Dear Lady: You must not ask me to forgive you, because I have nothing to forgive; and you must not speak of my being angry with you, because I was not angry with you at all. I wrote sharply, and perhaps disagreeably, because I felt that to do so would most speedily relieve you from your embarrassment; and sympathized sufficiently with your error to suffer with you. I entered into your feelings much more thoroughly, I believe, than you had any idea of, and I only deferred writing last night because I was fairly tired out with hard work. I have made many mistakes similar to yours; and felt similar regrets; and felt my face burn as though pricked with ten thousand needles, even when lying in bed in the dark, to think that a friend had betrayed some tender little confidence which might be turned into sinister ridicule. I was very, very sorry to feel that you had suffered similarly.
So, dear Lady, I feel generally very reluctant to unbosom myself on paper, not knowing who might behold the exposition, and sneer at it without being capable of understanding it. We all have two natures,—the one is our every-day garb of mannerism; the other we strived to keep draped, like a snow-limbed statue of Psyche, half guarded from unæsthetic eyes by a semi-diaphanous veil. This veiled nature is delicate as the wings of a butterfly, the gossamer web visible only when the sunlight catches it, or the frost-flowers on a window-pane. It will bear no rude touches—no careless handling. It is tenderer than the mythic blossom which bled when plucked, and its very tenderness enhances its capacity for suffering.
You may hear many things which on the impulse of the moment might affect you unpleasantly; but you need never yield to such an impulse. I am very well known in the city; and you might often hear people speak of me, but you must not think foolish things, or dream annoying dreams therefor....
What a funny little bundle of pretty contradictions your letter is! How can I answer it? By word of pen? No, not at all. I must only say that I like you quite as much—well, at least nearly as much—as you say that you wish. I won't say "quite," because I don't know myself, and how can I yet know you?
Ionikoe
XVI
Dear Lady,—I remember having once been severely chided by a hoary friend of mine—a white-bearded Mentor—because I had just received a present from a friend, and had impulsively exclaimed, "Do tell me what I shall give him in return!" "Give in return!" quoth Mentor. "What for?—to destroy your little obligations of gratitude?—to insult your friend by practically intimating that you believe he expected something in return? Don't send him anything save thanks." Well, I didn't. But when I received your exquisite little gift this morning, I thought of writing, "How can I return your kindness," &c.; and now, calling my old friend's advice to mind, I shall only say, "Thanks, dear Lady." Still, flowers and me [sic] have so little in common, that much as I love them, I feel I ought not to be near them,—just as one who loves a woman so passionately that his dearest wish is to kiss her footprints; or as Kingsley's Norseman, who threw himself at the feet of the fair-haired priestess, crying, "Trample on me! spit on me! I am not worthy to be trod upon by your feet." Of course this is an extravagant simile; but the nature of a man is so coarse and rude compared with the fragrance and beauty of the flowers, that he feels in a purer atmosphere when they are breathing perfume about him. Flowers do seem to me like ghosts of maidens, like "that maid whom Gwydion made by glamour out of flowers."
Just fancy!—I was smoking a very poor cigar when the basket of blossoms came up to my rooms; and the odor of tobacco in the presence of the flowers seemed sacrilegious. I felt like the toad in Edgar Fawcett's poem. Perhaps you do not know that little poem, as it has not yet been published in book form. So I will quote it; but do not think me sentimental.
"To a Toad
"Blue dusk, that brings the dewy hours,
Brings thee, of graceless form in sooth,
Dark stumbler at the roots of flowers;
Flaccidy inert, uncouth.
"Right ill can human wonder guess
'Thy meaning or thy mission here,
Gray lump of mottled clamminess—
With that preposterous leer!
"But when I see thy dull bulk where
Luxurious roses bend and burny
Or some slim lily lifts to air
Her frail and fragrant urn,—
"Of these, among the garden ways,
So grim a watcher dost thou seem
That I, with meditative gaze
Look down on thee and dream
"Of thick-lipped slaves, with ebon skin,
That squat in hideous dumb repose
And guard the drowsy ladies in
Their still seraglios"
And talking of little roses, luxurious roses, I like them because of the fancies they evoke; their leaves and odor seem of kinship to the lips and the breath of a fair woman,—the lips of a woman humid with fresh kisses as the heart of the rose is humid with dews,—lips curled like the petals of the pink flower, recalling those of Swinburne's "Faustine"—