"We came over at the Norman conquest," my dear, as people say trailing
their pedigree: but there was no ancestral pride about us--it was all for
the love of the thing we did it: how clear it seems now! In the hall hangs
a portrait in a big wig, but otherwise the image of my father, of a man
who flouted the authority of James II. merely because he was so like my
father in character that he could do nothing else. I shall look for you
now in the Bayeux tapestries with a prong from your helmet down the middle
of your face--of which that line on your forehead is the remainder. And
you love me! I wonder what the line has to do with that?
By such little things do great things seem to come about: not really. I
know it was not because I said just what I did say, and did what I did
yesterday, that your heart was bound to come for mine. But it was those
small things that brought you consciousness: and when we parted I knew
that I had all the world at my feet--or all heaven over my head!
Ah, at last I may let the spirit of a kiss go to you from me, and not be
ashamed or think myself forward since I have your love. All this time you
are thinking of me: a certainty lying far outside what I can see.
Beloved, if great happiness may be set to any words, it is here! If
silence goes better with it,--speak, silence, for me when I end now!
Good-night, and think greatly of me! I shall wake early.
L.
Dearest: Was my heart at all my own,--was it my own to give, till you came
and made me aware of how much it contains? Truly, dear, it contained
nothing before, since now it contains you and nothing else. So I have a
brand-new heart to give away: and you, you want it and can't see that
there it is staring you in the face like a rose with all its petals ready
to drop.
I am quite sure that if I had not met you, I could have loved nobody as I
love you. Yet it is very likely that I should have loved--sufficiently, as
the way of the world goes. It is not a romantic confession, but it is true
to life: I do so genuinely like most of my fellow-creatures, and am not
happy 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 solitude with the understanding of you which has made me wise, than
all the rest of fate or fortune could make me. Down comes autumn's sad
heart and finds me gay; and the asters, which used to chill me at their
appearing, have come out like crocuses this year because it is the
beginning of a new world.