, unexplained opposition. Dearest, if it would give you happiness, I would say, make five, ten, twenty years' "concession," as you call it. But the only time you ever spoke to me clearly about your mother's mind toward me, you said she wanted an absolute surrender from y

ink more calm will follow than you expect. You, dearest, I do understand: and the instinct of tenderness you have toward a claim which yet fills you with the sense of its injustice. I

ER X

ers since the word first went out; for her love asserts that I am to go all home-made from my old home to my new one-wherever that may be!). And she was weeping because, as I slowly got to understand, fro

unity to scold me over quite slight things:-and there I am, meeker under her than I would be to any relative. So to-day I had to bear a statement of your mother's infirmities rigorously outlined in a way I could only pretend to be deaf to until she had d

grievous old dear will be carrying a sore heart that I cannot comfort by any words. I ca

t, I could give it even less thought than I do. Are you keeping the truce in spirit when you disturb yourself like this? Trust me, Beloved, always to be candid: I will complain to you when I feel in need of comfort. Be comforted your

ER X

line of quotation, and cann

e year in ro

ously, as if angry at having to go. Dear golden year! I am sorry to see its face so changed and withering: it has held so much for us both. Yet I am feeling vigorous and quite like spring. All the seasons have their mar

ent over to Swainston, on a day such as this when rooks and leaves alike hung helpless in the wind; and heard there the story of how Tennyson, coming over for his friend'

les warble

s weeping

ve is the most accepted symbol of faithful absence: and why shoul

put a lump in my throat as a child was of an old backwoodsman who by that means found out that his dog stole hams from the storeroom. The dog was given away in disgrace, and came to England to die of a broken heart

tory for the pleasure of making myself cry! When one begins to avoid t

f the best year I have ever lived through, a

ER X

xpecting the answer to be a snap of the fingers. I answer with a snap of temper that the blood, boots, and bones of my ancestors are in mine! Do you suppose I could have been the same woman had such names as Amelia or Bella o

in her constitution which orders her to a lonely life lest worse might follow. And apply the consideration more publicly: do you imagine the Prince of Wales will be the same sort of king if, when he comes to the throne, he calls himself King Albert Edward in florid Continental fashion, instead of "Edward the

d down another; and then up, up, up, over the range of both. Then he flung back his shaggy head and laughed. "In all my father's realm there are no such bells as these!" It was the laughing jackass. "Who gave you your name?" "My godfathers and my godm

ile ago and touched on the same unkindness: only here the flower is conscio

e I done?

ing that stic

me with ey

me 'Squin

e I done

t say th

py lands o

point with

e light o

. Oh, what

and hide my sha

have

is hope. I

ges since

oted beast

gone, being part

inite mercy God wi

, I missed him whom I used to nickname "Manger," because his dog-jaws always refused to smile on me. His old mistress gave me a pathetic account of his last days. It was the muzzling order that broke his poor old heart. He took it as an accus

ou like; and I will go to Jemima, Keziah, and Kerenhappuch for the patience in which th

t has been on me to-day, I don't know why; and I have not w

ER X

val, and tells us what to expect of February. It is not a cordial form of "truce": but since it lets me see just twice as much of yo

nd that you are to be with us for Christmas:-read into that the warmest corners of a he

with them of leaving out things of outside importance. I shall hear from the rattle of returning fire-engines s

derness for you and her pride and stern love of power. To realize suddenly that Hatterling does not mean to you so much as the power to be your own maste

brought things any nearer settlement, and are not coming so soon as to-morrow, let me know: for some things of "outside importance" do affect

that you have had a business letter from me, or as near to one as I can go:-chiefly for that it requires an answer on this matter of "outside importance,"

TER

f shy, as I have been for a long time wishing to say things I could not. What has never entered your h

y 'erse's legs, as

proputty-that's wh

ile we galloped: this and Pembury, a name

eedom has made its nest under my uncle's roof: but I am a

own little word to add, merely a tail that wags and makes merry over a thing decided and done. D

and dangerous, respect my superstitions and don't shoot any larks this winter. In the spring I would like to think that here or there an extra lark bubbles over becaus

d you noticed it. If I find anything left out I start another letter: this is that other let

