Letter LXIII

Do you remember, Beloved, when you came on your birthday, you said I was
to give you another birthday present of your own choosing, and I promised?
And it was that we were to do for the whole day what I wished: you were
not to be asked to choose.

You said then that it was the first time I had ever let you have your
way, which was to see me be myself independently of you:--as if such a
self existed.

You will never see what I write now; and I did not do then any of the
things I most wished: for first I wished to kneel down and kiss your
hands and feet; and you would not have liked that. Even now that you
love me no more, you would not like me to do such a thing. A woman can
never do as she likes when she loves--there is no such thing until he
shows it her or she divines it. I loved you, I loved you!--that was all
I could do, and all I wanted to do.

You have kept my letters? Do you read them ever, I wonder? and do they
tell you differently about me, now that you see me with new eyes? Ah no,
you dare not look at them: they tell too much truth! How can love-letters
ever cease to be the winged things they were when they first came? I fancy
mine sick to death for want of your heart to rest on; but never less
loving.