I know you will come. All along, what I have known, has been. It is not a state of affairs I normally experience, nor one I ever required - but I am an honest man, and recognise what is, when it is… So you will come. (Not peremptory but quiet, this knowing -)
Your R.H.A.
Dear Sir
I am too proud - to say I knew, I should not have come - and yet came. I acknowledgemy Acts- of which all that trépidant walk was one- from Mount Ararat Road to the Tempting Knoll - with Dog Tray circling and growling -He loves you not, Sir - and the end of that sentence could be - "and nor do I" as well as the more expected ending "whatever I may feel. " Were you happy I came? Were we godlike as you promised? Two earnest pacers, pointing diligent toes in the dust. Did you remark - setting Electrical Powers and Galvanic Impulses aside for the moment - how shy we are one with another? Mere acquaintances, if not on paper. We pass the time of day - andthe Time of the Universe has a brief stop at our fingers' touch - who are we? who? - would you not rather have the freedom of the white page? Is it alas too late? Is our primaeval innocence gone?
No -I am out -I am out of my Tower and my Wits. I have my cottage to myself for a few brief hours - Tuesday afternoon - ca 1.00 p.m. - should you care to reconnoitre the humdrum truth of your imagined Bower - of -?
Will you take Tea?
Oh, I regret much. Much. And there are things that must be said - soon now - and will find their moment.
I am sad, sir, today - low and sad - sad that we went walking, yet sad too, that we are not walking still. And that is all I can write, for the Muse hasforsaken me - as she may mockinglyforsake all Women, who dally with Her - and then - Love -
Your Christabel
My Dear
So now I may think of you in truth - in your little Parlour - presiding over theflowering little cups - with Monsignor Dorato prinking and trilling, not, as I had hypothesised, in a Florentine palazzo but in a very Taj Mahal of burning brass wires. And over the mantel, Christabel before Sir Leo-line- yourself caught like a statuewith colouredlightstrikinggarishly across you and an equallyfrigid Dog Tray. Who ranged, busily seeking, with his hackles likeporpentine quills andhis softgrey lip wrinkled in asnarl - truly, as you say, he at least does not love me, and once or twice threatenedmy composedattention to the excellentseed cake,and rattled cup andsaucer. And no porch with tumbling flowers - all vanishing froth andfantasy - but stiff tall Roses like a thicket of sentinels.
I think your house did not love me, and I should not have come.
And it is true, as you said, across the whole hearth,thatI too have a house, which we have not described or even spoken of. And that I have a wife. You asked me to speak of her and I wasspeechless. I know not how you construed that - I grant it was your absolute right to ask - and yet I couldnot answer. (Though I knew you must ask.)
I have a wife, and I love her. Not as I love you. Now, I have satfor half-an-hour, having written those bleak little sentences, and quite unable to go on. There aregood reasons -I cannot discuss them, but they aregood, if not absolutelyadequately good - why my love for you need not hurt her. I know this must sound bald and lame. It must, most probably, be what many men, philandering men, have said before me -I do not know -I am inexperienced in these matters and never thought to find myself writing such a letter. I find I can say no more, only aver that I believe what I have said to be true and hope that I shall not lose you by this necessary uncouthness.
To discuss this any further would be the most certain way to betray her. I should feel the same if the question were ever to arise of discussing you- with anyone at all. Even the implicit analogy is distressing - you mustfeel it. What you are is yours- what we have - if anything - isours.
Please destroy this letter - whatever you do or have done with the rest - because in itself it constitutes such a betrayal.
I hope the Muse has not indeedforsaken you - even briefly, even for so long as a Teatime. I am writing a lyric poem - most intransigent - about Firedrakes and Chinese Lung dragons - a conjuration, it might rightly be called. It is to do with you- as everything I do these days, or think, or breathe, or see is to do withyou - but it is not addressed to you - those poems are to come.
If any answer comes to this plain letter -I shall know both that you are generous indeed, and that our small space is ours - -for our short time - until the moment of impossibility makes itself known -
Your R.H.A.
My dear Sir,
Yr plainness and yr reticence can do you nothing but Honour - if that might be thought to be pertinent in this - Pandora's Box - we have opened - or wet Outdoors we have ventured into. I find I can write no more - indeed and indeed my Head Hurts - and matters in this House - of which I shall not speak, from something the same motivesof I hope honour - enfin, they do not go well. Can you be in the park on Thursday. I have matters to impart that I would rather speak.
Ever,
C
My dear
My Phoenix is temporarily a woebegone and even bedraggled bird - speaking uncharacteristically small and meek - and even from moment to moment deferential. This will not do - this may not be -I will renounceall, all my heart's happiness, I say - to see you brighten and flare as you were wont. I would do all in my power that you might sparkle in your sphere as ever before -even renounce my so-much-insisted-upon claim on you. So tell me - not that you are sad, but why you are so, and truthfully, and I will take it upon me to mend what's ill, if it lies in my power. Now write back to me as you may, and come again on Tuesday.
Always,
R.H.A.
Dearest Sir,
In faith I know not why I am so sad. No -I know - it is thatyou take me out of myself and give me back - diminished -I am wet eyes - and touched hands - and lips am I too - a very present - -famished-fragment of a woman- who has not her desire in truth - and yet has desire superabundantly - ah - this is painful -
And you say - so kind you are -"I love you. I love you."- and I believe - but who is she - who is "you"? Is she - -fine fair hairand - whatever yearns so -I was once something else - something alone and better -I was sufficient unto my self- and now I range - busily seeking with continual change. I might be less discontented if my daily Life were happy, but it is become a brittle tissue of silence and needle-sharp reproach punctuating. I stare proudly - and seem most ignorant where I am most sharply knowing - and known- but this costs - it is not easy - it is not good.
I read yr John Donne.
But we, by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.
This is a fine phrase - "inter-assured of the mind." Do you believe it is possible to find such - safe mooring - in the howling gale?
And I have now a new word in my vocabulary, much hated, to which I am enslaved - it goes "And if- -”
“And if- - "And if we had time and space to be together - as we have allowed ourselves to wish to be - then we would be free together - whereas now - caged?
My dear,
The true exercise of freedom is - cannily and wisely and with grace - to move inside what space confines - and not seek to know what lies beyond and cannot be touched or tasted. But we are human - and to be human is to desire to know what may be known by any means. And it is easier to miss lips hands and eyes when they are grown a littlefamiliar and are not at all to be explored, the unknown calling. "And if we had a week - or two - what would we not make of it? And maybe we shall. We are resourceful and intelligent persons.