Dearest: Did you find your letter? The quicker I post, the quicker I need
to sit down and write again. The grass under love's feet never stops
growing: I must make hay of it while the sun shines.
You say my metaphors make you giddy.--My clear, you, without a metaphor
in your composition, do that to me! So it is not for you to complain;
your curses simply fly back to roost. Where do you pigeon-hole them? In
a pie? (I mean to write now until I have made you as giddy as a dancing
dervish!) Your letters are much more like blackbirds: and I have a pie
of them here, twenty-four at least; and when I open it they sing
"Chewee, chewee, chewee!" in the most scared way!
Your last but three said most solemnly, just as if you meant it, "I hope
you don't keep these miserables! Though I fill up my hollow hours with
them, there is no reason why they should fill up yours." You added that
I was better occupied--and here I am "better occupied" even as you bid
me.
But one can jump best from a spring-board: and how could I jump as far
as your arms by letter, if I had not yours to jump from?
So you see they are kept, and my disobedience of you has begun: and I
find disobedience wonderfully sweet. But then, you gave me a law which
you knew I should disobey:--that is the way the world began. It is not
for nothing that I am a daughter of Eve.
And here is our world in our hands, yours and mine, now in the making.
Which day are the evening and the morning now? I think it must be the
birds'--and already, with the wings, disobedience has been reached! Make
much of it! the day will come when I shall wish to obey. There are
moments when I feel a wish taking hold of me stronger than I can
understand, that you should command me beyond myself--to things I have
not strength or courage for of my own accord. How close, dearest, when
that day comes, my heart will feel itself to yours! It feels close now:
but it is to your feet I am nearest, as yet. Lift me! There, there,
Beloved, I kiss you with all my will. Oh, dear heart, forgive me for
being no more than I am: your freehold to all eternity!