Oh, I love you, I love you!  I am crying with it, having no words to declare to you what I feel.  My tears have wings in them:  first semi-detached, then detached.  See, dearest, there is a rain-stain to make this letter fruitful of meaning!

It is sheer convention—­and we, creatures of habit—­that tears don’t come kindly and easily to express where laughter leaves off and a something better begins.  Which is all very ungrammatical and entirely me, as I am when I get off my hinges too suddenly.

Amen, amen!  When we are both a hundred we shall remember all this very peaceably; and the “sanguine flower” will not look back at us less beautifully because in just one spot it was inscribed with woe.  And if we with all our aids cannot have patience, where in this midge-bitten world is that virtue to find a standing?

I kiss you—­how? as if it were for the first or the last time?  No, but for all time, Beloved! every time I see you or think of you sums up my world.  Love me a little, too, and I will be as contented as I am your loving.

LETTER LVII.

Come to me!  I will not understand a word you have written till you come.  Who has been using your hand to strike me like this, and why do you lend it?  Oh, if it is she, you do not owe her that duty!  Never write such things:—­speak! have you ever found me not listen to you, or hard to convince?  Dearest, dearest!—­take what I mean:  I cannot write over this gulf.  Come to me,—­I will believe anything you can say, but I can believe nothing of this written.  I must see you and hear what it is you mean.  Dear heart, I am blind till I set eyes on you again!  Beloved, I have nothing, nothing in me but love for you:  except for that I am empty!  Believe me and give me time; I will not be unworthy of the joy of holding you.  I am nothing if not yours!  Tell this to whoever is deceiving you.

Oh, my dearest, why did you stay away from me to write so?  Come and put an end to a thing which means nothing to either of us.  You love me:  how can it have a meaning?

Can you not hear my heart crying?—­I love nobody but you—­do not know what love is without you!  How can I be more yours than I am?  Tell me, and I will be!

Here are kisses.  Do not believe yourself till you have seen me.  Oh, the pain of having to write, of not having your arms round me in my misery!  I kiss your dear blind eyes with all my heart.—­My Love’s most loved and loving.

LETTER LVIII.

No, no, I cannot read it!  What have I done that you will not come to me?  They are mad here, telling me to be calm, that I am not to go to you.  I too am out of my mind—­except that I love you.  I know nothing except that.  Beloved, only on my lips will I take my dismissal from yours:  not God himself can claim you from me till you have done me that justice.  Kiss me once more, and then, if you can, say we must part.  You cannot!—­Ah, come here where my heart is, and you cannot!