cole

I've become, as I told you, much quieter. Once I did disquieten you with my disquiet. You looked upon me as upon a forest hemming you in with it's thickets, but I'd like to believe now the forest has been thinned, and I mean my temperament, which nowadays resembles a nicely wallpapered sitting room, whereas, at the time of our encounters, it was more undesireably like a moonlit attic. In those days i hadn't yet moved up into the reception of europeandom. For then I often behaved toward you in rather uncivilized ways; and, that said, I stand before you as one asking forgiveness, without being so lacking in taste as to waste words. Yet how lovely it is that all this time i could serve you like your cavalier, for a long time never asking your permission; that's to say, I've written and set before the public a little book, in which you are sitting, as it were, on a bench under leaves that whisper around you, which befriend you, leaf by leaf, and wish you all the happiness that the enthusiastic writer does. You cannot imagine the extent and sincerity of the enthusiasm you aroused in me; and I never expect you to bother about it, either - that would be too onerous a task. Chivalry forbids me to require you to comprehend how I courted you, to grasp the degree to which I, yes, adored you, although that word does have a somewhat trivial ring.Photographs