“And it will always be so, will it not, my beloved?  As I recall, this morning, the fresh and living delights revealed to me in that hour, I am conscious of a joy which makes me conceive of true love as an ocean of everlasting and ever-new experiences, into which we may plunge with increasing delight.  Every day, every word, every kiss, every glance, must increase it by its tribute of past happiness.  Hearts that are large enough never to forget must live every moment in their past joys as much as in those promised by the future.  This was my dream of old, and now it is no longer a dream!  Have I not met on this earth with an angel who had made me know all its happiness, as a reward, perhaps, for having endured all its torments?  Angel of heaven, I salute thee with a kiss.

“I shall send you this hymn of thanksgiving from my heart, I owe it to you; but it can hardly express my gratitude or the morning worship my heart offers up day by day to her who epitomized the whole gospel of the heart in this divine word:  ‘Believe.’”

V

“What! no further difficulties, dearest heart!  We shall be free to belong to each other every day, every hour, every minute, and for ever!  We may be as happy for all the days of our life as we now are by stealth, at rare intervals!  Our pure, deep feelings will assume the expression of the thousand fond acts I have dreamed of.  For me your little foot will be bared, you will be wholly mine!  Such happiness kills me; it is too much for me.  My head is too weak, it will burst with the vehemence of my ideas.  I cry and I laugh—­I am possessed!  Every joy is an arrow of flame; it pierces and burns me.  In fancy you rise before my eyes, ravished and dazzled by numberless and capricious images of delight.

“In short, our whole future life is before me—­its torrents, its still places, its joys; it seethes, it flows on, it lies sleeping; then again it awakes fresh and young.  I see myself and you side by side, walking with equal pace, living in the same thought; each dwelling in each other’s heart, understanding each other, responding to each other as an echo catches and repeats a sound across wide distances.

“Can life be long when it is thus consumed hour by hour?  Shall we not die in a first embrace?  What if our souls have already met in that sweet evening kiss which almost overpowered us—­a feeling kiss, but the crown of my hopes, the ineffectual expression of all the prayers I breathe while we are apart, hidden in my soul like remorse?

“I, who would creep back and hide in the hedge only to hear your footsteps as you went homewards—­I may henceforth admire you at my leisure, see you busy, moving, smiling, prattling!  An endless joy!  You cannot imagine all the gladness it is to me to see you going and coming;