It is a poor answer, to say that I can do one thing well ... that I have one capacity largely.  On points of the general affections, I have in thought applied to myself the words of Mme. de Stael, not fretfully, I hope, not complainingly, I am sure (I can thank God for most affectionate friends!) not complainingly, yet mournfully and in profound conviction—­those words—­’jamais je n’ai pas ete aimee comme j’aime.’  The capacity of loving is the largest of my powers I think—­I thought so before knowing you—­and one form of feeling.  And although any woman might love you—­every woman,—­with understanding enough to discern you by—­(oh, do not fancy that I am unduly magnifying mine office) yet I persist in persuading myself that!  Because I have the capacity, as I said—­and besides I owe more to you than others could, it seems to me:  let me boast of it.  To many, you might be better than all things while one of all things:  to me you are instead of all—­to many, a crowning happiness—­to me, the happiness itself.  From out of the deep dark pits men see the stars more gloriously—­and de profundis amavi—­

It is a very poor answer!  Almost as poor an answer as yours could be if I were to ask you to teach me to please you always; or rather, how not to displease you, disappoint you, vex you—­what if all those things were in my fate?

And—­(to begin!)—­I am disappointed to-night.  I expected a letter which does not come—­and I had felt so sure of having a letter to-night ... unreasonably sure perhaps, which means doubly sure.

Friday.—­Remember you have had two notes of mine, and that it is certainly not my turn to write, though I am writing.

Scarcely you had gone on Wednesday when Mr. Kenyon came.  It seemed best to me, you know, that you should go—­I had the presentiment of his footsteps—­and so near they were, that if you had looked up the street in leaving the door, you must have seen him!  Of course I told him of your having been here and also at his house; whereupon he enquired eagerly if you meant to dine with him, seeming disappointed by my negative.  ‘Now I had told him,’ he said ... and murmured on to himself loud enough for me to hear, that ’it would have been a peculiar pleasure &c.’  The reason I have not seen him lately is the eternal ‘business,’ just as you thought, and he means to come ’oftener now,’ so nothing is wrong as I half thought.

As your letter does not come it is a good opportunity for asking what sort of ill humour, or (to be more correct) bad temper, you most particularly admire—­sulkiness?—­the divine gift of sitting aloof in a cloud like any god for three weeks together perhaps—­pettishness? ... which will get you up a storm about a crooked pin or a straight one either? obstinacy?—­which is an agreeable form of temper I can assure you, and describes itself—­or the good open passion which lies on the floor and kicks, like one of my