And because of this harmony, this unconsciousness in woman's virtue, a man's love of woman takes on a form of idealisation which a woman never understands and indeed often resents. What in him is something removed from himself, something which he analyses and governs and manipulates, is in the woman beloved an integral part of her character. Virtue seems in her to become personified and he calls her by strange names. For this reason men who make language tend always to give to abstract qualities the feminine gender, as you must have observed in Latin and might observe in a score of other tongues. For this reason, too, a man's love of woman assumes such form of worship as Dante paid to Beatrice or Petrarch to Laura. It would be grotesque for a woman to love in this way, for virtue is not a man's character, but a faculty of his character. And so is it strange that I should approach you asking for love that my soul may have peace? It cannot enter into my comprehension that such a cry should come from you to me. All that I strive to accomplish in the world, all that I gird myself to battle for, the ideals that I would lay down my life that men may behold and cherish,--is it not now all gathered up in the beauty and serenity of your own person? What I labour to express in words is already yours in inner possession. If I ask you for peace, it is not selfishness, dear girl; it is prayer. If you should come to me begging for peace, I should be filled with amazement; for I myself have it not. What I can give is love's unwearied tenderness and love's unceasing homage to the beauty of your body and your soul. More than that, I shall give you in the end the crown of the world's honour. Without you I may accomplish the task laid upon me, but only with heaviness of soul and abnegation of all that my heart craves. I was reading in an old drama last night until I came to these words, and then I set the book aside: Once a young lark Sat on thy hand, and gazing on thine eyes Mounted and sung, thinking them moving skies. In that sweet hyperbole I seemed to read a transcript of your beauty. If I am selfish, beloved, all love is selfishness.