The Wings of Icarus: Being the Life of one Emilia FletcherAlma-Tadema, Laurence
General
The Wings of Icarus: Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher
Alma-Tadema, Laurence
Epistolary fiction
Not a bit of it! Sometimes, just by way of a little salutary
training in renunciation, we don't even meet every day. No, the bulk
of my time will be yours and mine; we will sit up here in my room,
beneath my mother's portrait; we will make the old days live again,
weld the old and the new into one. Then, Gabriel and I will take you
with us for walks fitting a fairy, in the woods; how you will love
them! The trees are misty already with the promise of leaves, and
all manner of sweet things are beginning to pierce the ground. How
we shall spoil you, we two!
So you are coming,--I can hardly believe it. Never say again that I
shall forget you. Let me remind you, Madam, if all else fail to
convince you, that we two are women, and that there is one tender
love, one yearning, which can only be betwixt woman and woman.
There is something infinitely pathetic in this truth; a man may be
the dearest, the nearest he can never be.
But I must bless and leave thee. I have promised to meet Gabriel at
the Post-office.
My last letter. No need to write again. Oh, Constantia, can it be
true? Yours in all truth,
EMILIA.
THE JOURNAL.
_June 3d, at evening._--I am weak, very weak. I never could carry
either joy or trouble pent up in my heart.
It has seemed sometimes of late that I must be stifled by the thing
that troubles me. Yet it is a trifling thing; nothing, I am sure,
but a foolish, wicked fear, a little disease within myself. If mamma
were here, I should just go and lay my head on her knees, and tell
her everything. Then she would stroke my eyes and bid me see reason,
and all would be well. O my little mother, O great and dear one, why
did you leave your child?
I remembered just now that it used to help me once to write things
down. That is what I must do. I will put it away from me; perhaps,
too, it will look so silly in solemn ink that I shall laugh at it
instead of screaming, as I did just now with my face on the pillow.
And now that it comes to the point, I am ashamed of saying it. My
love is making me mad; was there ever such a fool? I have been too
happy, that is the whole truth--far too happy. Poor things, we carry
grief well enough, cold grief; but hot joy cracks the frail vessel.
I have had a wonderful spring, with my two dearests; Constance
sweeter than ever she was, even during her long illness giving some
worth to the hours I might not spend with him, and he ever near.
Then, when we three were together, we were happy, too. How silly of
me to write "were"; they are still there, the summer days are long,
I love them so well, they hold me so dear.
I have not written it. No matter, I feel better; I already begin to
laugh at myself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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