Wednesday, 2 December 2009

18 December 1917 Stuart to Edith - Letter #53

Stuart to Edith
Dec. 18 1917
Sweetheart,
I don’t think that this is going to be a proper note; it may turn out to be, but it doesn’t feel so now. I want to tell you something which will not keep. You remember the letters I showed you that Harold wrote to me in the summer when he said “Get a girl” and what I should find; you remember what he said in his congratulatory letter, when you said I did not experience all that he said, I want to tell you just this; his words did not express one half of what I have found; you fill up all that wants filling up, you have turned life from a grey affair into happiness and strength; in fact, I could write many things but perhaps I may quote from those letters and say that in the best sense you are all in all.
Your ideas of the Home Beautiful show these things more and more; your ideas are beautiful and I know the results will be. They are just what I should like and I might go one further step and say that in addition to dark polished floors, I should like dark furniture, those round oak tables, in fact many of such things are as to be seen in your favourite shop, Baker’s. I think when the time comes you and I shall have to go there together and choose what we should like, but that must wait, although there is no reason why we should not put our dreams into some sort of tangible shape.
Dearest, I shall not attempt too many things, so do not worry about expressing your ideas of the perfect home. It is my duty both to country and family to garden now, and if as I do it, I think I am doing it to help you, to help us in our aims, it will make it pleasanter and I think I shall do it better. For the present, I think I can do little more, so I shall not attempt to fill any of those parts which you suggest.
I am pleased to have you say that you do find me affectionate; it may be Gladys did not, because she repulsed me. I hope you will always find me so, and as I said on Sunday, I hope we shall be “Sweethearts” “till death do us part”.
Goodbye, Belovéd, my Best of Women, how you conjure up happy thoughts of the days when the night will not end with Goodbye. I fear sometimes I am very very unworthy of you, your love and all your nobility, but I feel I am getting higher, and it is you who have raised.
Once more Goodbye and Goodnight; try to imagine I have said it as when I am with you and sleep and dream happily, Belovéd, the Best of All Women.

(c) DearestBeloved 2009

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