me feel so strange to put down that letter, that I
can hardly go on writing 'E'. I've loved her ever since I came here. For
weeks I have not been able to eat or drink; my very tobacco when I smoke
has no taste; and I can remain for no more than five minutes in one
place, and sometimes feel as though I were really going mad.

"Every evening I go there to fetch my milk. Yesterday she gave me some
coffee. The spoon fell on the ground. She picked it up; when she gave
it me her finger touched mine. Jemima, I do not know if I fancied it--I
shivered hot, and she shivered too! I thought, 'It is all right; she
will be mine; she loves me!' Just then, Jemima, in came a fellow, a
great, coarse fellow, a German--a ridiculous fellow, with curls right
down to his shoulders; it makes one sick to look at him. He's only a
servant of the Boer-woman's, and a low, vulgar, uneducated thing; that's
never been to boarding-school in his life. He had been to the next farm
seeking sheep. When he came in she said, 'Good evening, Waldo. Have some
coffee!' AND SHE KISSED HIM.

"All last night I heard nothing else but 'Have some coffee; have some
coffee.' If I went to sleep for a moment I dreamed that her finger
was pressing mine; but when I woke with a start I heard her say, 'Good
evening, Waldo. Have some coffee!'

"Is this madness?

"I have not eaten a mouthful today. This evening I go and propose to
her. If she refuses me I shall go and kill myself tomorrow. There is a
dam of water close by. The sheep have drunk most of it up, but there is
still enough if I tie a stone to my neck.

"It is a choice between death and madness. I can endure no more. If this
should be the last letter you ever get from me, think of me tenderly,
and forgive me. Without her, life would be a howling wilderness, a long
tribulation. She is my affinity; the one love of my life, of my youth,
of my manhood; my sunshine; my God-given blossom.

"'They never loved who dreamed that they loved once,
And who saith, 'I loved once'?--
Not angels, whose deep eyes look down through realms of light!'

"Your disconsolate brother, on what is, in all probability, the last and
distracted night of his life.

"Gregory Nazianzen Rose.

"P.S.--Tell mother to take care of my pearl studs. I left them in the
wash-hand-stand drawer. Don't let the children get hold of them.

"P.P.S.--I shall take this letter with me to the farm. If I turn down
one corner you may know I hav