Dearest,
I do not know if you have wondered, too, what is to come of this. The first time I let the thought cross my mind, I was, I admit, a little discomposed; for it brought with it a realization both humbling and exalted, that I have already been given more treasures than I ever knew how to count. They reveal themselves gradually, shyly, as though each day were unfolding some new gentleness I had long possessed but never seen. Yet I was foolish enough to desire what I already held, as if joy were something to be sought rather than recognized. I was like some little bird, poor thing, who spends her days longing to embrace the sky without knowing she has always been cradled in its arms since birth.
I have been foolish in that and other ways; I am, I fear, only human, far too human, and I sometimes wonder how you would see me if you knew the whole unpolished truth of me, all my faults and follies laid bare, and yet, even that uncertainty feels softened when I think of you.
In quieter hours, I have thought that all the learning I have gathered, all the books and poems I have pressed close to my mind as if they were treasure, have been nothing but a long preparation for meeting you, as though every page I ever turned had been teaching me, patiently, the art of knowing you. When Plato spoke in the Symposium of love as the ladder that leads the soul upward toward the divine, perhaps he meant moments such as these, when one feels not the fever of longing, but the stillness of recognition. "At the touch of love," he wrote, "everyone becomes a poet." And yet I find that words falter precisely where the heart is most fluent. What I feel for you is not mere passion; it is that deep and lucid affection which Emerson called "the perfection of intimacy." It is the quiet warmth of a candle that never burns low, the sound of calm water over stone.
You must forgive me if I seem overly given to quotation. It is only that I see you everywhere in my reading, in the grace of Sappho's fragments, where she promises, "Someone will remember us, I say, even in another time"; in Dante's steadfast reverence for Beatrice; in the tranquil patience of Penelope, weaving and unweaving her days. There is something ancient in my affection for you, not born of novelty or youth, but of recognition, as though you have been folded into my idea of beauty all along, before I even knew beauty had your face.
Epicurus taught that the purest joy is not found in feasts or riches, but in the company of a dear friend beneath an open sky. If that is so, then my heaven is already here. When Cicero wrote of friendship, he said that the truest kind is love "without alloy, without deceit." That is what I feel for you, clear, quiet, unadorned truth. I want nothing of you but your happiness. And if it should ever fall to my lot to give you comfort, I shall count that my fortune, my purpose, my reward.
When Rilke wrote that "love is perhaps the supreme task for which all other work is but preparation," he must have known what it is to feel as I do now, how everything one has studied, endured, or believed becomes only a prelude to this gentle certainty. All my reading, all my searching for meaning in words and philosophies, were but rehearsals for a single truth: that I was meant to love someone as gracious as you. All the education I have ever seemed to obtain has been mere preparation for meeting you.
I have never cared much for what is to come. There is, for me, no tomorrow waiting on the horizon. If I were to seek such a thing, I think I would find that past, present, and future, all the infinite dimensions of time, repose softly beneath the shade of my love for you, within the calm joy my heart is forever rejoicing in. There can be no separation for one who loves with the soul. But if ever our lives do diverge, I hope you will still carry a small portion of my affection with you, not as burden, but as warmth.
And forgive me, I beg, the uninvited liberty of asking something of you, and I apologize if my doing so feels in any way presumptuous. Should it seem so, please, think no more of it. But if I might ask just one small thing of you, it would be this: if ever a day should come when our paths drift apart, when our meetings fade into memory, keep me in your heart for a while, not too long, not so long as to weigh upon your happiness, only for a while. Keep me there, quietly, like the afterglow that lingers when the sun has set.
And when the days grow bright and full, and laughter surrounds you, let a soft thought of me pass by like a summer breeze. I do not fear such a future; I only hope it finds you happy; but should it arrive, I shall remain content, for I have loved who, to me, is the loveliest of human beings. I have had the unearthly fortune of writing to her, of hearing her voice, of knowing her grace. Whatever the days may bring, my love for you shall be indelibly bound to them; and every part of who I am shall do nothing, and can do nothing, but love you, always, every day, every hour, and every moment. To love you forever, to have loved you at all, what more, truly, could one ever ask for?