"Thy last letter, my love, was so short and hurried, that it has not cost
me my usual pains to learn it by heart; nor (shall I tell the truth?) have
I been so eager as I once was to commit all thy words to my memory. Why,
I know not, and will guess not,--but there is something ill thy letters
since we parted that chills me;--they throw back my heart upon itself. I
tear open the seal with so much eagerness--thou wouldst smile if thou
couldst see me, and when I discover how few are the words upon which I am
to live for many days, I feel sick and disappointed, and lay down the
letter. Then I chide myself and say, 'At least these few words will be
kind!'--and I spell them one by one, not to hurry over my only solace.
Alas! before I arrive at the end, I am blinded by my tears; my love for
thee, so bounding and full of life, seems frozen and arrested at every
line. And then I lie down for very weariness, and wish to die. O God, if
the time has come which I have always dreaded--if thou shouldst no longer
love me!--And how reasonable this fear is! For what am I to thee? How
often dost thou complain that I can understand thee not--how often dost
thou imply that there is much of thy nature which I am incapable--
unworthy--to learn! If this be so, how natural is it to dread that thou
wilt find others whom thou wilt fancy more congenial to thee, and that
absence will only remind thee more of my imperfections!

"And yet I think that I have read thee to the letter; I think that my
love, which is always following thee, always watching thee, always
conjecturing thy wishes, must have penetrated into every secret of thy
heart: only I want words to express what I feel, and thou layest the blame
upon the want of feeling! I know how untutored, how ignorant, I must seem
to thee; and sometimes--and lately very often--I reproach myself that I
have not more diligently sought to make myself a worthier companion to
thee. I think if I had the same means as others; I should acquire the