were many times when I longed to get hold of you, literally, and simply shake into you some recognition of my soul. Oh, I am afraid you couldn’t get away from me; the more merciless you are to me, the wilder I get.
I am possessed by so many opposite moods and influences. I am afraid of you a little. I never know what you are going to do to me.
I feel, I cannot help but feel, that I am part of your life, now, you could not neglect me any more than you could your own soul. I consider you just as responsible for mine as you are for your own. I say this with no doubts, but know that it is true, and you must know it.
XVI. DEAR THYRSIS:
You certainly have a wonderful task in store for me, and I pray God to give me strength for it. I can see very plainly that you expect to find the essence of my soul better than yours, because it seems that you are making my task harder than yours.
Do you know, I have actually found myself asking, at times, with a certain defiant rage—if you were actually going to give love to your princess before you had made her suffer! So far you have not made her suffer at all. I had become quite excited over this idea—though perhaps I had no right to. I suppose it is all right, because she is an imaginary person, and you can endow her with all the perfections you please. She is triumphant and thrilling, and worthy of love—whereas I am just little Corydon, whom you have known all your life, and who is stupid and helpless, and impossible to imagine romances about! Is that the way of it?
XVII. MY DEAREST THYRSIS:
A long letter has just come to me. I always receive your letters with many palpitations, and by the time I get through reading, my cheeks are flaming. It is too bad it takes letters so long to go to and fro.
I have finally come to bear the attitude towards myself, that I would to a naughty child. I will have no nonsense, and all my absurdities and inefficiencies must be cured. I think I have come to know myself a little better within the last few days. I know that I have no right to quick victories, or any happiness at all, even your love. I tell you truly, if it were only possible, I would go away this minute—do you hear?—oh! to some lonely place, and then I would do something with myself. I want to be alone, alone—I want to be face to face with myself, and God, if possible! I have come to the conclusion that I can do anything I must do. I think (I am not sure) I could give you up, if I were obliged to, and go away by myself and try alone. If I do not have you, I must have solitude.
XVIII. MY DEAREST CORYDON:
Thinking about my work this morning, and how hard it was, and how much strength it would take, my thoughts turned to you, and I discovered, as never before, just how I like to think of you. It seemed to me that you were part of the raw material that I had to use; that I had mastered you, and was going to make you what you had to be. And there woke in my heart at those words a fierceness of purpose that I had never felt in my life before—I was quite mad with it; and you cried out to escape me, but I would not let you go, but held you right tightly in my arms. And so—I do not mean to let you go! I shall bear you away with me, and make you what I wish. And the promise of marriage that I make you is just this: not that I love you—I do not love you; but what I wish the woman to be whom I am to love—that I will make you!
And do not ever dare to ask me for any other promise, for you will not get it. You will come with this.
XIX. MY THYRSIS:
I had an iron grip at my heart just now, as I was trying to study. I had a foreboding of something—and then I came home and found your letter telling me I was yours, and I must. At last I may go to you the way I wish! My love, my love, I do not care what you are, or what you do to me, as long as I may go with you.
How I laugh at myself as I say it! You have mastered me to worship your life—not you. I shall not work for your love, I shall work to live. Our love will be one of the incidents of our life. Meanwhile, I may go with you, that is all that I say—I sing it. I may go with you, not to happiness, but to necessity!
And now that cursed German! It hangs over my head like a sword of Damocles I have heard of—though I don’t know why it was held over his head!
You think our love was settling into the cooing state! Dear me, Thyrsis, I hope I will not always have to yell to you over a foggy ocean!
XX. DEAR THYRSIS:
Can you imagine what it must be to be shut up in a little room on a rainy night, with the children and people screaming under your window? That is my position now.
I find myself hard to manage at times. I want to become discouraged or melancholy or disgusted, but I drive myself better than I used to. I even was happy a little for a few moments to-night. I was playing one of my piano-pieces, and I found myself imagining all sorts of things. But this happens very seldom, and only lasts for a moment. I often wonder at myself. Two months ago I did not love you one particle; I love you now, so that—so that it is impossible for me to do anything else. In fact I did not realize how much I loved you until that terrible moment when I read you did not love me. I saw how impossible it will be to cease to love you, no matter what you do to me. I do not know why it is; I simply know it is, and perhaps some day I may teach you how to love. I do not imagine you know how very well, at present—no, Thyrsis, I don’t.
I know your true self now, and I love it better than ever I loved the other. I say it with a certain grimness. I know you, your real self, and I love it.
Know, oh, my Beloved, that in the last three months you have grown to me from a boy into a man, into my husband! When I think of you as you were at first you seem a child compared to what you are now.
XXI. DEAREST LOVE:
Last night, as I went to sleep, I was thinking of you and our problem, and there were all sorts of uncertainties; but one thing I have to tell you, my Corydon—that it came to me how sweet and true, and how pure and good you have been; and I loved you very, very much indeed. I thought: I should like to tell her that, and ask her always to be so noble and unselfish. Can you not realize how all your deficiencies are as nothing to me, in the sight of that one unapproachable perfection? For my Corydon is all devotion and love, and pure, pure, maiden goodness! And there is quite a whole heart full of feeling for you in that, and I wish I had you here to tell you.
XXII. MY CORYDON:
