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 COVE 274 to each other anything I never conceived of happiness otherwise, never thought of being happy through you, or by you, or in you even ; vour good was all my idea of good, and is. I hear women say sometimes of men whom they love, " Such a one will make me happy, I am sure," or "" I shall be happy with him, I think," or again, " He is so good and affectionate that nobody need Iw afraid for my happiness." Now, whether you like or dislike it, I will tell you that I never had such thoughts of you, nor ever, for a moment, gave you that sort of praise. I do not know wliy, or perhaps I do, but 1 could not so think of you. I have not time nor breath, 1 could as soon play on the guitar when it is thundering. So be happy, my own dearest. "My Riddle" }3est, best, you were to write to me when you were tired, and 50 / When 1 am tired and write to yon it is too apt to be what may trouble you. With you, how different ! In nothing do you show your strength more than in your divine patience and tenderness towards me, till, not being used to it, I grow overwhelmed by it all, and would give you my life at a word. Why did you love me, my beloved, when you might have chosen from the most perfect of all women, and each would have loved you with the per- fectest of her nature ? That is my riddle in this world ; I can understand everything else. 1 was never stopped for the meaning of sorrow on sorrow, but that you should love me I do not understand, and I think that I never shall. "No one is like you" Ever tenderest, kindest, and most beloved, I thank you from the quick of my heart, where the thought of you lives constantly ! In this world full of sadness, of which I have had my part, full of sadness and bitterness and wrong, full of most ghastly contrasts of life and death, strength and weakness side by side, it is too much to have you to hold by as the river rushes on, too much good, too much grace for such as I, as I feel always, and cannot cease to feel ! . . . I pour out my thoughts to you, dearest dearest, as if it were right to think of doing myself that good and relief, than of you who have to read all. But you spoil me into an excess of liberty by your tenderness. Best in the world ! Oh, you help me to live ! I am better and lighter since I have drawn near to vou even on this paper • already I am better and lighter, and now I am gomg to dream of you, to meet you on some mystical landing-place, in order to be quite well to-morrow. Oh, we are so selfish on this earth that nothing grieves us vcrv long, let it be ever so gnevous. unless we are touched in ourselves ■ . . m the apple of our eye, in the quick of our heart, in what you are, and where you are my own dearest beloved ! So vou need not be afraid for me. W^e all look to our own as I hold you ; the thunderbolts mav strike the tops the cedars, and, except in the first start, none of us l^ moved. True it is of me, not of you perhaps ; certainlv you are better than I in all things. Best in the world, you are ; no one is like you. Can you read what I have written ? Do not love me less ! Do vou think that I cannot feel you love me through all this distance ? If you loved me less I should know without a word or a sign. Btcause I Uve by your loving me. "Ever, ever dearest I" How I thank you for your letter, aver beloved ' You were made perfectly to be loved, and surely 1 have loved you. in the idea Oi you, mV whole life long. Did I tell you that before, so often as I have thought it ? It is that which makes me take it all as visionary good, for when one's ideal comes down to one and walks besides one sud- denly, what is it possible to do but to cry out, " a dream " ? You are the best, best, and if you loved me only and altogether for pity (and I think that, more than you think, the sentiment operated on your gentle, chivalrous nature), and if you professed it to me and proved it, and I knew it absolutely, what then ? As long as it was love, should I accept it less gladly, do you imagine, because of the root ? Should I think it less a gift ? Should I be less grateful, or more ? Ah, I have my theory of causation about it all ; but we need not dispute, and will not, on any such metaphysics. Your loving me is enough to satisfy me, and if you did it because I sat rather on a green chair than a yellow one, it would be enough still for me, only it would not for you, because your motives are as worthy as your acts, dearest ! ... As for happiness, the words which you use so tenderly are in my heart already, making me happy. I am happy by vou. Also, I may say solemnly that the greatest proof of love I could give you is to be happy because of you, and even you cannot judge and see how great a proof that is. You have lifted my very soul up into the light of your soul, and I am no't ever likely to mistake it for the common day- hght. May God bless you, ever, ever dearest ! Tlie Last Letter The following is the last letter before their marriage, secret by necessity. The " giving pain by a voluntary act " refers to Mrs. Browning's father, from whom they were compelled to keep it hidden. At from half-past three to four, then— four will not, 1 suppose, be too late ? I will not write more ; / cannot. By to-morrow at this time I shall have you only to love me, my beloved ! You only ! As" if one said God only, and we shall have Him beside, I pray of Him. I shall send to your address at New Cross your Hanmer's poems, and the two dear books you gave me, which I do not like to leave here and am afraid of hurting by taking them with me. Will you ask our sister to put the parcel into a drawer so as to keep it for your letters to -me I take with me, let the " ounces " cry out ever so. I tried to leave them, and I could not. That is, they would not be left ; it was not mv fault, I will not be scolded. Is this my last letter to you, ever dearest ? Oh, if I loved you less, a little, httle less ! Why, I should tell you that our marriage was invalid, or ought to be, and that you should by no means come for me to-morrow. It is dreadful, dreadful to have to give pain here by a voluntary act, for the first time in my life. .". . Do you pray for me to-night, Robert ? Pray for me, and love me, that I may have courage feeling both. ^ An Ideal Love Story So closes the first scene of the Browning romance culminating in a marriage truly " made in heaven," if ever one was ! It is good for our beUef in happiness that there remams this nstwd of once, at least, a dream coming true. The true story of the Brownings will remam for all time one of the most beauti- ful of all those that have been made known to the world.