I do not know that you are doing this,
or have done it, but I think it likely. And in any case I think you
trust reason too much, and instinct too little. If one desires a
thing very much, it is often a proof that one needs it. One may not
indeed be able to get it, but to resign it is sometimes to fail in
courage. I can see that you are in some way discontented with your
life. Don't try to mend it by a polite withdrawal. I am going to
pay you a compliment. You have a wonderful charm, of which you are
unconscious. It has made life very easy for you--but it has
responsibilities too. You must not create a situation, and then
abandon it. You must not disappoint people. I know, of course, only
too well, that charm in itself largely depends on a tranquil mind;
and it is difficult to exercise it when one is sad and unhappy; but
let me say that unhappiness does not deprive YOU of this power.
Does it seem impossible to you to believe that I have loved you far
better, and in a way which I could not have thought possible, in
these last weeks, when I have seen you were unhappy? You do not
abandon yourself to depression; you make an effort; you recognise
other people's rights to be happy, not to be clouded by your own
unhappiness; and you have done more to attach us all to you in
these days than before, when you were perhaps more conscious of
being liked. Liking is not loving, Howard. There is no pain about
liking; there is infinite pain about loving; that is because it is
life, and not mere existence.
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