the lighting of the
new. Every letter of yours is a new light which burns so many hours
... and _then_!--I am morbid, you see--or call it by what name you
like ... too wise or too foolish. 'If the light of the body is
darkness, how great is that darkness.' Yet even when I grow too wise,
I admit always that while you love me it is an answer to all. And I am
never so much too foolish as to wish to be worthier for my own
sake--only for yours:--not for my own sake, since I am content to owe
all things to you.

And it could be so much to you to lose me!--and you say so,--and
_then_ think it needful to tell me not to think the other thought! As
if _that_ were possible! Do you remember what you said once of the
flowers?--that you 'felt a respect for them when they had passed out
of your hands.' And must it not be so with my life, which if you
choose to have it, must be respected too? Much more with my life!
Also, see that I, who had my warmest affections on the other side of
the grave, feel that it is otherwise with me now--quite otherwise. I
did not like it at first to be so much otherwise. And I could not have
had any such thought through a weariness of life or any of my old
motives, but simply to escape the 'risk' I told you of. Should I have
said to you instead of it ... '_Love me for ever_'? Well then, ... I
_do_.

As to my 'helping' you, my help is in your fancy; and if you go on
with the fancy, I perfectly understand that it will be as good as
deeds. We _have_ sympathy too--we walk one way--oh, I do not forget
the advantages. Only Mrs. Tomkins's ideas of happiness are below my
ambition for you.

So often as I have said (it reminds me) that in this situation I
should be more exacting than any other woman--so often I have said it:
and so different everything is from what I thought it would be!
Because if I am exacting it is for _you_ and not for _me_--it is
altogether for _you_--you understand _that_, dearest of all ... it is
for _you wholly_. It never crosses my thought, in a lightning even,
the question whether I may be happy so and so--_I_. It is the other
question which comes always--too often for peace.

People used to say to me, 'You expect too much--you are too romantic.'
And my answer always was that 'I could not expect too much when I
expected nothing at all' ... which was the truth--for I never thought
(and how often I have _said that_!) I never thought that anyone whom
_I_ could love, would stoop to love