7/25/43

My own work is unfinished, and I owe a great debt to all those who have fed and clothed me all these years. I owe a different debt to the one I love best. All the tears I should have shed in a long lifetime are coming now and mean nothing to me. There is no life nor truth without the one I love. There is no optimism and no accomplishment. There is no health and no future.

I have wanted long labors, of detail, and perfection, affection and great care, worthy of past artists. Inspiration is a great arc of momentum, and the momentum is love, and love requited. I cannot speak humbly enough of all the humble things I have to speak of. The absence of you has torn my insides out! I am sick with tears, and sick with the stoppage of my love. My love is greater than I, and dammed up has risen and drowned me! What does this night foretell? A quiet house, a peaceful fireplaced room, with a woman in a long brown velvet dress. What does this foretell?—Good work and healthful days? I don’t believe it, because God has made this moment too poignant, and actually too perfect of its kind. My mouth is bitter and I don’t want to kiss you. No, I am not in command of myself, but love is in command of me, and this love is destructive, though meant to be creative. Never more than at this minute, was I ready to meet the Omnipotent One. Never more fearless, never more proud of myself and never more humbled before this power infinitely greater than I.