Beloved: I heard somebody yesterday speak of you as "charming"; and I
began wondering to myself was that the word which could ever have covered
my thoughts of you? I do not know whether you ever charmed me, except in
the sense of 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 lightly used for the surface of things. Yet now a
charm in you, which is not _all_ you, but just a part of you, comes to
light, when I see you wondering whether you are really loved, or whether,
Beloved, I only _like_ you rather well!
Well, if you will be so "charming," I am helpless: and can do nothing,
nothing, but pray for the blue-moon to rise, and love you a little better
because you have some of that divine foolishness which strikes the very
wise ones of earth, and makes them kin to weaker mortals who otherwise
might miss their "charm" altogether.
Truly, Beloved, if I am happy, it is because I am also your most patiently
loving.