n I am with you, or here or writing or
walking--and perfectly happy in the sunshine of you, I very well know
I am no wiser than is good for me and that there seems no harm in
feeling it impossible this should change, or fail to go on increasing
till this world ends and we are safe, I with you, for ever. But
when--if only _once_, as I told you, recording it for its very
strangeness, I _do_ feel--in a flash--that words are words, and could
not alter _that_ decree ... will you tell me how, after all, that
conviction and the true woe of it are better met than by the as
thorough conviction that, for one blessing, the extreme woe is
_impossible_ now--that you _are_, and have been, _mine_, and _me_--one
with me, never to be parted--so that the complete separation not being
to be thought of, such an incomplete one as is yet in Fate's power may
be the less likely to attract her notice? And, dearest, in all
emergencies, see, I go to you for help; for your gift of better
comfort than is found in myself. Or ought I, if I could, to add one
more proof to the Greek proverb 'that the half is greater than the
whole'--and only love you for myself (it is absurd; but if I _could_
disentwine you from my soul in that sense), only see my own will, and
good (not in _your_ will and good, as I now see them and shall ever
see) ... should you say I _did_ love you then? Perhaps. And it would
have been better for me, I know--I should not have _written_ this or
the like--there being no post in the Siren's isle, as you will see.

And the end of the whole matter is--what? Not by any means what my Ba
expects or ought to expect; that I say with a flounce 'Catch me
blotting down on paper, again, the first vague impressions in the
weakest words and being sure I have only to bid her
"understand"!--when I can get "Blair on Rhetoric," and the additional
chapter on the proper conduct of a letter'! On the contrary I tell
you, Ba, my own heart's dearest, I will provoke you tenfold worse;
will tell you all that comes uppermost, and what frightens me or
reassures me, in moments lucid or opaque--and when all the pen-stumps
and holders refuse to open the lock, out will come the key perforce;
and once put that knowledge--of the entire love and worship of my
heart and soul--to its proper use, and all will be clear--tell me
to-morrow that it will be clear when I call you to account and exact
strict payment for every word and phrase and full-stop and partial
stop, and