TER

lly in the style which I never get from you. Don't, because I admire you in your more formal form, alter in your style to me. I prefer you much, for my own part, formless: and feel nearer to your heart in an unfinished sentence than in one that is perfectly balanced. Still I want you to know that your cordial warmed h

g with all my unpenned rabble about me. Only you do know so very well that I love you better than I can ever write. This is my first lette

dearest, your mos

TER

or me to have leisure to find him out human. Here is the whole story: he came and unbosomed to me three days ago: and he sai

riend, "can I sit down?" However, he came; and was appalled to find that a man unpacked his trunk, and would in all probability be carrying away his clothes each night to brush them. He, conscious of interiors, a lining hanging in rags, and even a patching so

on duty probing hither and thither in search after the missing coat; and each night the search becoming' more strenuous and the mystery more baf

nd adventure: and had the satisfaction of mending it, he sitting by in his s

high-sniffing servant-class who have no understanding for honorable pov

then three once worn. After that, on the seventh day, Graves resigned all further responsibility, and laid out all three of them for him to choose from. On the last three days of his stay he did me the honor

be-I cannot say more welcome: but there will b

both. Faithfully

ER L

ere: it becomes a garden of entombments. Now and then some heap would shuffle feebly under its shroud, but resurrection was not to be: the Lawson cypress held out great boxing-glove hands for me to shake and set free; and the silence was wonderful. I padded about till I froze: this morning I can see my big hoof-marks all over the place, and Benjy has been scampering about in them as if he found some flavor of me there. The trees are already beginning to shake themselves loose, and the spell is over: but it had a wonderful hold while it lasted. I take a breath bac

o believed I was his only possible future happiness, is now quite happy with a totally different sort of person. I had a little letter from him, shy and stately, an

e in signals, or a flying in the face of them, where I have had any responsibility. As for you, and as you know well by now,

you will find this letter on the hall table, and me you will probab

TER

w away. My soul has been getting such dusty answers to all sorts of doubtful inquiries as to where on earth this, that, and the other lay hidden. And there were oth

ret on certain outcasts of society whom others despised or had forgotten. They, on their limp and dissolute bodies, wore all the finery I could find to pile on them: and one shady transaction done on their behalf I remember now without pangs. There was one creature of state whom an inconsiderate relative had presented to Anna and myself in equal shares. Of course Anna's became more and more lionlike. I had very little love for the bone of contention myself, but the sense of injustice rankled in me. So one day, at an unclothing, Anna discovered that certain undergarments were gone altogether away. She sat aghast, questioned me, and, when I refused to disgorge, screamed

r to both of us. Why I value it is that the name and date on the envelope inclosing it are in my mother's handwriting: and I suppose she loved very much the curly treasure she then put away. Some of the other things, quite fun

TER

ur doing, not mine. No sooner do I get a line from you than you

he bud by your arrivals. My pen turns up a cross nose whenever it hears you coming now, and declares life so dull as no

e work to do, and never complains of overhours. It is a sentimental fact that I keep all its used-up brethren in an inclosure together, and throw none of them

of both of us. Be empty-headed for once when you write next: whether you write little or much, I am sure always of your full heart: but I cannot trust your brain to the same pr

the move comes from her, that we have not to wait now till February. You will feel

mean it:-worth conquering as all good things are. I would not wish great fortune to come by too primrosy a way. "Canst thou draw out Leviathan with a hook?"

TER

ere in the world (though where in the world have you been?). Spring seemed such a long way off over the bend of it, with you unable to come; and it seems now another letter of yours has got lost. (Write it again, d

: and I would rather have it there than here if it refuses to be in two places at once. Also my letters have pleased you. When they do, I feel such a pro

kisses tell us quite well all that we wish to know of each other?-me that you were true and brave and so beautiful that a woman must be afraid looking at you:-and you that I was just my very self,-loving and-no! just loving: I have no

ling me how long ago, in her own dull Protestant household, she heard a riddle propounded by some indiscreet soul who did not understand the prudish piety which reigned there: and saw such shocked eyes opening all round on the sound of it. "What is it," was asked, "that a common man can see every day but that God never sees?" "His equal" is the correct answer: but even so d

eems to have given itself a day off, or crumbled to dissolution. And you are yourself again, as you have not been for many a

at all at all. Oh, why will she not love me? I know I am lovable except to a very hard heart, and hers is not: it is only like yours, reserved in

you what I feel. My tears have wings in them: first semi-detached, then detache

asily to express where laughter leaves off and a something better begins. Which is a

