As I say this, I see the tears of despair in your eyes. I can only tell you what I am--God made me for an _artist,_ not a _lover!_ I have not deep feelings--I do not care for human suffering; I can _work,_ that is all. Art is no respecter of persons, and neither am I--I labor for something which is not of self, and requires denial of self. And as I think about you, the feeling comes to me that it is not this you want, that I should make you utterly wretched if I married you. You love _love;_ you do not wish to fling yourself into a struggle such as my life must be. I see that in all your letters--your terror of this highest self of mine. If you married me, you would have to fight a battle that would almost kill you. You would have to wear your heart out, night and day--you would have to lose yourself and your feelings--fling away everything, and live in self-contempt and effort. You would have to know it--I can’t help it--that I love life, and that to human hearts I owe no allegiance; that to me they are simply impatience and vexation. Do you want such a life? If you can learn to love it for what it is--a wild, unnatural, but royal life--very well. If you are coming to me with pleading eyes, secretly wishing for affection, and in terror of me when you don’t get it, then God help you, that is all! You are a child, and you can not dream what I mean. But every day I learn something more of a great savage force of mine, that will stand out against the rest of this world, that is burning me up, that is driving me mad. One of two things it will do to you--it will make you the same kind of creature, or it will tear the soul out of you. Do you understand that? And nothing will stop it--it cares for nothing in the world but the utterance of itself! And if you wish to marry me, it will be with no promise of mine save to wreak it upon you! To take you, and make you just such a creature, kill or cure--nothing else! Not one instant’s patience--but just one insistent, frantic demand that you succeed--and fiery, writhing disgust with you when you do not succeed--disgust that will make you scream--and make you live! Do you understand this--and do you get any idea of the temper behind this? And how it seems to you, I don’t know--it is the only kind of truth I am capable of; I shall simply fling naked the force of my passionate, raging will, and punish you with it each instant of your life--until you understand it, and love it, and worship it, as I do.