Oh, my Beloved, come quickly to meet me to-day: this morning! Ride over;
I am willing it. My own dearest, you must come. If you don't, what shall
I believe? That Love cannot outdo space: that when you are away I cannot
reach you by willing. But I can: come to me! You shall see my arms open
to you as never before. What is it?--you must be coming. I have more
love in me after all than I knew.
Ah, I know: I wrote "grave side," and all my heart is in arms against
the treason. With us it is not "till death us do part": we leap it
altogether, and are clasped on the other side.
My dear, my dear, I lay my head down on your heart: I love you! I post
this to show how certain I am. At twelve to-day I shall see you.
LETTER XLV.
Beloved: I look at this ridiculous little nib now, running like a plow
along the furrows! What can the poor thing do? Bury its poor black, blunt
little nose in the English language in order to tell you, in all sorts of
roundabout ways, what you know already as well as I do. And yet, though
that is all it can do, you complain of not having had a letter! Not had a
letter? Beloved, there are half a hundred I have not had from you! Do you
suppose you have ever, any one week in your life, sent me as many as I
wanted?
Now, for once, I did hold off and didn't write to you: because there was
something in your last I couldn't give any answer to, and I hoped you
would come yourself before I need. Then I hoped silence would bring you:
and now--no!--instead of your dear peace-giving face I get this complaint!
Ah, Beloved, have you in reality any complaint, or sorrow that I can set
at rest? Or has that little, little silence made you anxious? I do come
to think so, for you never flourish your words about as I do: so,
believing that, I would like to write again differently; only it is truer
to let what I have written stand, and make amends for it in all haste. I
love you so infinitely well, how could even a year's silence give you any
doubt or anxiety, so long as you knew I was not ill?
"Should one not make great concessions to great grief even when it is
unreasonable?" I cannot answer, dearest: I am in the dark. Great grief
cannot be great without reasons: it should give them, and you should judge
by them:--you, not I. I imagine you have again been face to face with
fierce, unexplained opposition. Dearest, if it would give you happiness, I
would say, make five, ten, twenty years' "concession," as you call it. But
the only time you ever spoke to me clearly about your mother's mind toward
me, you said she wanted an absolute surrender from you, not covered only
by her lifetime. Then though I pitied her, I had to smile. A twenty years'
concession even would not give rest to her perturbed spirit. I pray
truly--having so much reason for your sake to pray it--"God rest her soul!
and give her a saner mind toward both of us."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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