You stand so less than woman, through being more, And lose your natural instinct, like a beast, Through intellectual culture? since indeed I do not think that any common she Would dare adopt such fancy-forgeries For the legible life-signature of such As I, with all my blots: with all my blots! At last then, peerless cousin, we are peers— At last we’re even. Ah, you’ve left your height; And here upon my level we take hands, And here I reach you to forgive you, sweet, And that’s a fall, Aurora. Long ago You seldom understood me,—but, before, I could not blame you. Then, you only seemed So high above, you could not see below; But now I breathe,—but now I pardon!—nay, We’re parting. Dearest, men have burnt my house, Maligned my motives,—but not one, I swear, Has wronged my soul as this Aurora has, Who called the Lady Waldemar my wife.’ ‘Not married to her! yet you said’ ... ‘Again? Nay, read the lines’ (he held a letter out) ‘She sent you through me.’ By the moonlight there, I tore the meaning out with passionate haste Much rather than I read it. Thus it ran. NINTH BOOK. EVEN thus. I pause to write it out at length, The letter of the Lady Waldemar.— ‘I prayed your cousin Leigh to take you this, He says he’ll do it. After years of love, Or what is called so,—when a woman frets And fools upon one string of a man’s name, And fingers it for ever till it breaks,— He may perhaps do for her such a thing, And she accept it without detriment Although she should not love him any more. And I, who do not love him, nor love you, Nor you, Aurora,—choose you shall repent Your most ungracious letter, and confess, Constrained by his convictions, (he’s convinced) You’ve wronged me foully. Are you made so ill, You woman—to impute such ill to _me_? We both had mothers,—lay in their bosom once. Why, after all, I thank you, Aurora Leigh, For proving to myself that there are things I would not do, ... not for my life ... nor him ... Though something I have somewhat overdone,— For instance, when I went to see the gods One morning on Olympus, with a step That shook the thunder in a certain cloud, Committing myself vilely. Could I think, The Muse I pulled my heart out from my breast To soften, had herself a sort of heart, And loved my mortal? He, at least, loved her; I heard him say so; ’twas my recompence, When, watching at his bedside fourteen days, He broke out ever like a flame at whiles Between the heats of fever.... ‘Is it thou? Breathe closer, sweetest mouth!’ and when at last The fever gone, the wasted face extinct As if it irked him much to know me there, He said, ‘’Twas kind, ’twas good, ’twas womanly,’