" will not look back at us less beautifully because in just one spot it was inscribed with woe. And if we

r all time, Beloved! every time I see you or think of you sums up my wor

ER L

sten to you, or hard to convince? Dearest, dearest!-take what I mean: I cannot write over this gulf. Come to me,-I will believe anything you can say, but I can believe nothing of this written. I must see you and hear what it is you mean. Dear heart, I am blin

so? Come and put an end to a thing which means nothing

t you-do not know what love is without you! How ca

in of having to write, of not having your arms round me in my misery! I ki

ER L

my mind-except that I love you. I know nothing except that. Beloved, only on my lips will I take my dismissal from yours: not God himself can claim you from

you do love,-you do. Between all this denial of me, and all this silence of words that you have put your name to, I see clearly that you are still my lover.-Your writing breaks with trying not to say it: you say again and again that there is no fault in me. I swear to you, dearest, there is none, unless it be loving you: and how can you mean that? For what are you and I made for unless for each other? With

ou? Go away from me, and He is gone also. Ah, sweetheart, let me see you before all my world turns into a wilderness! L

isten to mine! Oh, dearest heart that ever beat, mine beats so

ou, do not think that now. For you are to give me a greater joy than I ever had before when you take me in your arms again after a week

ired to-night. Call under my window, make me hear in my sleep. I will wake up to you, and it shall be all over before the rest of the world wakes. There is no dream so deep that I shall not hear you out of the midst of it. Come and be my morning-glory to-morrow without fail. I will rewrite nothing t

less you!-and me also; it is all one and the same

TER

have a strong power in you to have done that! You have told me the word I am to say to yo

ue: which has made it possible for me to believe, without hearing you speak it, that I am to

n my part to bring you more certainly than any more words could do. And at last either you came to me, or I came to you: a bitter last meeting. Perhaps your mind too holds what happened, if so I have got truly a

But when I touched you and would have kissed you, you shuddered at me and drew back your head. I tell you this as I

ld you ever return to the same mind, I should be yours once more as I still am; never ceasing o

e with you. I mean it; but He seems to have ceased to be with me altogether. Good-by, dearest. I kiss your

nd lying loosely together. They only went t

TER

half a dozen postmarks, and signs of long waiting in one place. In it you say, "We have been engaged now for two whole months; I never dreamed that two moons could contain so much happiness." Nor I,

ou as you seemed to me then. Oh, I am sick to touch your hands: all my though

think you would open the

ay to you? Nothing-only "Speak, speak!" I would have you fill my heart with your voice the whole time: five minutes more of

know!-why am I unworthy of you? If I cannot be your wife, why ca

realize now that you would not have said that to the woman you still loved. And now I am never to k

nt from the thing I wish to be-

If I love you so much, I must be moving toward what you would have me be. In o

tenderest may be hard without knowing: I do n

l strength left, and try to be cheerful. Nobody knows, I think nobody knows. No one in the house is made downcast beca

uch, too much: I

TER

rible as the foreboding doubt of it. Not because you are ill, but because I know something definitely about you, I am happier to-day: a little nearer to a semblance of service to you in my helplessness. How much I wish you well, even though that might a

gination as never since the day we parted. And the thought comes to the rescue of my helpless longing-that it is as little children that men get brought into the kingdom of Heaven. Let that be the medicine and outcome of your sickness, my own Beloved! I hold my breath with hope that I shall have word of you when your hand has strength again to write. For I know that in slee

much of my love that you had tired of me because I had made no favor of it but had let you see that I was your faithful subject and servant till death

me now that I see you no more. I have no wish that it should. In all ways possible I wou

ER L

earing that I never should. A day's absence

would have hurt me too much: I must have cried out against such a judgment. But you passed by the window without knowing, your face n

worst of their sorrow goes with the health that breaks down under it; and they

e kindest I have ever seen: even your silence, while I looked at you, seemed a grace instead of a cruelty. What kind

ing you fixed, that you severed us so completely, not even allowing us to meet, and giving me no way to come back to you though I might come to be all that you wished? Ah, dear

e you in my arms. And I dream, I dream always, the shadows of former kindness that

ER L

ou another birthday present of your own choosing, and I promised? And it was that

let you have your way, which was to see me be myse

et; and you would not have liked that. Even now that you love me no more, you would not like me to do such a thing. A woman can never do as she likes w

ith new eyes? Ah no, you dare not look at them: they tell too much truth! How can love-letters ever cease to be the winged

happiness would be too strong for you. And so you lay them in a cruel grave of

you, I have written too

myself more miserable:

s too much effort of invention and will: and I have only will for one thing in life-to get through it: and no invention to the purpose. Oh, Beloved, in the grave I shall lie forever with a

