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By Root 16633 0

— do you not perceive that it is my diviner nature — my spiritual being — which burns and pants to commingle with your own? Has the soul age, Helen? Can Immortality regard Time? Can that which began never and shall never end, consider a few wretched years of its incarnate life? Ah, I could weep — I could almost be angry with you for the unwarranted wrong you offer to the purity — to the sacred reality of my affection. — And how am I to answer what you say of your personal appearance? Have I not seen you, Helen, have I not heard the more than melody of your voice? Has not my heart ceased to throb beneath the magic of your smile? Have I not held your hand in mine and looked steadily into your soul through the crystal Heaven of your eyes? Have I not done all these things? — or do I dream? — or am I mad? Were you indeed all that your fancy, enfeebled and perverted by illness, tempts you to suppose that you are, still, life of my life! I would but love you — but worship you the more: — it would be so glorious a happiness to be able to prove to you what I feel! But as it is, what can I — what am I to say? Who ever spoke of you without emotion — without praise? Who ever saw you and did not love?

But now a deadly terror oppresses me; for I too clearly see that these objections — so groundless — so futile when urged to one whose nature must be so well known to you as mine is — can scarcely be meant earnestly; and I tremble lest they but serve to mask others, more real, and which you hesitate — perhaps in pity — to confide to me. Alas! I too distinctly perceive, also, that in no instance you have ever permitted yourself to say that you love me. You are aware, sweet Helen, that on my part there are insuperable reasons forbidding me to urge upon you my love. Were I not poor — had not my late errors and reckless excesses justly lowered me in the esteem of the good — were I wealthy, or could I offer you worldly honors — ah then — then — how proud would I be to persevere — to sue — to plead — to kneel — to pray — to beseech you for your love — in the deepest humility — at your feet — at your feet, Helen, and with floods of passionate tears.

And now let me copy here one other passage from your letter: —”I find that I cannot now tell you all that I promised. I can only say to you [that had I youth and health and beauty, I would live for you and die with you. Now, were I to allow myself to love you, I could only enjoy a bright, brief hour of rapture and die — perhaps (illegible).” — The last five words have been [illegible] Ah, beloved, beloved Helen the darling of my heart — my first and my real love]! — may God forever shield you from the agony which these your words occasion me! [How selfish — how despicably selfish seems now all — all that I have written! Have I not, indeed, been demanding at your hands a love which might endanger your life?] You will never, never know — you can never picture to yourself the hopeless, rayless despair with which I now trace these words. Alas Helen! my soul! — what is it that I have been saying to you? — to what madness have I been urging you? — I who am nothing to you — you who have a dear mother and sister to be blessed by your life and love. But ah, darling! if I seem selfish, yet believe that I truly, truly love you, and that it is the most spiritual of love that I speak, even if I speak it from the depths of the most passionate of hearts. Think — oh, think for me, Helen, and for yourself! Is there no hope? — is there none? May not this terrible [disease] be conquered? Frequently it has been overcome. And more frequently are we deceived in respect to its actual existence. Long-continued nervous disorder — especially when exasperated by ether or [excision] — will give rise to all the symptoms of heart-dis[ease an]d so deceive the most skillful physicians — as even in [my o]wn case they were deceived. But admit that this fearful evil has indeed assailed you. Do you not all the more really need the devotionate care which only one who loves you as I do, could or would bestow? On my bosom could I not still