Do you remember, Beloved, when you came on your birthday, you said I was
to give you another birthday present of your own choosing, and I promised?
And it was that we were to do for the whole day what _I_ wished: you were
not to be asked to choose.
You said then that it was the first time I had ever let you have your
way, which was to see me be myself independently of you:--as if such a
self existed.
You will never see what I write now; and I did not do then any of the
things I most wished: for first I wished to kneel down and kiss your
hands and feet; and you would not have liked that. Even now that you
love me no more, you would not like me to do such a thing. A woman can
never do as she likes when she loves--there is no such thing until he
shows it her or she divines it. I loved you, I loved you!--that was all
I could do, and all I wanted to do.
You have kept my letters? Do you read them ever, I wonder? and do they
tell you differently about me, now that you see me with new eyes? Ah no,
you dare not look at them: they tell too much truth! How can love-letters
ever cease to be the winged things they were when they first came? I fancy
mine sick to death for want of your heart to rest on; but never less
loving.
If you would read them again, you would come back to me. Those little
throats of happiness would be too strong for you. And so you lay them in
a cruel grave of lavender,--"Lavender for forgetfulness" might be
another song for Ophelia to sing.
I am weak with writing to you, I have written too long: this is twice
to-day.