July 31st, 1978

My darling McGeorge,

You said that things seemed clearer when they were written down. Well, herewith is a very boring letter in which I will try and put everything down so that you may read and re-read it in horror at your folly in getting involved with me.

Deep breath.

To begin with I love you with a depth and passion that I have felt for no one else in this life and if it astonishes you it astonishes me as well. Not I hasten to say, because you are not worth loving. Far from it.

It’s just that, first of all, I swore I would not get involved with another woman. Secondly, I have never had such a feeling before and it is almost frightening. Thirdly, I would never have thought it possible that another human being could occupy my waking (and sleeping) thoughts to the exclusion of almost everything else.Fourthly, I never thought that — even if one was in love — one could get so completely besotted with another person, so that a minute away from them felt like a thousand years.Fifthly, I never hoped, aspired, dreamed that one could find everything one wanted in a person.

I was not such an idiot as to believe this was possible. Yet in you I have found everything I want: you are beautiful, gay, giving, gentle, idiotically and deliciously feminine, sexy, wonderfully intelligent and wonderfully silly as well. I want nothing else in this life than to be with you, to listen and watch you (your beautiful voice, your beauty), to argue with you, to laugh with you, to show you things and share things with you, to explore your magnificent mind, to explore your magnificent mind, to explore your wonderful body, to help you, protect you , serve you, and bash you on the head when I think you are wrong… not to put too fine a point on it I consider that I am the only man outside mythology to have found the crock of gold at the rainbow’s end.

But — having said all that — let us consider things in detail. Don’t let this become public but… well, I have one or two faults. Minor ones, I hasten to say. For example, I am inclined to be overbearing. I do it for the best possible motives (all tyrants say that) but I do tend (without thinking) to tread people underfoot. You must tell me when I am doing it to you, my sweet, because it can be a very bad thing in a marriage.

Right. Second blemish. This, actually, is not so much a blemish  of character  as a blemish of circumstance. Darling I want you to be you in your own right, and I will do everything I can to help you in this. But you must take into consideration that I am also me in my own right and that I have a headstart on you… what I am trying to say is that you must not feel offended if you are sometimes treated simply as my wife. Always remember that what you lose on the swings, you gain on the roundabouts. But I am an established ‘creature’ in the world, and so — on occasions — you will have to live in my shadow. Nothing gives me less pleasure than this but it is a fact of life to be faced.

Third (and very important and nasty) blemish: jealousy. I don’t think you know what jealousy is (thank God) in the real sense of the word. I know you have felt jealousy over Lincoln’s wife and child but this is what I call normal jealousy, and this — to my regret — is not what I’ve got. What I have got is a black moster that can pervert my good sense, my good humour and any goodness that I have in my make-up. It is really a Jekyll and Hyde situation… my Hyde is stronger than my good sense and defeats me, hard though I try. As I told you, I have always known that this lurks within me, but I couldn’t control it, and my monster slumbered and nothing happened to awake it. Then I met you and I felt my monster stir and become half awake when you told me of Lincoln and others you have known, and with your letter my monster came out of its lair, black, irrational, bigoted, stupid, evil, malevolent. You will never know how terribly corrosive jealousy is; it is a physical pain as though you had swallowed acid or red hot coals. It is the most terrible of feelings. But you can’t help it — at least I can’t, and God knows I’ve tried. I don’t want any ex-boyfriends sitting in church when I marry you. On our wedding day, I want nothing but happiness, for both you and me, and I know I won’t be happy if there is a church full of your ex-conquests. When I marry you I will have no past, only a future: I don’t want to drag my past into our future and I don’t want you to do it , either. Remember I am jealous of you because I love you. You are never jealous of something you don’t care about. OK, enough about jealousy.

Now, let me tell you something… I have seen a thousand sunsets and sunrises, on land where it floods forest and mountains with honey-coloured light, at sea where it rises and sets like a blood orange in a multi-coloured nest of cloud, slipping in and out of the vast ocean. I have seen a thousand moons: harvest moons like gold coins, winter moons as white as ice chips, new moons like baby swans’ feathers.

I have seen seas as smooth as if painted, coloured like shot silk or blue as a kingfisher or transparent as glass or black and crumpled with foam, moving ponderously and murderously.

I have felt winds straight from the South Pole, bleak and wailing like a lost child; winds as tender and warm as a lover’s breath; winds that carried the astringent smell of salt and the death of seaweeds; winds that carried the moist rich smell of a forest floor, the smell of a million flowers. Fierce winds that churned and moved the sea like yeast, or winds that made the waters lap at the shore like a kitten.

I have known silence: the cold, earthy silence at the bottom of a newly dug well; the implacable stony silence of a deep cave; the hot, drugged midday silence when everything is hypnotized and stilled into silence by the eye of the sun; the silence when great music ends.

