10 October 1917 Edith to Stuart - Letter #8

Edith to Stuart
10.10.17
My Dearest
There is a great deal to write about tonight, in fact, I expect some will have to wait until tomorrow.
Your letter yesterday was a real, real joy. I have wanted a little bit of writing from you badly, a bit that was really intended for me alone. Do you remember the first bit I ever had? You sent it from Tring. I carried it about a good deal, at first, but I used to have such a queer (not very nice) feeling inside when I saw it was for Katie[1] as well as me, that at last I put it away in a drawer, and it is still there. But it is alone now, and it used to have company. Guess? A certain book, which now has a little bit of writing all on it’s own, and so it is not doomed to live in a drawer any longer. Now I’ve got on this subject, I will tell you another funny little thing, which will make you laugh, I guess. You made a statement of accounts for me to fill in, about teas, and dinners, and Didcot. On the other side of the paper was a list of Greek words. Do you remember I did not fill it in, but gave you another. Do you know why?
Now I must just have one little grumble. You wrote one dreadful thing in your “experiment”. Listen. “I am fearful … that your affections may cool.” If you had been near me when I read that you would have had – something. Suppose anyone else had read that, what a fickle sort of person they would think I was. Never mind, I’ll let it pass this time, because I love you, Dearest.
I am just going to explain, in the words of a book I am fond of reading, the difference between what you are, and what I think you to be. “To idealise is not to follow a delusion, to mistake clay for alabaster, but it is to see more clearly, to discern that finer significance, that he who runs may not read. It is only the exceptional nature that can be what the world calls idealised, which is to imply recognition for what is actually there, and not in the least a process of investing it with qualities it does not possess. It is the inner vision that sees ‘the beauty hid from common sight’”.
This is another little bit from the same book – “ What you love in your friend, (please read another word here) is not himself, as ordinarily seen or estimated, but his higher self, that few see, or that you alone discern. It is to his higher self that you are responding, and it is that which in some mysterious manner is responsive to you. What he is to the world, or the world to him, you do not care. It is what he is to you that is of importance.”
Now I hope you are answered, for I think this expresses what I mean better than I could.
You say that sometimes you feel I want something more than you give. People can’t help wanting, can they? I want something I can’t have, but I’ll tell you, because you want it too. It is the time when “we shall not part when we say, ‘Good-night’”. I want it most of all in those moments when we are closest to each other, and I expect that is when you feel it. Can you imagine what it will be like when it does come! Oh, it takes my breath away to think of it.
Now, Goodnight, Belovéd, I must leave the rest until tomorrow.
Goodnight, Dearest, Goodnight.

[1] Sarah Catherine Lucy Brown, 12 December 1885 to 26 October 1977 (Edith's sister)

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