An Englishwomans Love-Letters | Page 7

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
feel that prayer is the only way given me for saying what my love for
you wishes to be. And yet I hardly ever pray in words.
Dearest, be happy when you get this: and, when you can, come and
give my happiness its rest. Till then it is a watchman on the lookout.
"Night-night!" Your true sleepy one.

LETTER VIII.
Now why, I want to know, Beloved, was I so specially "good" to you in
my last? I have been quite as good to you fifty times before,--if such a

thing can be from me to you. Or do you mean good for you? Then, dear,
I must be sorry that the thing stands out so much as an exception!
Oh, dearest Beloved, for a little I think I must not love you so much, or
must not let you see it.
When does your mother return, and when am I to see her? I long to so
much. Has she still not written to you about our news?
I woke last night to the sound of a great flock of sheep going past. I
suppose they were going by forced marches to the fair over at
Hylesbury: It was in the small hours: and a few of them lifted up their
voices and complained of this robbery of night and sleep in the night.
They were so tired, so tired, they said: and so did the muffawully patter
of their poor feet. The lambs said most; and the sheep agreed with a
husky croak.
I said a prayer for them, and went to sleep again as the sound of the
lambs died away; but somehow they stick in my heart, those sad sheep
driven along through the night. It was in its degree like the woman
hurrying along, who said, "My God, my God!" that summer Sunday
morning. These notes from lives that appear and disappear remain
endlessly; and I do not think our hearts can have been made so
sensitive to suffering we can do nothing to relieve, without some good
reason. So I tell you this, as I would any sorrow of my own, because it
has become a part of me, and is underlying all that I think to-day.
I am to expect you the day after to-morrow, but "not for certain"? Thus
you give and you take away, equally blessed in either case. All the
same, I shall certainly expect you, and be disappointed if on Thursday
at about this hour your way be not my way.
"How shall I my true love know" if he does not come often enough to
see me? Sunshine be on you all possible hours till we meet again.

LETTER IX.

Beloved: Is the morning looking at you as it is looking at me? A little
to the right of the sun there lies a small cloud, filmy and faint, but
enough to cast a shadow somewhere. From this window, high up over
the view, I cannot see where the shadow of it falls,--further than my eye
can reach: perhaps just now over you, since you lie further west. But I
cannot be sure. We cannot be sure about the near things in this world;
only about what is far off and fixed.
You and I looking up see the same sun, if there are no clouds over us:
but we may not be looking at the same clouds even when both our
hearts are in shadow. That is so, even when hearts are as close together
as yours and mine: they respond to the same light: but each one has its
own roof of shadow, wearing its rue with a world of difference.
Why is it? why can no two of us have sorrows quite in common? What
can be nearer together than our wills to be one? In joy we are; and yet,
though I reach and reach, and sadden if you are sad, I cannot make your
sorrow my own.
I suppose sorrow is of the earth earthy: and all that is of earth makes
division. Every joy that belongs to the body casts shadows somewhere.
I wonder if there can enter into us a joy that has no shadow anywhere?
The joy of having you has behind it the shadow of parting; is there any
way