I would not for the whole world diminish you. I know it is usual in these circumstances to protest -"I love you for yourself alone" -"I love you essentially" - and as you imply, my dearest, to mean by "you essentially" - lips hands and eyes. But you must know - we do know - that it is not so - dearest, I love your soul and with that your poetry - the grammar and stopping and hurrying syntax of your quick thought - quite as much essentially you as Cleopatra's hopping was essentially hers to delight Antony - more essentially, in that while all lips hands and eyes resemble each other somewhat (though yours are enchanting and also magnetic) - your thought clothed with your words is uniquely you, came with you, would vanish if you vanished -
The journey I spoke of is not finally decided on. Tugwell finds himself greatly involved in his work at home - and though the project was long ago decided upon for when the weather should be clement - to be civilised these days requires an intelligent interest in the minuter forms of life and the monstrous permanentforms of the planet - it now hangsfire. And I who was all enthusiasm - now hangfire -hang upon fire- -for how should I willingly go so far from Richmond?
Until Tuesday then
P.S. Swammerdam is almost ready once more.
Dearest Sir,
My dubious Muse is back. I send you (unperfected) what She has dictated.
The grassy knoll
Shivers in His embrace
His muscles - roll
About - about - His Face
Smiles hot and gold
Over the small hill's brow
And every fold
Contracts and stiffens - now
He gathers strength
His glistering length
Grips, grips: the stones
Cry out like bones
Constricted - earth - in pain
Cries out - again -
He grips and smiles -
My very dear,
I write in haste - I fear your answer -I know not whether to depart or no -I will stay, for you- unless this small chance you spoke of prove a true possibility. Yet how may that be? How could you satisfactorily explain such a step? How can I not nevertheless hope?
I do not wish to do irreparable damage to your life. I have so much rational understanding left to me, as to beg you - against my own desires, my own hope, my own true love - to think before and after. If by any kind of ingenuity it may be done satisfactorily so that you may afterwards live as you wish - well then -if it may - this is not matter for writing. I shall be in the Church at noon tomorrow.
I send my love now and always
.
Dear Sir,
It is done. BY FIAT. I spoke Thunder - andsaid - so it shall be- and there will be no questionsnow - or ever - and to this absolute Proposition I have - like all Tyrants - meek acquiescence.
No more Harm can be done by this than has already been done - not by your will - though a little by mine - -forI was (and am) angry
.
Chapter 11
SWAMMERDAM
Bend nearer, Brother, if you please. I fear
I trouble you. It will not be for long.
I thank you now, before my voice, or eyes,
Or weak wit fail, that you have sat with me
Here in this bare white cell, with the domed roof
As chalky-plain as any egg's inside.
I shall be hatched tonight. Into what clear
And empty space of quiet, she best knows,
The holy anchoress of Germany
Who charged you with my care, and speaks to God
For my poor soul, my small soul, briefly housed
In this shrunk shelly membrane that He sees,
Who holds, like any smiling Boy, this shell
In his bright palm, and with His instrument
Of Grace, pricks in his path, for infinite Light
To enter through his pinhole, and seek out
What must be sucked to him, an inchoate slop
Or embryonic Angel's fledgling wings.
I have not much to leave. Once I had much,
Or thought it much, but men thought otherwise.
Well-nigh three thousand winged or creeping things
Lively in death, injected by my Art,
Lovingly entered, opened and displayed-
The types of Nature's Bible, ranged in ranks
To show the secrets of her cunning hand.
No matter now. Write-if you please-I leave
My manuscripts and pens to my sole friend,
The Frenchman, the incomparable Thévenot,
Who values, like a true philosopher
The findings of a once courageous mind.
He should have had my microscopes and screws-
The copper helper with his rigid arms
We called Homunculus, who gripped the lens
Steadier than human hands, and offered up
Fragments of gauze, or drops of ichor, to
The piercing eyes of Men, who dared to probe
Secrets beyond their frame's unaided scope.
But these are gone, to buy the bread and milk
This curdled stomach can no more ingest.
I must die in his debt. He is my friend
And will forgive me. Write that hope. Then write
For her, for Antoinette de Bourignon
(Who spoke to me, when I despaired, of God's
Timeless and spaceless point of Infinite Love)
That, trusting her and Him, I turn my face
To the bare wall, and leave this world of things
For the No-thing she shewed me, when I came
Halting to Germany, to seek her out.
Now sign it, Swammerdam, and write the date,
March, 1680, and then write my age
His forty-third year. His small time's end. His time-
Who saw Infinity through countless cracks
In the blank skin of things, and died of it.
Think you, a man's life grows a certain shape
As out of ant's egg antworm must proceed
And out of antworm wrapped in bands must come
The monstrous female or the winged drone