_Woking_, _June_ 11_th_.
MY OWN DEAREST GIRLIE,—How perfectly sweet you are! I read and re-read
your letter, and I understand more and more how infinitely your nature is
above mine. And your conception of love—how lofty and unselfish it is!
How could I lower it by thinking that any worldly thing could be weighed
for an instant against it! And yet it was just my jealous love for you,
and my keenness that you should never be the worse through me, which led
me to write in that way, so I will not blame myself too much. I am
really glad that the cloud came, for the sunshine is so much brighter
afterwards. And I seem to know you so much better, and to see so much
more deeply into your nature. I knew that my own passion for you was the
very essence of my soul—oh, how hard it is to put the extreme of emotion
into the terms of human speech!—but I did not dare to hope that your
feelings were as deep. I hardly ventured to tell even you how I really
felt. Somehow, in these days of lawn-tennis and afternoon tea, a strong
strong passion, such a passion as one reads of in books and poems, seems
out of place. I thought that it would surprise, even frighten you,
perhaps, if I were to tell you all that I felt. And now you have written
me two letters, which contain all that I should have said if I had spoken
from my heart. It is all my own inmost thought, and there is not a
feeling that I do not share. O Maude, I may write lightly and speak
lightly, perhaps, sometimes, but there never was a woman, never, never in
all the story of the world, who was loved more passionately than you are
loved by me. Come what may, while the world lasts and the breath of life
is between my lips, you are the one woman to me. If we are together, I
care nothing for what the future may bring. If we are not together, all
the world cannot fill the void.
You say that I have given an impulse to your life: that you read more,
study more, take a keener interest in everything. You could not possibly
have said a thing which could have given me more pleasure than that. It
is splendid! It justifies me in aspiring to you. It satisfies my
conscience over everything which I have done. It must be right if that
is the effect. I have felt so happy and light-hearted ever since you
said it. It is rather absurd to think that _I_ should improve you, but
if you in your sweet frankness say that it is so, why, I can only marvel
and rejoice.
But you must not study and work too hard. You say that you do it to
please me, but that would not please me. I’ll tell you an anecdote as a
dreadful example. I had a friend who was a great lover of Eastern
literature, Sanskrit, and so on. He loved a lady. The lady to please
him worked hard at these subjects also. In a month she had shattered her
nervous system, and will perhaps never be the same again. It was
impossible. She was not meant for it, and yet she made herself a martyr
over it. I don’t mean by this parable that it will be a strain upon your
intellect to keep up with mine. But I do mean that a woman’s mind is
_different_ from a man’s. A dainty rapier is a finer thing than a
hatchet, but it is not adapted for cutting down trees all the same.
Rupton Hale, the architect, one of the few friends I have down here, has
some most deplorable views about women. I played a round of the Byfleet
Golf Links with him upon Wednesday afternoon, and we discussed the
question of women’s intellects. He would have it that they have never a
light of their own, but are always the reflectors of some other light
which you cannot see. He would allow that they were extraordinarily
quick in assimilating another person’s views, but that was all. I quoted
some very shrewd remarks which a lady had made to me at dinner. ‘Those
are the traces of the last man,’ said he. According to his preposterous
theory, you could in conversation with a woman reconstruct the last man
who had made an impression to her. ‘She will reflect you upon the next
person she talks to,’ said he. It was ungallant, but it was ingenious.
Dearest sweetheart, before I stop, let me tell you that if I have brought
any happiness into your life, you have brought far, far more into mine.
My soul seemed to come into full being upon the day when I loved you. It
was so small, and cramped, and selfish, before—and life was so hard, and
stupid, and purposeless. To live, to sleep, to eat, for some years, and
then to die—it was so trivial and so material. But now the narrow walls
seem in an instant to have fallen, and a boundless horizon stretches
around me. And everything appears beautiful. London Bridge, King
William Street, Abchurch Lane, the narrow stair, the office with the
almanacs and the shining desks, it has all become glorified, tinged with
a golden haze. I am stronger: I step out briskly and breathe more
deeply. And I am a better man too. God knows there was room for it.
But I do try to make an ideal, and to live up to it. I feel such a fraud
when I think of being put upon a pedestal by you, when some little hole
where I am out of sight is my true place. I am like the man in Browning
who mourned over the spots upon his ‘speckled hide,’ but rejoiced in the
swansdown of his lady. And so, my own dear sweet little swansdown lady,
good-night to you, with my heart’s love now and for ever from your true
lover,