since read,
letters.

"When you open this letter" (so the first began), "look first at the
signature. The signature will tell you all, so that I need explain
nothing, nor attempt to justify myself. Were I in any way on a footing
with you, you might be offended at my audacity; but who am I, and who
are you? We are at such extremes, and I am so far removed from you, that
I could not offend you if I wished to do so."

Farther on, in another place, she wrote: "Do not consider my words
as the sickly ecstasies of a diseased mind, but you are, in my
opinion--perfection! I have seen you--I see you every day. I do not
judge you; I have not weighed you in the scales of Reason and found you
Perfection--it is simply an article of faith. But I must confess one sin
against you--I love you. One should not love perfection. One should
only look on it as perfection--yet I am in love with you. Though love
equalizes, do not fear. I have not lowered you to my level, even in
my most secret thoughts. I have written 'Do not fear,' as if you could
fear. I would kiss your footprints if I could; but, oh! I am not putting
myself on a level with you!--Look at the signature--quick, look at the
signature!"

"However, observe" (she wrote in another of the letters), "that although
I couple you with him, yet I have not once asked you whether you love
him. He fell in love with you, though he saw you but once. He spoke of
you as of 'the light.' These are his own words--I heard him use them.
But I understood without his saying it that you were all that light is
to him. I lived near him for a whole month, and I understood then that
you, too, must love him. I think of you and him as one."

"What was the matter yesterday?" (she wrote on another sheet). "I passed
by you, and you seemed to me to BLUSH. Perhaps it was only my fancy.
If I were to bring you to the most loathsome den, and show you the
revelation of undisguised vice--you should not blush. You can never feel
the sense of personal affront. You may hate all who are mean, or base,
or unworthy--but not for yourself--only for those whom they wrong. No
one can wrong YOU. Do you know, I think you ought to love me--for you
are the same in my eyes as in his-you are as light. An angel cannot
hate, perhaps cannot love, either. I often ask myself--is it possible to
love everybody? Indeed it is not; it is not in nature. Abstract love
of humanity is nearly always love of self. But you are different. You
cann