The Wings of Icarus： Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher
Letter 35
Laurence Alma-Tadema
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_ LETTER XXXV
GRAYSMILL, March 26th.
You are the best friend that ever lived! I am quite restless with impatience, so is Gabriel, so are my old ones. And who most of all? Oh! little white face, how I long to hold you in my hands again, and what warmth of love and happiness I long to pour into your heart!
I shall not scold you, because you are not well, but what do you mean by saying that you will come, "although of course we shall never see each other"? Dear silly, do you imagine that I spend the whole day with that creature you pretend to be so jealous of?
Not a bit of it! Sometimes, just by way of a little salutary training in renunciation, we don't even meet every day. No, the bulk of my time will be yours and mine; we will sit up here in my room, beneath my mother's portrait; we will make the old days live again, weld the old and the new into one. Then, Gabriel and I will take you with us for walks fitting a fairy, in the woods; how you will love them! The trees are misty already with the promise of leaves, and all manner of sweet things are beginning to pierce the ground. How we shall spoil you, we two!
So you are coming,--I can hardly believe it. Never say again that I shall forget you. Let me remind you, Madam, if all else fail to convince you, that we two are women, and that there is one tender love, one yearning, which can only be betwixt woman and woman.
There is something infinitely pathetic in this truth; a man may be the dearest, the nearest he can never be.
But I must bless and leave thee. I have promised to meet Gabriel at the Post-office.
My last letter. No need to write again. Oh, Constantia, can it be true? Yours in all truth,
EMILIA. _