I haven’t done a letter excerpt from Julie and Morris in months, so here is a particularly fine passage from Julie, April 26, 1857:

“Now Dearest if you reach home once more in safety, as God grant you may, I will try if I can to make you happier than I have ever done. My boy, I hope the romance of your first love has not quiet died out. If so I must be in fault, for it ought to live always. I love you with the same kind of passionate fondness as I did at first. I feel the same wild thrill of pleasure when your image rises before me and I sit musing. Your voice has still the magic spell that held me and led me long ago almost against my better judgement to stay near you and listen to your words. I sit now as then, and ponder your dear ways….*….You inspired the first poetry of love I ever wrote and that bright star is still the brightest, and the dearest that shines in my Heavens.”

*It is a private love letter, nothing explicit but private indeed, and your editor is feeling old fashioned!