30 October 1917 Stuart to Edith - Letter #13

Stuart to Edith
Oct. 30 1917
Belovéd,
What an unexpected pleasure it was to see you last night! I was particularly glad because I had not been able to write any thing for your for last evening, and although I am not much of a writer, I am conceited enough to think that you like to have either me or a note.
What I shall write this morning I hardly know. Many thoughts come into my head during the day, but when they turn towards you everything else seems to fly away and all I think of is YOU (in very big capitals).
The unexpected pleasures that have come to me through you are manifold, each perhaps small in itself but very large in the bulk; they have helped to put a new joy in life, to give me fresh energy in my preparation for the future, to make me more confident of decisions which I often make with regard to my own conduct.
It will seem very strange to you, perhaps, for me to say that I have never before, I think, met any one who understands my point of view as you do.
Those to whom I have spoken in the past all seemed to advise what they thought was best for me personally, generally the easy thing. And their opinion seemed to me often the selfish one. I am so please to find you do not take this line, but advise what you think to be right. I candidly admit that more than once you frightened me when you said you always did what you wanted, but you opened my eyes and made me realize how high you had reached when you told me that it was your duty you wanted to do, and which though distasteful maybe at first, come to be pleasing.
I am afraid this is what you, in one of your notes, called “preachy stuff”. If you don’t like it, please forgive me; you know it was not written in that spirit, it is just an expression of a thought which ran through my head as I sat here writing and thinking of you.
I must say Good-bye now, as it is nearly time to meet you. Good-bye, be happy, (I am so pleased to think I have helped to make you happier), may our love never grow less, but increase and grow stronger until it is perfect, my Own, my Love.

(c) DearestBeloved 2009