I have heard summer cicadas cry so that the sound seems stitched into your bones. I have heard tree frogs in an orchestration as complicated as Bach singing in a forest lit by a million emerald fireflies. I have heard the Keas calling over grey glaciers that groaned to themselves like old people as they inched their way to the sea. I have heard the hoarse street vendor cries of the mating Fur seals as they sang to their sleek golden wives, the crisp staccato admonishment of the Rattlesnake, the cobweb squeak of the Bat and the belling roar of the Red deer knee-deep in purple heather. I have heard Wolves baying at a winter’s moon, Red Howlers making the forest vibrate with their roaring cries. I have heard the squeak, purr and grunt of a hundred multi-coloured reef fishes.

I have seen hummingbirds flashing like opals round a tree of scarlet blooms, humming like a top. I have seen flying fish, skittering like quicksilver across the blue waves, drawing silver lines on the surface with their tails. I have seen Spoonbills flying home to roost like a scarlet banner across the sky. I have seen Whales, black as tar, cushioned on a cornflower blue sea, creating a Versailles of fountain with their breath. I have watched butterflies emerge and sit, trembling, while the sun irons their wings smooth. I have watched Tigers, like flames, mating in the long grass. I have been dive-bombed by an angry Raven, black and glossy as the Devil’s hoof. I have lain in water warm as milk, soft as silk, while around me played a host of Dolphins. I have met a thousand animals and seen a thousand wonderful things… but –

All this I did without you. This was my loss.

All this I want to do with you. This will be my gain.

All this I would gladly have forgone for the sake of one minute of your company, for your laugh, your voice, your eyes, hair, lips, body, and above all for your sweet, ever surprising mind which is an enchanting quarry in which it is my privilege to delve.

我见过千番日出和日落，大地上的森林与高山被镀上一层蜜色光泽，在它升落的海面，好似五彩云团里的一颗血橙在那浩瀚**间出没不止。

我见过千般月色：满月好似金币，冬日寒月白如冰屑，新月宛如雏天鹅的绒羽。

我曾见过大海静谧如画，色似锦缎，或蓝如翠羽，或通透似玻璃，或乌色泛出泡沫，汹涌的沉重又凶狠。

我曾感受过来自南极凛冽的风，刺骨哀嚎仿佛迷路的小孩

风，温柔和煦如爱人的呼吸

风，承载着盐与海藻湮灭的咸涩

风，充盈着森林土壤的气息，温润肥沃，芬芳来自百万花朵。

狂风蹈海，如同发了酵起了沫，又或风驱着水波拍岸如猫咪轻扑一般。

我曾知悉静默，那在一眼新井里的静默，冷冽且夹着泥土气味；深邃洞**中的静默，冷酷决绝；酷热迷离，正午的静默，当万物被当空烈日催眠，平息而至静默；当天籁终了时的静默。

我曾听夏日蝉嘶，那声声如芒刺骨。

我曾听树蛙在林中脉唱，复杂严谨俨如巴赫，翠绿萤火虫为之燃起百万点亮光。

我曾听鹦鹉的鸣音直掠灰色的冰川，恍如年迈者的兀自苦叹，它们悠缓地迁徙向海。

我曾听街头小贩哑了嗓子成交皮草生意时的叫嚷，一如他们对穿金戴银的妻子歌唱。响尾蛇的警信，短促清脆，蝙蝠的尖唳遮天蔽野，马鹿的咆哮从齐溪深的石楠丛中传出。

我听过狼群向冷月长嚎，红吼猴用他们的啸叫震扯山林

我听过那嘈嘈切切，咕哝吱唔，来自珊瑚礁间斑斓的鱼群。

我曾见过蜂鸟围着一树红花，如猫眼石般闪烁，嗡嗡旋似陀螺。

我曾见过飞鱼，犹如道道水银轻拂过蓝色的浪，用尾鲫在水面画下银色的纹。

我曾见过琵鹭归巢栖息宛如一幅鲜红的旗帜拉过天际。

我见过鲸鱼，黝似沥青，衬着矢车菊般蓝蓝的大海，它们一呼一吸间筑起凡尔赛的喷泉。

我见过蝴蝶破茧时重生，颤栗着，任由阳光把鳞翼熨平。

我见过虎，好似烈焰，在长草深处**

我曾被愤怒的渡鸦俯冲轰炸，玄青浮光似魔鬼之蹄。

我曾躺在温润如奶，柔滑如丝的水中，以客道迎接周遭的海豚。

我遇过千种的生灵，见过千般绝妙的事情...

但是–

这一切曾经，没你携手。

于我，尽是枉过。

这一切经历，有你在左右。

于我，便全是收获。

这一切所有我愿意放弃，只为换取你一分钟的相伴，换你的笑语，你的声音，换你的明眸，秀发，朱唇，**，最重要的是换你那美妙而几近惊叹的心智。那迷人的宝藏，唯有我一人，有权探究。