arewell to glory, farewell to the future, to the life I had
dreamed of! Now, my well-beloved, my glory is that I am yours, and
worthy of you; my future lies entirely in the hope of seeing you;
and is not my life summed up in sitting at your feet, in lying
under your eyes, in drawing deep breaths in the heaven you have
created for me? All my powers, all my thoughts must be yours,
since you could speak those thrilling words, 'Your sufferings must
be mine!' Should I not be stealing some joys from love, some
moments from happiness, some experiences from your divine spirit,
if I gave my hours to study--ideas to the world and poems to the
poets? Nay, nay, my very life, I will treasure everything for you;
I will bring to you every flower of my soul. Is there anything
fine enough, splendid enough, in all the resources of the world,
or of intellect, to do honor to a heart so rich, so pure as yours
--the heart to which I dare now and again to unite my own? Yes,
now and again, I dare believe that I can love as much as you do.

"And yet, no; you are the angel-woman; there will always be a
greater charm in the expression of your feelings, more harmony in
your voice, more grace in your smile, more purity in your looks
than in mine. Let me feel that you are the creature of a higher
sphere than that I live in; it will be your pride to have
descended from it; mine, that I should have deserved you; and you
will not perhaps have fallen too far by coming down to me in my
poverty and misery. Nay, if a woman's most glorious refuge is in a
heart that is wholly her own, you will always reign supreme in
mine. Not a thought, not a deed, shall ever pollute this heart,
this glorious sanctuary, so long as you vouchsafe to dwell in it
--and will you not dwell in it for ever? Did you not enchant me by
the words, 'Now and for ever?' _Nunc et semper_! And I have
written these words of our ritual below your portrait--words
worthy of you, as they are of God. He is _nunc et semper_, as my
love is.

"Never, no, never, can I exhaust that which is immense, infinite,
unbounded--and such is the feeling I have for you; I have imagined
its immeasurable extent, as we measure space by the dimensions of
one of its parts. I have had ineffable joys, whole hours filled
with delicious meditation, as I have recalled a single gesture or
the tone of a word of yours. Thus there will be memories of