Mt. Holyoke.
Nov. 26, 1892.A letter from you this morning which came just in time. I was about to mail to you a letter longer than any you have had from your Sweetheart for several weeks. Sometime you may see it. I think I'll not destroy it yet, but for reasons which too you may know later I prefer you should not see it now, but I would tell you every word there was in it if I could talk with you.
My darling boy, you have been abused of late - but loved more than ever. I have sent you the merest ugliest scratches in return for your long sweet epistles - I could not do otherwise & yet it is cruel.
If once you said that I was weak, & needed you to help fight the evil in me, you would worship less & love more - at least be happier in your love? & could hold me close in your strong arms, as your own human wife?
I cant help laughing, first at the ridiculous absurdity of your imagining me an angel, an ideal, next with glee & joy because I believe you - it is true that when you come see how much I need you & rely upon your strength & truth you will be infinitely happier in your love - and about one month of life with me would show you that. So I am very happy in the confidence that no sooner shall our life together be fairly begun, than you shall come to a delicious realization of the fact that you have really gotten for your wife as naughty a woman as even you, wretch undone, could wish - & in view of that blissed reassurance, which is bound to come, you may begin to love her in just as human a way as you can -
This sounds as tho' I were joking - no, Sweet. I am nothing without you. I am wrong & sinful - you will see this in time, & only then will you see how you & you alone hold me this paths [?] of truth. I will try to tell you more about it soon, if I could but make you see it as it is! But you will, later, & then your joy in love will come.
Why darling - I don't want you to talk in that way about your bride, tho' I do want you to rest absolutely in my love. Do I not rest thus in yours? but 'tis easier for me? Yes. I suppose so. I see - it all goes back to the other question - only when you can see how I need you & without you should never have been strong enough to live a true life - this is a fact. George - only then can you glory in what you are to me. I can wait for you to have this joy - wait almost patiently, for it is as sure to come as the years are sure to come. Thank God.
It [?] will be late before I shall be sure that I could not go abroad next summer - I should hope & work for it till the last - & I am not sure we could be long enough together, at any one time, to lose that tense strained feeling, not consciousness of the beloved object, which must be lost if the meeting is to mean what we want it to. And then I do want you to travel & to be with Lew - I think you ought not to come, my dearest. I know you long to - as I long to have you.
I should despise to be a democrat, & you shall not be one either. I warn you. You may change your political principles when you choose - I shall not marry a democrat.
Your true - love - Lisa -