that if I am given health and life, there is nothing that men have
known that I shall not know, nothing that is done in the world that
I shall not do, or try to. I have a strong physique, and I labor day
and night, and always shall. I shall always be hungry and restless,
always dissatisfied with myself, and with everything about me, and
acting and feeling most of the time like a person haunted by a
devil. I make no apologies to you for the conceit of what I am
saying; it is what I think of myself, without caring what other
people think. I know that I have a tremendous temperament,
tremendous powers hidden within me, and they have got to come out.
When they do, the world will know what I know now.

Now Corydon, as you understand, I dream love absolute, and would
scorn any other kind. I can master my passion, if it be that upon
earth there is no woman willing or able to go with me to the last
inch of my journey. I dream a life-companion to follow wherever my
duty drives me; to feel all the desperateness of desire that I feel,
to be stern and remorseless as I must be, wild and savage as I must
be; to race through knowledge with me and to share my passion for
truth with me; a woman with whom I need have no shame in the duty of
my genius! As I tell you, if I marry you, I expect to give myself to
you as your own heart; and then I think of the gentle and mild
existence you have led!

It is very hard for me even to tell about my life, or to explain
this thing that drives me mad. But I am writing this letter to you
for the purpose of making clear to you that there are two
alternatives before you, and that you must choose one or the other
and stick by it, and bear the consequences. It is painful to me to
think that I have fascinated you by what opportunities I have, even