GRAYSMILL, March 5th.
Thank you, sweet one, for the eight dear pages. I feel ashamed of
the scrap I sent you the day before yesterday. I never felt so lazy
in my life as I feel now. One thing is certain, happiness is not
altogether good. Blake says somewhere, "Damn braces, bless relaxes."
Perhaps he was right.
I am losing myself completely. Every time I part from him I feel
that he has taken yet a little more of me away. He absorbs me, heart
and soul. I do not complain. I feel a little ashamed of myself from
time to time, when I realise how callous I have become to everything
else, when, no matter what book I take down from the shelf, I find I
cannot read half a page connectedly; otherwise I am perfectly
content that it should be so. Impersonal things--Nature, Music--have
perhaps strengthened their hold on me; because they flatter my
selfishness, so to speak, they are always in tune with my heart.
Gabriel more than makes up for my degeneracy; of course that should
be, seeing that he has taken unto himself all my intellectual
faculties!
He is writing a simply astounding poem; he reads it to me as it
grows. I tell him he is much more in love with it than with me! When
we are out, he falls into deep dreams; sometimes, when they are of
the kind that words can fetter, he brings them within my reach, and
then we float together into the realms of air.
But, although we are hand in hand, I know that he has sight of
things I cannot see, hears voices I cannot hear; I only clearly see
one vision, him; hear but one voice, my own, that says, I love you.
Shall I tell you something? I would not tell him for the world; he
would deny it; he would not understand; but you I will tell. It is
this: I love him more than he loves me, and in that thought I find
content. When two love, one must love more than the other, and
blessed is he who loves best. I think that if I felt his love
o'ershadowed mine, I should be miserable, I should have some
sensation of unpayable debt. As it stands, he does not know he is my
debtor; only I know it, and I delight in the knowledge. Let him love
me and love me, he will never love me enough; on the other hand, I
yearn so for his love that all he gives me I cherish and am grateful
for; by this means, whether he love me much or little, I shall
always be satisfied.
You must not suppose, because of what I say, that he does not love
me intensely; my love is unmatchable, that is all. He tells me every
day that he could not live without me, and, indeed, it is true. He
relies upon me entirely, calls upon my care incessantly; and very
sweet it is to feel that the supreme God of my Heaven is as a child
in my arms. Ah, I am happy, the world is good, and now the spring is
coming. We rejoice in the growth of the year; Gabriel longs for the
first primrose. He is so hard at work that I think it unlikely we
shall get married before the end of April; the poem is writing
itself at present; it would be a sin to interfere with its progress.
I think, too, that if he can possibly finish it, he will be able to
go away with a greater content upon him, with the satisfaction that
only achievement brings. It is, in fact, very long since he last
completed anything.
And then I shall take him away, I, in his full content, to the
sunshine, to the land of dreams.
There are still some things I can hardly realise.
Good-bye, dearest.
EMILIA.