You must understand why I act in this way. I am a weak and
struggling man, with a thousand temptations; and when I marry you,
you will be the greatest temptation of all. You are a beautiful
girl, and I love you, and every instinct of my nature drives me to
you; for me to live with you without kissing you or putting my arms
about you, will remain always difficult. It will be so for you, as
for me, and it will always be our danger, and always make us
wretched. Your soul rises in you as I write this, and you say (as
you've said before) that if I offered to kiss you after it, it would
be an insult. But only wait until we meet!

This is the one thing that has become clear to me: just as soon as
there comes the least thought of satisfaction in our love, just so
soon does it cease to satisfy my best self. You cannot satisfy my
best self, you do not even know it; and if it were a question of
that, I should never dream of marrying you! I love you for this and
for this alone--because you are an undeveloped soul, the dream of
whose infinite possibilities is my one delight in the matter. I
think that you are _perfect_ in character, that you are truth
itself; and therefore, no matter how helpless you may be, I have no
fear of failing to make you "all the world to me", provided only
that I am not false to my ideal. You must know from what I have
written before that I _can_ love, that I do know what love is, and
that you may trust me. I am not trying to degrade passion--I simply
see how passion throws the burden on the woman, and therefore it is
utterly a crime with us--the least thought of it! I ought to
consider you as a school-girl, really just that; and instead of that
I write you love letters!