ER L

undo that act now; but this has fixed it forever. With it were a few kind words. I could not bear to accept praise from her: all went back to her! Oh, poor thing, poor thing! if I ever had an enemy I thought it was she! I do not think so now. Those who seem cold seldom are. I hop

TER

d you are always kind, always just as I kne

of the silence you have made. My heart seems to have stop

ve it if I said it. Two women have inhabited me, and the one here now is not the one you knew and loved: their one likeness is that they both

s shows it me. Thus we are all built up: bones are at the foundations of our happiness,

st possible failure in life,-a woman who has lost h

it.-You gone, I lean against a shadow, and feel myself forever falling, drifting to no end, a Francesca without a Paolo. Well, it must be some comfort that I do not drag you wi

ently! That is a mere condition of light: join them in darkness, where the light cannot strike, and they are the same-two faces of a single form. So you and I, dear, when we are dead, shall come together again, I trust. Or are we to come back

If the root of this separation was in you, if in God's will it was ordered that we were to love, and, without loving less, afterwards be parted, I could acquiesce so willingly. But it is this knowing nothing that overwhelms me:-I strain my eyes for sight and can't see; I reach out my hands for the sunlight an

of the world run together to the lips then, and all its fruits strike suddenly to the taste when the lo

y strange if at the last

ER L

a day, so that I have still something left to look forward to to-morrow: and oh, dearest, what unanswerable things they have now become, those letters which I used to answer

not so. I know it is not so: I, who know nothing else, know that! So I look every day at one of these mons

then have a strange force now that I look back at them. You did love: and

y right thing is to say good-by without meeting. I know you will not forget me, but you will forgive me, even because of the great pain I cause you. You are the most generous woman I have known. If it would comfort you to blame me for this I would beg you to do it: but I know you bet

have, goes with me to my grave. How superstitious we are of our own bodies after death!-I, as if I believed that I should ever ris

t to exist. I have no belief in future existence; yet I wish it so much-to exist again out

iciently at the last to say-Send him these, it will be almost like living again: for surely you will lov

this that there is bright sunlight

ER L

given and received? Dearest, I trust those I send reach you: I send them, wishing till I grow weak. My arms strain and become tired trying to be wings to carry them to you: and I am glad of that

mes from a graveyard full of "little deaths." I remember once sending you a flower from the same

ome to be thought again over and over, and more and fresh come in their train: children and grandchildren, generations of them, sprung from the old stock. I have many thoughts now, b

letters that I keep into your hands and trust them to say for me that no day have I been truly, that is to say willingly, out of your heart. When Richard Feverel comes back to his wife, do you r

of what you would wish, I will leave word that these shall be sent to you. If

ghost, it will take your shape, not mine, dearest: for it will be "as trees walking" that the "lovers of trees" will come back to earth. Browning did not know that. Someone else, not Browning, has worded it for us: a lover of trees far away sends his soul back to the country that has lost him, and there "the traveler, marveling why, halts on the br

he thing I feel least like. If ever a heart once woke up to find itself full of tune, it was mine; now you have drawn all the song out of it,

and away, telling me the whereabouts of life like points on a map made for the ear. You, too, are somewhere outside, making no sound: and listening for you I heard these. It seemed as if my

t your feet, is there any r

ER L

if you should ever come back for me when I am no longer here. These poor

and it is there already! My heart, dearest,

take: and though I write myself down each day your willing slave

ry year of my life blessed by your consciousness of it. Barely a year of me is all that you have,

remember I would like to tell now: so that some day, perhaps, perhaps, my childhood may here and there be

of my love will remain fresh in it:-I kiss you on the lips with every word. The thought of "good-by" is never to enter here: it is A reviderci for ev

tleness will make them doubly welcome:-just as to know that you were once called a "gallous young hound" by people whom you plagued when a boy,

ind you some earliest memory: the dew of H

or I into yours, time would grow to nothing

houghts of you for the kiss I c

ER L

ly well.-Then I was taken in to see Arthur lying in baby bridal array of lace fringes and gauze, and r

roses; and they told me if I would go across to a clipboard and pull it open there would be something there waiting for me. And it was on all-fours that I went all eagerness acros

e of them, for I am sure I neither broke nor lost them,-perhaps it was done for me: Arthur came afterward, the tomb of many of my early joys, and the maker of so many new ones. He, dearest, is the one, the only one, who

