A CANTICLE OF LOVE
"I expect you will be here in a day or two; so this letter will never be sent. I am writing only to be alone with you this evening; and if I write it, it is but for my own sake.
"It is an autumn evening, most marvellously fine. I want to be with you. For I do love you, my dear, my only one!
"The earth is black, the sky is blue, the gloom is deepening. A little while since, Idalia handed me a letter from you; and now I am in a vein of tenderness. I will not even chide you for excess of openness in your naturalistic way of expressing your desires. There are moments when I can pardon everything. … I want to show that I love you, very truly and very much. The days of my ill-humour, the days of my dark misgivings, have passed away now, and the days of bright vision are come. This very morning I was
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