[51] to the way of life. They embellish the day or the hour as it passes, and when they fade they only do just as you expected they would. This kind of pleasure in acquaintanceship is new to me. I never tried it before. When I used to meet persons, the first inquiry was, “Have they such and such a character, or have they anything that might possibly be of use or harm to me?”
It is striking, the degree of interest a letter had for her.
Your long letter came this morning. It revived much in my heart. Just think how glad I must have been this morning to hear from you. I was glad .. I thought of it through all the vexations of school this morning. ... I have a letter at home; and when I came home from school, I went leisurely over it.
This evening I have spent in a little social party, -a dozen or so,--and I have been zealously talking all the evening. When I came to my cold, lonely room, there was your letter lying on the dressing-table. It touched me with a sort of painful pleasure, for it seems to me uncertain, improbable, that I shall ever return and find you as I have found your letter. Oh, my dear G--, it is scarcely well to love friends thus. The greater part that I see cannot move me deeply. They are present, and I enjoy them; they pass and I forget them. But those that I love differently; those that I love; and oh, how much that word means! I feel sadly about them. They may change; they must die; they are separated from me, and I ask myself why should I wish to love with all the pains and penalties of such conditions? I check myself when expressing