TER

arly days far more than the faces themselves: and it is quite a distinct and later memory that I have of standing within a doorway and watching my mother pass downstairs unconscious of my being there,-and then, for th

ay-haired people alike, and find a difficulty in recognizing those who called, exc

bounded into the room where she was sitting, with a cry of rapture. And it was my earliest conscious test of politene

f memory; and that what our early years leave for us in the mind's lavender are just the tit

rly handled by a rough working-man so clothed, whom I regarded for a long time afterward as an adorable object. He and I lived to my recognition of him as a wize

ather once in full uniform appeared to me as a giant, so that I screamed

ruck me in the same way, and seemed in his red tunic

r till I was four or five; but crocus and snowdrop seem to have been in my blood from the very beginning of things; and I remember likening the

st need food of some sort. When I became more thoughtful I ceased to make cannibals of them: but I think I was less convinced then of the digestive process

though once, in my innocence, I hid under the table during the elders' late dinner, and came out at dessert, to which we were always allowed to come down, hoping to be an amusing surprise to them. And I could

remember again, to lay them up for you: all the child-parentage o

y of you, as I know of myself now! And yet I have known y

ER L

And a fearful feeling used to accompany me that I was going to meet the "evil chance" when I got to the corner. Sometimes when I felt it was there very b

t against the dark was the only way I had of meeting the solitude of the f

time, I suppose, in the human herd the damaged were quickly put out of existence; and it was the self-preservation instinct which gave me so keen a wish to get into hiding when one day I cut my finger badly-something more than a mere scratch, which I would have cried over and had bandaged quite in the correct way. I remember I sat in a corner and pretended to be nu

first time I had felt such a thing. And another day I remember, after contemplating the head of Judas in a pictorial puzzle for a long time, that I seized a brick and pounded him with it beyond recognition:-these were the first vengeful beginnings of Christianity in me. All my h

t can a single thing we do be called trivial, since out of it we grow up minut

hings. How I suffer, how I suffer! If you could have dreamed that a human body could contain so much suffering, I think y

f you. If you would come back to me you could shape me into whate

ER L

g up on Nan-nan's knee being got into his bed clothes; when spying me with my cake he piped to have a share of it. I dare say it would not have been good for him, but of that I thought nothing at all: the cruel impulse took me to make one mouthful of all that was left. He watched it go without crying; but his eyes opened at me in a strange way, wondering at this sudden lesson of the hardness of a human heart. "All gone!" was what he said, turning his head from me up to Nan-nan, to s

st. Then with a sudden stir of horror I saw soft things falling along with the clay, tiny and feathery. Two were killed by the breakage that fell with them, but one was quite alive and unhurt. I gathered up the remnants of the nest and set it with the young one in it by the loft window where the parent-birds might see, making clumsy strivings of pity to quiet my conscience. The parent-birds did see,

e and love of make-believe till then had not raised in me, "Am I a god to kill and to make alive?" was answered all at once by an emphatic "No," which I never afterward forgot. But the grief remained all the same, that life, to teach me that blunt truth, should have had to make sacrifice in the mote-hung loft of three frail lives o

sad way. For it is no use, no use: I have not to-day a glimmer of hope left t

is for loving you I am being punished: and not God himself shall make me let you go! Beloved, Beloved, all my

ER L

and had you but really and deeply confided in me, I believe I could have submitted almost with a light heart to what you thought best:-though in no way and by

ords, because you wrote them; not believing them. It is a suspense of unbelief that you have left me in, oh, still deare

never once bitter. For even when I think, and convince myself that you have wronged yourself-and so, me also,-even then: oh, then most of all, my heart seems to break with tenderness, and my spirit grow more famished than ever for the want of you! For if you

ER L

left in me: but I love you not less, only more, if that be possible: or is it the same love with just a weaker body to contain it all? I find that to have definitely laid off all hope gives

. If love would teach me the meaning of this silence, I would accept all the rest, and not ask for any joy in life besides. For if I had th

it would be enough if I had your hand:-the mea

ER L

n what I leave here. And I would have nothing so dark as to make it seem that I were better dead than to have come to such a pass through loving you. If I felt that, dearest, I s

to keep what I have, rather than have it taken away from me. I cannot forget that for a few months I was the happiest woman I ever knew: and that happiness is perhaps only by present conditions remo

to know, you know: it should be a burden on your conscience, surely, not to have shared it with me. Maybe there is

ength to take over the new world which is waiting beyond them. Well, I would rather, Beloved, suffer through loving too much, than

