chary of offering embraces, went up to kiss her. She is kind, but so large that being kissed by her is almost as destroying as being in a railway accident!
Do I ignore what you say in your letter? You see, it is rather difficult. Writing to a friend in a far country is like shouting through a speaking-tube to the moon, and one can't shout very intimate things, can one?
Let us be sensible. Don't be angry, but are you quite sure you really care, and is it wise to care? We are so very different. You are so very English, and I, in spite of a pink and fluffy exterior, am at heart as bitter and dour and prejudiced as any Covenanter that ever whined a psalm. My mind could never have anything but a Scots accent. You are reserved, and rather cold; I am expansive to a fault. You are terrifyingly clever; my intelligence is of the feeblest. You have a refined sense of humour; the poorest, most obvious joke is good enough for me. But this is only talk. I don't know that I am "in love,"—I don't like the expression anyway,—but this I know, that if you were not in the world it would be an unpeopled waste to me. The place you happen to be in is where all interest centres. Every minute of the time as I go through my days, laughing, talking, enjoying myself vastly, away at the back of my mind the thought of you lies "hidden yet bright," making for me a new heaven and a new earth. Is this caring? Is this what you want to hear me say? I can't write what I would like, I can't weave pretty things, I can only speak straight on, but oh, my dear, I am so glad that in this big, confusing world we have found each other. Poor Rocking Horse Fly! poor fat friend! how dull for them, how dull for all the rest of the people in the world not to have a you!
I am not going to write any more, not because I haven't lots to say, but because writing much or talking much about a thing—being queer and Scots, it is hard for me to say love—seems somehow to cheapen it, profane it.
* * * * *
I have opened this just to say again, My dear, my dear!
Calcutta, April 21.
… Only three more days in India, and I don't know whether I am horribly sorry to go or profoundly relieved to get away. There is no doubt it is a sudden and dangerous country. Three people we knew have died suddenly of cholera, and two others have had bombs thrown at them. I shall be thankful to find myself safely on board the steamer, but even if I escape I am leaving Boggley in the midst of these perils. Not that he lets the thought of them vex his soul. You learn, he says, to look upon death in a different way in India, but I am sure I never could learn to regard with equanimity the thought of being quite well one day and being hurried away to the Circular Road Cemetery early the next. It is sad to die in a foreign land, and it is somehow specially sad, at least I think so, for a home-loving Scot to lie away from home.
"Tell me not the good and wise
Care not where their dust reposes.
That to him who sleeping lies
Desert rocks shall seem as roses.
I've been happy above ground,
I could ne'er be happy under,
Out of Teviot's gentle sound.
Part us, then, not far asunder."
Yesterday I saw a pathetic sight. A couple in a tikka-gharry; the man a soldier, a Gordon Highlander, and on the front seat a tiny coffin. The man's arm was round the woman's shoulder, and she was crying bitterly. A bit of shabby crape was tied round her hat, and she carried a sad little wreath.
Since coming back from Agra we have stayed at the Grand Hotel. It is a comfortable, airy place, wonderfully pleasant in the morning when we sit at a little table in the verandah looking out on the Maidan, and flat-faced hill-waiters bring us an excellent breakfast. Our own servants are with us—Autolycus and Bella. When we arrived very early in the morning and the coolies were carrying up our luggage, a servant sleeping outside his master's door held up his hand for quietness, saying something quite gently about not waking his master, "Beat him," said Autolycus to the coolies quite without heat, as he hurried on.
The air gets hotter, and everything looks more and more tired every day. Even proud-pied April dressed in all its trim can't put a spirit of youth into anything.
But these last days in Calcutta, in spite of fears and heat, are very pleasant. I don't know how I could have said the Calcutta women were horrid! Now that I am going to leave them they seem so kind and attractive. Every minute of my time is filled up with river-picnics, garden-parties, tennis tournaments, dinners and theatre parties; and my mornings are spent with G. raking in queer shops for curiosities. I am insatiable for things to take home, and Autolycus has packed and roped three large wooden boxes containing my treasures.
I wish life weren't such a mixed thing. Just when I am tiptoeing on the heights of joy because I am going home, I am brought to common earth with a thud by the miserable thought that I must leave Boggley. (How pleasant it would be to have a sort of spiritual whipping-boy to bear the nasty things in life for one—the disappointments, the worries, the times of illness and sorrow, the partings.) Boggley says it will be all right once I am away. As a rule he only feels pleasantly home-sick. Now, with the preparations for departure constantly before him, helping to address boxes to the familiar old places, going with me in imagination from port to port till we reach cool Western lands, I'm afraid he has many a pang.
I am so sorry you are so worried. You will almost have got my letter by this time, but I wish I had cabled as you asked, only, somehow, I didn't like the idea. I thought you knew I cared; but, after all, how could you? I didn't know myself when I left England. Looking back I seem always to have cared immensely. How could I help it? What I can't understand is how every woman of your acquaintance doesn't care as I do; you seem to me so lovable. I am so glad (though it seems an odd thing to be glad about!) that you have no mother and no sister. I don't feel such a marauder as I would have done if, by taking you, I had robbed some other woman. And I am glad of your lonely life. I shall be able to show you what a nice thing a home is. A quiet, safe place we shall make it, where worldly cares may not enter. Boggley says I can make an hotel room look home-like, and, indeed, it is almost my only accomplishment, this talent for home-making. There is one thing I want to say to you. You know what Robert Louis says about married men?—that there is no wandering in pleasant bypaths for them, that the road lies long and straight and dusty to the grave. It dulls me to think of it. Don't feel that. Don't let it be true. We mustn't let our lives get dusty and straight and narrow. We shall love whimsies and we shall laugh. So long as laughter isn't heartless and doesn't hurt anyone it is good to laugh. Life will see to it that there are tears—at least I'm told so. But suppose in years to come, after we have grown used to each other (though it does amaze me that people should talk about things losing their charm because one gets used to them. Does a child tire of its mother because it is used to her? Is Spring any the less wonderful because we are used to her coming? God grant we have many years to get used to each other!)—suppose one fine morning you find that life has lost its savour, you are tired of the accustomed round, you are tired of the house, you are tired of the look of the furniture, you want to get away for a time—in a word, to be free. Well, remember, you are not to feel that the road isn't clear before you. I promise you not to feel aggrieved. I shan't wonder how my infinite variety could have palled. I know that all men—men who are men—at times hear the Red Gods call them (women hear them too, you know, only they have more self-control; they find their peace in fearful innocence and household laws), and I shall be waiting on the doorstep when you return from climbing Kangchenjunga, or exploring the Bramahputra Gorges, ready to say, "Come away in, for I'm sure you must be tired."
Arthur, dear, am I a disappointing person, do you find? Ought I to be able to write you different sorts of letters, tenderer, more loving letters? But, you see, it wouldn't be me if I could. My heart may be, indeed, I think it is, full of the warmest instincts, but they have been unwinged
