Chapter 4.5
May 1, 1917
I am not one to write (or speak) in any eloquent or florid language. I have always been careful with my words and what I am willing to express, at least until recently. But seeing as how that was the best error I've made in a life full of them, it seems right I should continue. And if ever there was a woman who should be the recipient of a great love letter, it is you, my dearest Abigail.
It is amazing to me that I am able to write those words and have you see them and perhaps even welcome them... My. Dearest. Abigail.
I suspect you know that those words have stirred in my soul for quite some time. I have been a lonely man sometimes by deserved consequence, but also often by choice. It has long been obvious to me that no other conversation, caress, or countenance could touch me as deeply as the simple grace of the briefest glance from you. I harbor no illusions that attentions from me are similarly valuable to you, being as you are the best of women and rightfully held in high esteem by so many, but if my attentions are of even the smallest interest to you, then it is beyond what I could have ever imagined, and I am humbled by the blessing of it.
I am humbled, indeed, by the blessing I have received to simply exist alongside of you, at the same time on this earth. To experience your kindness, your faith, your cleverness, your beauty, your fire. I have spent this life since I met you on the tips of my toes, striving to remain in sight of you, and it is an agony I would not trade for anything.
Whatever our past has been – and I regret it always – I hope you will permit me in this moment to share this dream I have for our future. That there might be a time where I can gaze on you openly and not have to look away. That in your moments of trouble I might whisper love to soothe you. That in your moments of happiness I might embrace you as you laugh. That you might look at me one day across a table, shaking your head because I am grumbling behind my newspaper while you are trying to work, and you will say in your amused way, "Henry, please." And I will always please, because my ruined heart breaks and mends again each time you say my name.
I know that I have promised you a great love letter, but now, having attempted it, I do not see how any words, weak especially as mine are, can do you the justice of conveying the strength of feeling you inspire in me. I can only hope that I will have the opportunity to compensate for this failing for all the rest of my days.
Yours, always and in every way,
Henry