Letter XVIII

I feel sometimes as if a real bar were between me and a whole conception
of life; because I have carpets and curtains, and Nan-nan, and Benjy,
and last of all you--shutting me out from the realities of existence.

If you would all leave me just for one full moon, and come back to me
only when I am starving for you all--for my tea to be brought to me in
the morning, and all the paddings and cushionings which bolster me up
from morning till night--with what a sigh of wisdom I would drop back
into your arms, and would let you draw the rose-colored curtains round
me again!

Now I am afraid lest I have become too happy: I am leaning so far out of
window to welcome the dawn, I seem to be tempting a fall--heaven itself
to fall upon me.

What do I know truly, who only know so much happiness?

Dearest, if there is anything else in love which I do not know, teach it
me quickly: I am utterly yours. If there is sorrow to give, give it me!
Only let me have with it the consciousness of your love.

Oh, my dear, I lose myself if I think of you so much. What would life
have without you in it? The sun would drop from my heavens. I see only
by you! you have kissed me on the eyes. You are more to me than my own
poor brain could ever have devised: had I started to invent Paradise, I
could not have invented you. But perhaps you have invented me: I am
something new to myself since I saw you first. God bless you for it!