"Thy last letter, my love, was so short and hurried, that it has not cost me my usual pains to learn it by heart; nor (shall I tell the truth?) have I been so eager as I once was to commit all thy words to my memory. Why, I know not, and will guess not,--but there is something ill thy letters since we parted that chills me;--they throw back my heart upon itself. I tear open the seal with so much eagerness--thou wouldst smile if thou couldst see me, and when I discover how few are the words upon which I am to live for many days, I feel sick and disappointed, and lay down the letter. Then I chide myself and say, 'At least these few words will be kind!'--and I spell them one by one, not to hurry over my only solace. Alas! before I arrive at the end, I am blinded by my tears; my love for thee, so bounding and full of life, seems frozen and arrested at every line. And then I lie down for very weariness, and wish to die. O God, if the time has come which I have always dreaded--if thou shouldst no longer love me!--And how reasonable this fear is! For what am I to thee? How often dost thou complain that I can understand thee not--how often dost thou imply that there is much of thy nature which I am incapable-- unworthy--to learn! If this be so, how natural is it to dread that thou wilt find others whom thou wilt fancy more congenial to thee, and that absence will only remind thee more of my imperfections! "And yet I think that I have read thee to the letter; I think that my love, which is always following thee, always watching thee, always conjecturing thy wishes, must have penetrated into every secret of thy heart: only I want words to express what I feel, and thou layest the blame upon the want of feeling! I know how untutored, how ignorant, I must seem to thee; and sometimes--and lately very often--I reproach myself that I have not more diligently sought to make myself a worthier companion to thee. I think if I had the same means as others; I should acquire the same facility of expressing my thoughts; and my thoughts thou couldst never blame, for I know that they are full of a love to thee which--no--not the wisest--the most brilliant--whom thou mayest see could equal even in imagination. But I have sought to mend this deficiency since we parted; and I have looked into all the books thou hast loved to read, and I fancy that I have imbibed now the same ideas which pleased thee, and in which once thou imaginedst I could not sympathise. Yet how mistaken thou hast been! I see, by marks thou hast placed on the page, the sentiments that more especially charm thee; and I know that I have felt them much, oh! how much more deeply and vividly than they are there expressed--only they seem to me to have no language--methinks that I have learned the language now. And I have taught myself songs that thou wilt love to hear when thou returnest home to me; and I have practised music,