Letter LXXX

A secret, dearest, that will be no secret soon: before I am done with
twenty-three I shall have passed my age. Beloved, it hurts me more than I
can say that the news of it should come to you from anyone but me: for
this, though I write it, is already a dead letter, lost like a predestined
soul even in the pains that gave it birth. Yes, it does pain me, frightens
me even, that I must die all by myself, and feeling still so young. I
thought I should look forward to it, but I do not; no, no, I would give
much to put it off for a time, until I could know what it will mean for me
as regards you. Oh, if you only knew and cared, what wild comfort I
might have in the knowledge! It seems strange that if I were going away
from the chance of a perfect life with you I should feel it with less pain
than I feel this. The dust and the ashes of life are all that I have to
let fall: and it is bitterness itself to part with them.

How we grow to love sorrow! Joy is never so much a possession--it goes
over us, incloses us like air or sunlight; but sorrow goes into us and
becomes part of our flesh and bone. So that I, holding up my hand to the
sunshine, see sorrow red and transparent like stained glass between me
and the light of day, sorrow that has become inseparably mine, and is
the very life I am wishing to keep!