Day: May 24, 2017

Saturday Morning.

May 24, 1845.

Don’t you remember I told you, once on a time that you ‘knew nothing of me’? whereat you demurred  – – but I meant what I said, and knew it was so. To be grand in a simile, for every poor speck of a Vesuvius or a Stromboli in my microcosm there are huge layers of ice and pits of black cold water  – – and I make the most of my two or three fire-eyes, because I know by experience, alas, how these tend to extinction  – – and the ice grows and grows  – – still this last is true part of me, most characteristic part, best part perhaps, and I disown nothing  – – only,  – – when you talked of ‘knowing me’! Continue reading “#31”

Friday Evening.

May 24, 1845.

I intended to write to you last night and this morning, and could not, — you do not know what pain you give me in speaking so wildly. And if I disobey you, my dear friend, in speaking, (I for my part) of your wild speaking, I do it, not to displease you, but to be in my own eyes, and before God, a little more worthy, or less unworthy, of a generosity from which I recoil by instinct and at the first glance, yet conclusively; and because my silence would be the most disloyal of all means of expression, in reference to it. Listen to me then in this. You have said some intemperate things  . . . fancies, — which you will not say over again, nor unsay, but forget at once, and for ever, having said at all; and which (so) will die out between you and me alone, like a misprint between you and the printer. And this you will do for my sake who am your friend (and you have none truer) — and this I ask, because it is a condition necessary to our future liberty of intercourse. Continue reading “#30”