My dear, you are my share of the world, also my share of Heaven: but
there I begin to speak of what I do not know, as is the way with happy
humanity. All that my eyes could dream of waking or sleeping, all that
my ears could be most glad to hear, all that my heart could beat faster
to get hold of--your friendship gave me suddenly as a bolt from the
blue.

My friend, my friend, my friend! If you could change or go out of my
life now, the sun would drop out of my heavens: I should see the world
with a great piece gashed out of its side,--my share of it gone. No, I
should not see it, I don't think I should see anything ever again,--not
truly.

Is it not strange how often to test our happiness we harp on sorrow? I
do: don't let it weary you. I know I have read somewhere that great love
always entails pain. I have not found it yet: but, for me, it does mean
fear,--the sort of fear I had as a child going into big buildings. I
loved them: but I feared, because of their bigness, they were likely to
tumble on me.

But when I begin to think you may be too big for me, I remember you as
my "friend," and the fear goes for a time, or becomes that sort of fear
I would not part with if I might.

I have no news for you: only the old things to tell you, the wonder of
which ever remains new. How holy your face has become to me: as I saw it
last, with something more than the usual proofs of love for me upon
it--a look as if your love troubled you! I know the trouble: I feel it,
dearest, in my own woman's way. Have patience.--When I see you so, I