Are you well and happy, and enjoying this beautiful summer? London is, in one sense, a sort of big prison at this time of year: but still at a wide open window, with the blue sky opening to me & a soft breeze blowing in & the Book that is so dear--my life-giving treasure--open on my lap, I have very happy times. No one hundreds of years hence will find deeper joy in these poems than I--breathe the fresh, sweet, exhilarating air of them, bathe in it, drink in what nourishes & delights the whole being, body, intellect & soul, more than I. Nor could you, when writing them, have desired to come nearer to a human being & be more to them forever & forever than you are & will be to me. O I take the hand you stretch out each day--I put mine into it with a sense of utter fulfilment: I ask nothing more of time and of eternity but to live and grow up to that companionship that includes all. 6th. This very morning has come the answer to my question. First I only saw the Poem--read it so elate--soared with it to joyous heights, said to myself: "He is so well again, he is able to take the journey into Massachusetts & speak the kindling words." Then I turned over and my joy was dashed. My Darling; such patience yet needed along the tedious path! Oh, it makes me long, with passionate longings, with yearnings I know not how to bear, to come, to be your loving, cheerful companion, the one to take such care, to do all for you--to beguile the time, to give you of my health as you have done to tens of thousands. I do not doubt, either, but that you will get well. I feel sure, sure, it will be given me to see you; and perhaps a very slow, gradual recovery is safest--is the only way in this as in other matters to thoroughness; & a very speedy rally would be specious, treacherous, in the end, leading you to do what you were not yet fit for. I believe if I could only make you conscious of the love, the enfolding love, my heart breathes out toward you it would do you physical good; many-sided love--Mother's love that cherishes, that delights so in personal service, that sees in sickness & suffering such dear appeals to an answering, limitless tenderness--wife's love--ah, you draw that from me too, resistlessly--I have no choice--comrade's love, so happy in sharing all, pain, sorrow, toil, effort, enjoyments, thoughts, hopes, aims, struggles, disappointment, beliefs, aspirations. Child's love, too, that trusts utterly, confides unquestioningly. Not more spontaneously, & wholly without effort or volition on my part, does the sunlight flow into my eyes when I open them in the morning than does the sense of your existence enter like bright light into my awaking soul. And then I send to you thoughts--tender, caressing thoughts--that would fain nestle so close--ah, if you could feel them, take them in, let them lie in your breast, each morning.