tiest, or the most
lovable person that you have ever seen, but because I am _I_ the one
person, with all that I have and all that I lack, that you will never
find a second time. So, though you may find many beyond the sea who are
more charming, more attractive, more brilliant, you will never find me
again; and because I know that, I can, when evening comes, lay your
sixteen-page letter from over the ocean under my pillow, and very
quietly go to sleep and dream of you, without feeling any desire to
snatch you, with poison and dagger, from the attractions of some
olive-colored Creole.

"For I know, dearest love--vain as it may sound, and little store as I
set by my few talents and attractions--that I alone can make you happy
as no other can; not so happy that you will never have a wish
unfulfilled; that I shall appear to you at all times the crown and
jewel of all wives, and you the chosen favorite of fortune; but as
happy as it is possible for one human being to make another, so happy
will I make you and you make me; and because we can never comprehend
this, but ask ourselves each day why it should be so, therefore our
happiness shall have no end, and no phenomenon of beauty, grace, or
wit, that ever crosses your path, will be capable of disturbing this
happiness.

"My old Christel would raise her eyebrows very ominously at this point,
and would repeat 'unjustified, entirely unjustified!' But I cannot help
it; as a rule I am timid and skeptical about anything good that is
promised to me. But when I think of our love, I overflow with boldness
and confidence. What harm can fortune do us? Is not our love itself
fortune? What tricks of fate ought we to fear, when we hear this fate,
the most important and the greatest of all, within us?

"You will not feel tempted to translate this letter for the benefit of
your Spanish lady friends. They would only pity you for having a
sweetheart who would write you about such serious matters. Ah! and yet
my whole heart laughs when I think that they are so serious with us!"

In a later letter, that had been addressed to Paris, she wrote:

"Yesterday, I was at court again, and to-day I thank heaven that I
managed to bear it, and that the headache which was caused by its
tiresomeness is only a moderate one. This undoubtedly proceeds from the
fact that I sat at supper next to the embassador for ----, who has been
in India, and who described to me, in great detail and for the third
ti