Letters of Two Brides

"Louise, it is not for your peerless beauty I love you, nor for

your gifted mind, your noble feeling, the wondrous charm of all

you say and do, nor yet for your pride, your queenly scorn of

baser mortals--a pride blent in you with charity, for what angel

could be more tender?--Louise, I love you because, for the sake of

a poor exile, you have unbent this lofty majesty, because by a

gesture, a glance, you have brought consolation to a man so far

beneath you that the utmost he could hope for was your pity, the

pity of a generous heart. You are the one woman whose eyes have

shone with a tenderer light when bent on me.

"And because you let fall this glance--a mere grain of dust, yet a

grace surpassing any bestowed on me when I stood at the summit of

a subject's ambition--I long to tell you, Louise, how dear you are

to me, and that my love is for yourself alone, without a thought

beyond, a love that far more than fulfils the conditions laid down

by you for an ideal passion.

"Know, then, idol of my highest heaven, that there is in the world

an offshoot of the Saracen race, whose life is in your hands, who

will receive your orders as a slave, and deem it an honor to

execute them. I have given myself to you absolutely and for the

mere joy of giving, for a single glance of your eye, for a touch

of the hand which one day you offered to your Spanish master. I am

but your servitor, Louise; I claim no more.

"No, I dare not think that I could ever be loved; but perchance my

devotion may win for me toleration. Since that morning when you

smiled upon me with generous girlish impulse, divining the misery

of my lonely and rejected heart, you reign there alone. You are

the absolute ruler of my life, the queen of my thoughts, the god

of my heart; I find you in the sunshine of my home, the fragrance

of my flowers, the balm of the air I breathe, the pulsing of my

blood, the light that visits me in sleep.

"One thought alone troubled this happiness--your ignorance. All

unknown to you was this boundless devotion, the trusty arm, the

blind slave, the silent tool, the wealth--for henceforth all I

possess is mine only as a trust--which lay at your disposal;

unknown to you, the heart waiting to receive your confidence, and

yearning to replace all that your life (I know it well) has lacked

--the liberal ancestress, so ready to meet your needs, a father to

whom you could look for protection in every difficulty, a friend,

a brother.