[41 Brimmer St., Boston]
This can only be a tiny note this morning – I resent being so cramped for time, for I have so much to say – tomorrow or Wednesday I will write again. I am exasperated by the mails; your dear letter of the 14th was 13 days reaching me – I bit my thumbs all the week, and it finally came just as I was leaving on Friday. My heart skipped like a lamb when I saw two envelopes, but when I saw the same datemark on both the horrid truth was suspected – that you were conscientiously returning me the letters which I no longer prize – for having shown them to you, what more could I want of them? I had rather, if You please, that You kept or destroyed such letters – unless I say at the time that I need them back. Two things in your lovely letter might have disturbed me – ifHale, Emilyrelationship with TSE;w9EH admits estrangement within;a8 You feel ‘a stranger’, then where pray am I to place everyone else I know, except beyond the horizon? But I did not take you seriously over that. Thetravels, trips and plansEH's proposed 1931 England visit;a2;a2 other, ending with the possibility of your changing Your mind – isn’t that a very Teasing way to end a letter – especially as, on account of the Easter holidays, I don’t expect to see another till Tuesday. With every letter, I have a renewed sense of glory in You, and to be able to feel that I am of importance to you is far more to me, for self-confidence and a feeling of being justified in existing at all, than any results of the most daemonic activity in the public world. And I am learning from you all the time in many ways, probably more than I can myself perceive at the moment – for I have never known any woman intimately, <and I am very glad I haven’t – but you>1, and it has all been exploration of a new and strange beautiful world.
I had thought I had said all I had to say about fulfillment – but I often find that you put things better than I do, and too that you are in some ways wiser and stronger than I – indeed in many ways. You are quite right – I only make the reserve that if circumstances were quite otherwise I should not be content to remain thousands of miles away from you; but as things are, I am wonderfully and unmeritedly blessed.2 So now, my dear Bird, news, such as it is, can wait till tomorrow or next day – I long for your photograph, though pain will come with it too – and if I could indulge myself, I should spend half of every day writing to You.