To John Middleton Murry Sent from Redcliffe Road, Fulham, Saturday night, May 18, 1917
My darling
Do not imagine, because you find these lines in your private book, that I have been trespassing. You know I have not — and where else shall I leave a love letter? For I long to write you a love letter tonight. You are all about me — I seem to breathe you — hear you — feel you in me and of me — What am I doing here? You are away — I have seen you in the train, at the station, driving up, sitting in the lamplight talking, greeting people — washing your hands — And I am here — in your tent — sitting at your table. There are some wallflower petals on the table and a dead match, a blue pencil and a Magdeburgische Zeitung. I am just as much at home as they …
Last night, there was a moment before you got into bed. You stood, quite naked, bending forward a little — talking. It was only for an instant. I saw you — I loved you so — loved your body with such tenderness — Ah my dear — And I am not thinking now of “passion”. No, of that other thing that makes me feel that every inch of you is so precious to me. Your soft shoulders — your creamy warm skin, your ears, cold like shells are cold — your long legs and your feet that I love to clasp with my feet — the feeling of your belly — & your thin young back — Just below that bone that sticks out at the back of your neck you have a little mole. It is partly because we are young that I feel this tenderness — I love your youth — I could not bear that it should be touched even by a cold wind if I were the Lord.
We two, you know, have everything before us, and we shall do very great things — I have perfect faith in us — and so perfect is my love for you that I am, as it were, still, silent to my very soul. I want nobody but you for my lover and my friend and to nobody but you shall I be faithful.
I am yours for ever, Tig
