The Portable Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [262]
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 [omitted] —will give rise to all the symptoms of heart-disease and so deceive the most skillful physicians—as even in my own 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 the throbbings of your own? Do not mistake me, Helen! Look, with your searching—your seraphic eyes, into the soul of my soul, and see if you can discover there one taint of an ignoble nature! At your feet—if you so willed it—I would cast from me, forever, all merely human desire, and clothe myself in the glory of a pure, calm, and unexacting affection. I would comfort you—soothe you—tranquillize you. My love—my faith—should instil into your bosom a praeternatural calm. You would rest from care—from all worldly agitation. You would get better, and finally well. And if not, Helen,—if not—if you died—then at least would I clasp your dear hand in death, and willingly—oh, joyfully—joyfully—joyfully—go down with you into the night of the Grave.
Write soon—soon—oh, soon!—but not much. Do not weary or agitate yourself for my sake. Say to me those coveted words which would turn Earth into Heaven. If Hope is forbidden, I will not murmur if you comfort me with Love.—The papers of which you speak I will procure and forward immediately. They will cost me nothing, dear Helen, and I therefore re-enclose you what you so thoughtfully sent. Think that, in doing so, my lips are pressed fervently and lingeringly upon your own. And now, in closing this long, long letter, let me speak last of that which lies nearest my heart—of that precious gift which I would not exchange for the surest hope of Paradise. It seems to me too sacred that I should even whisper to you, the dear giver, what it is. My soul, this night, shall come to you in dreams and speak to you those fervid thanks which my pen is all powerless to utter.
EDGAR
P. S. Tuesday Morning.—I beg you to believe, dear Helen, that I replied