GRAYSMILL, March 3d.
I don't know how it comes, but it is a positive effort to me to
write a letter, even to you. If I had not been reminded by the
calendar that a new month is already on the growth, I should not
perhaps have written to-day.
There is nothing to tell you, I am too happy; and how it comes I
know not, but joy is difficult to express. Perhaps because it is so
rare that we have hardly learned its language.
And yet, how soon one gets accustomed to the greatest marvels! At
first, I was filled with doubt and wonder at the miracle that had
transformed me; now, I take it all as a matter of course. That's the
worst of it; a clay-fed mortal is lifted to Elysium and forgets at
the end of a week that he ever tasted coarser food than ambrosia! I
am spoilt for life; if ever any grief falls upon me in the future, I
shall be beaten to earth.
The other night, as I lay in bed, there came to me, for the first
time in my remembrance, that horror of death of which you sometimes
spoke to me. I thought to myself: I shall lie thus in the dark, only
this heart will be still, this blood will be cold, and there will be
no dawn for me,--yet the world will spin on as before, and those who
loved me will smile again. I feared death for the first time,
because, for the first time, life is dear to me. It is the outcome
of my great content; I cling to my happiness, and Death is my only
enemy, the only power that could knock this cup of bliss out of my
hands. Oh, Constance, to die before one has drunk that full measure,
how horrible!
Another shadow there is that flits from time to time across my eyes.
Why, if such content can be, is it not universal? Why is not every
face I meet stamped with a similar joy? I lay awake long last night,
thinking of you. I do not look upon you as actually unhappy, that is
not in your nature, you sunbeam, yet you lack in your dear life the
best light, that of another's shedding. Now that I know what it is
to be loved, I look upon the blankness of your existence with
dismay.
No more to-day, but I shall write again soon, I promise.
Yours ever and always,
EMILIA.