ER L

that I feel a longing to fly out of reach of the dear household voices which say shy things to keep me chee

the poor five senses part of us that spells absence. Some day, some day you will answer this letter which has to stay locked in my desk. S

, come what may. No length of silence can make a truth once sounded ever cease to be: borne away out of our hearing it makes its way to the stars: dispersed or removed it cannot be lost. I too, for truth's sake, may have to be dispersed out of my present self which shuts me from you: but I shall find you some day

to tell me that each shoot of pain has a point at which it assuages itself and becomes healing: that pain is not endurance wasted; but that I and

nd having worn myself out with it and ended, I k

clear to me,-all but one thing: why we have become as we are now, one whole, parted and sent different ways. And

leep well! Night and morn

ER L

the knowledge will come to me. Wish big things of me, or little things: wish me to sleep, and I will sleep better because of it. Wish anything of me: only not that I should love you better. I can't, dearest, I can't. Any more of that, and love would go out of my body and leave it clay. If you would even wish that, I would be happy at finding a way to do your will below gr

R LXX

arms! I ache and ache, not to belong to you. I do: I must. It is only our senses that divide us; and mine are all famished servants

omewhere for me to be delivered of them only with so much suffering. Oh, how this should make me hate yo

hat the poets have written. They go through me like ghosts: I am haunted by them: but they are bloodless things. It seems when I listen

e poured out until I feel in myself only the dregs l

t. Give me time, dearest, to get you to heart again! I cannot le

in yourself quietly: but never once angry or impatient at any of the small follies of men. Come, then, and look at me patiently now! I am your blind girl: I must cry out because I cannot see you. Only make me believe that you yet think of

light. God bless you! I pray it more than eve

ER L

am better again. You seem to have been waiting for me here: al

eat one. Words are too cold and cruel to write anything for me. Picture me: I a

ere. I kiss, because of you, this paper

hese dead words my heart has been beating,

ER L

ains that gave it birth. Yes, it does pain me, frightens me even, that I must die all by myself, and feeling still so young. I thought I should look forward to it, but I do not; no, no, I would give much to put it off for a time, until I could know what it will mean for me as regards you. Oh, if you only kn

nto us and becomes part of our flesh and bone. So that I, holding up my hand to the sunshine, see sorrow red and transparent like

sfy you in this so soon! Every day I will try to make it my wish: or wish that it may be so when the event comes-not a da

r it from day to day: otherwise I would declare it not to be

t it was not the solution of the mystery. Others might have thought that it was: that because I was to die so soon, therefore I was not fit to be your wife. But I

think can account for what has been decreed. That too is a

h you ever! Its uses are wrung out and drai

soon it will ha

ER L

me forever. The peace of your love had inclosed me so tremendously that when I was fully awake I b

ope that at the lesser cost of my own death, when it comes, happiness may break in, and that whichever of us has been the most

loved, all the greetings I ever gave you gather here, and are hungry to belong to you by a b

ER L

that I have died of a broken heart should science and the doctors br

s weight. I am at the end of twenty-two years: they have been too many for me, and the last has seemed a useless waste of time. It is difficult not to believe that great ha

e. Pity me, but invent no blame to yourself. My heart has sung of you even in the darkest days; in the face of everything, the blankness of everything, I mean, it has clung to an unreasoning belief that in spit

ent you would fill up the past and the future and turn even my grief into gold! Even my senses then would forget that they had ever been starved. Dear "share of the world," you have been out of sight, but I have never l

t dream: but the longing so keeps me awake

R LXX

ng at all really: we only think we believe, and hope we know; and how thin that sort of conviction gets when in our extremity we come face to face with the one immovable fact of our own death waiting for us! That is what I have to go through. Yet even the fear is a relief: I come upon something that I can meet at last; a challenge to my courage whether it is still to be f

ER L

me that, if I wished, he would bring me word of you. He goes to-morrow.

not unblessed when I have him to speak to. Yet we can say so little together. I guess all he means. An endless w

if you see him: mine will

ER L

re is sun shining. I wonde

ould have seen you long ago. But if I were to see

me living and unseen by each other is a

e. Time has worn it off: but he is like what I was. Will you remember me well enough to recognize me in him, and to be a

ER L

e else unanswered lies your prayer for God to bless me. To answer that, dearest, is not in His hands but in yours. And the fo

and make claim for any message back from me-a profoundly grateful

are. Now I can no longer hold together: bu

riber'

anonymously, it was later rev

roughtly" was corr

"sort" was corr

lder's" was corre

forgetable" was correc