TO-DAY I received a letter from you. I have read it twice, and, though it contains eight pages of closely written lines, there is not one word in it that would show that I am any more to you than the merest acquaintance. For weeks I have anxiously awaited this letter; plans, of the utmost importance to me, depended upon the answer you would give to a question I had put; and my whole future, at least that future which deals with a man’s ambitions, would, in all probability, be influenced by your reply. I asked you—well, never mind what—and you, being entirely free to write what you mean and what you wish, say that it is a point on which you cannot offer advice; but you tell me that you have given up reading and taken to gardening, as you find it is better for you! Have you ever read the story of Zadig? If you have, you will perhaps remember how his wife, Azora, railed against the newly made widow whom she found gardening. I have no prejudices of that kind, and, in my case, no one’s nose is in danger of the razor; but still I think I may not unreasonably feel somewhat aggrieved.

Do not believe that I could ever wish to remind you of what you have forgotten, or wish to forget. I only want to know what is real and what is counterfeit, and you alone can tell me. I may ask this, may I not? It is not that I may presume to judge you, or from any wish to gratify an impertinent curiosity, but that I may be saved from imagining what is not, and, while torturing myself, possibly even distress you. I find it hard to reconcile this letter of yours with others I have received, and if that sounds to you but a confession of my stupidity, I would rather admit my want of intelligence and crave your indulgence, than stand convicted of putting two and two together and making of them twenty-two. If you tell me there is no question of indulgence, but that quite regular verbs have different moods, that present and past tenses are irreconcilable, and, of the future, no man knoweth—I shall have my answer.

You do not write under the influence of winter. I cannot charge myself with any offence against you. Nay, God knows that all my thoughts and all my efforts are but to do you honour. If I have misread your earlier letters, if I have been unduly elated by such kind words as you have sent me, it is the simplest thing in the world to undeceive me and show me the error of my ways. Are you only souffrante, and may I disregard the chilling atmosphere of your present missive, remembering the tender sympathy of voice, of eye, of hand, in the rapturous days of a cherished past?

It seems as natural to some people to love to-day, and to be almost strangers to-morrow, as that we should revel in a flood of light when the moon is full, and grope in darkness when the goddess of night is no longer visible. The temperament that makes this possible is fortunately rare, so much so that it creates an interest in the observer. I have never seen it in man, but I have in woman; and one realises that then it is better to be a spectator than an actor in what is never a farce, and may easily develop into tragedy. Imagine such a woman of very unusual personal attractions: great beauty of face and figure united to a high intelligence and extreme charm of manner; witty, ambitious, courageous, full of high thoughts and endowed with all the advantages that wealth can add to personal gifts. Deep in a nature that is strangely complex, and capable of the most opposite extremes, suppose there is implanted, amongst many other feelings, a passionate yearning to be understood, and to be loved with a love that would shrink from nothing to prove the greatness of its devotion. Here you have a being capable of what seem the strangest contradictions, and not the least startling of these may be a rare, but absolute and passionate, self-abandonment, under the influence of certain circumstances which strongly appeal to the senses. Overcome by intoxication of sound, colour, and magnetism, every moral and conventional muscle suddenly relaxes, and, the violence of the forces released, is wild and uncontrolled, because of the firm determination by which they are habitually bound. To-morrow, in the cold grey light of day, the slow-working mind of man is absolutely bewildered by what he sees and hears. He comes, dominated by an exalted passion, enthralled by a vision of ecstasy through which he sees, imperfectly, the people about him, only “men as trees walking”; reserving his thoughts and perceptions of surrounding objects till he shall again gaze upon that face which seems to him to have opened the door of life with the key of a boundless love. Still dazed by the memories of last night, he enters the presence of his beloved, and experiences a shock, such as a swimmer might feel, if floating, half-entranced, in some tropic sea, he suddenly hit against an iceberg.

Sometimes, even, influenced by surroundings, maddened by the whisperings of a southern night, passed in a place where she breathes an atmosphere impregnated with the romance of centuries, the lonely soul of the woman, hungering for sympathy and communion, will seize a pen and write, “Come to me; I want you, for you understand; come, and I will give you happiness.” Before the letter has been gone one day, on a journey that may take it to the ends of the earth, the writer’s mood has changed, and she has forgotten her summons as completely as though it had never been written. When the missive reaches its destination, the recipient will be wise to curb his impetuosity, and realise that his opportunity is long since dead and buried.

The bewildering phases of such a nature as I have here imagined are nothing to us. To you it may even seem inexcusable that I should allude to a character with which you have no sympathy, an abnormal growth which sounds rather fantastic than real. It is the argumentum ad absurdum, and has its value. This strange perversity which, by reason of its startling contradictions, seems almost inhuman, and if, in rare instances, met with, can only excite feelings of curiosity or repugnance—this is the extreme case. The application of the moral will come nearer home to us, if we make the changes from passionate love to cold indifference a little less marked, the intervals between the moods a little longer. It is well to know one’s own mind, not because wavering and change hurt the fickle, but because some stupid person may suffer by the purchase of experience; may take it to heart, and may do himself an injury. It is well to know one’s own heart, and what it can give; lest another put too high a value on the prize and lose all in trying to win it. It is well to know our own weakness, and at once recognise that we shall be guided by it; lest another think it is strength, and make, for our sakes, sacrifices that only frighten and perhaps even annoy us, especially when they are made in the absurd belief that they will please us.

If you can give the extreme of happiness, do not forget that you can also cause an infinity of pain. No one can blame you for declining to accord favours; and if that refusal gives pain, there is no help for it. There can be little sympathy for those who seek the battle and then complain of their wounds. Such hurts do not rankle, and quickly heal. But it is different when a woman gives love of her own free will, uninfluenced by any consideration beyond her inclination, and then takes it back, also without other cause than caprice. It is difficult to use any other word—either it was a caprice to say she gave what never was given, or it is a caprice to take it back. A confession of thoughtlessness in estimating the character of her own feelings, or of weakness and inability to resist any opposing influence, is a poor pretext for a sudden withering of the tendrils of affection. Such a confession is an indifferent consolation to the heart which realises its loss, but cannot appreciate the situation. Do not mistake me; it is so hard to be absolutely candid and fair in considering our own cases. We are not less likely to make mistakes in matters of sentiment than in the purely practical affairs of life. If we think we love, and then become certain that we have made a mistake, the only safe and kind course is to confess the error; but if we deliberately seek love and give it, much protesting and much exacting, how shall we then deny it? Would one say, “If you asked me, I would go down into hell with you, now,” and then, ere twelve months had passed, for no crime but enforced absence, speak or write, to that other, almost as a stranger?

There was Peter, I know; but even he was not altogether satisfied with himself, and, besides denying his Lord, he stands convicted of physical cowardice.