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.

我見過千番日出和日落诬像，大地上的森林與高山被鍍上一層蜜色光澤爪模，在它升落的海面，好似五彩云團里的一顆血橙在那浩瀚**間出沒不止拦宣。

我見過千般月色：滿月好似金幣辜伟，冬日寒月白如冰屑弛随，新月宛如雛天鵝的絨羽腮郊。

我曾見過大海靜謐如畫，色似錦緞渺鹦，或藍如翠羽扰法，或通透似玻璃，或烏色泛出泡沫毅厚，洶涌的沉重又兇狠迹恐。

我曾感受過來自南極凜冽的風(fēng)，刺骨哀嚎仿佛迷路的小孩

風(fēng)卧斟，溫柔和煦如愛人的呼吸

風(fēng)殴边，承載著鹽與海藻湮滅的咸澀

風(fēng)，充盈著森林土壤的氣息珍语，溫潤肥沃锤岸，芬芳來自百萬花朵。

狂風(fēng)蹈海板乙，如同發(fā)了酵起了沫是偷，又或風(fēng)驅(qū)著水波拍岸如貓咪輕撲一般。

我曾知悉靜默募逞，那在一眼新井里的靜默蛋铆，冷冽且夾著泥土氣味；深邃洞**中的靜默放接，冷酷決絕刺啦；酷熱迷離，正午的靜默纠脾，當(dāng)萬物被當(dāng)空烈日催眠玛瘸，平息而至靜默；當(dāng)天籟終了時的靜默苟蹈。

我曾聽夏日蟬嘶糊渊，那聲聲如芒刺骨。

我曾聽樹蛙在林中脈唱慧脱，復(fù)雜嚴(yán)謹(jǐn)儼如巴赫渺绒，翠綠螢火蟲為之燃起百萬點亮光。

我曾聽鸚鵡的鳴音直掠灰色的冰川菱鸥，恍如年邁者的兀自苦嘆宗兼，它們悠緩地遷徙向海。

我曾聽街頭小販啞了嗓子成交皮草生意時的叫嚷采缚，一如他們對穿金戴銀的妻子歌唱针炉。響尾蛇的警信，短促清脆扳抽，蝙蝠的尖唳遮天蔽野篡帕，馬鹿的咆哮從齊溪深的石楠叢中傳出殖侵。

我聽過狼群向冷月長嚎，紅吼猴用他們的嘯叫震扯山林

我聽過那嘈嘈切切镰烧，咕噥吱唔拢军，來自珊瑚礁間斑斕的魚群。

我曾見過蜂鳥圍著一樹紅花怔鳖，如貓眼石般閃爍茉唉，嗡嗡旋似陀螺。

我曾見過飛魚结执，猶如道道水銀輕拂過藍色的浪度陆，用尾鯽在水面畫下銀色的紋。

我曾見過琵鷺歸巢棲息宛如一幅鮮紅的旗幟拉過天際献幔。

我見過鯨魚懂傀，黝似瀝青，襯著矢車菊般藍藍的大海蜡感，它們一呼一吸間筑起凡爾賽的噴泉蹬蚁。

我見過蝴蝶破繭時重生，顫栗著郑兴，任由陽光把鱗翼熨平犀斋。

我見過虎，好似烈焰情连，在長草深處**

我曾被憤怒的渡鴉俯沖轟炸叽粹，玄青浮光似魔鬼之蹄。

我曾躺在溫潤如奶蒙具，柔滑如絲的水中球榆，以客道迎接周遭的海豚。

我遇過千種的生靈禁筏，見過千般絕妙的事情...

但是–

這一切曾經(jīng)，沒你攜手衡招。

于我篱昔，盡是枉過。

這一切經(jīng)歷始腾，有你在左右州刽。

于我，便全是收獲浪箭。

這一切所有我愿意放棄穗椅，只為換取你一分鐘的相伴，換你的笑語奶栖，你的聲音匹表，換你的明眸门坷，秀發(fā)，朱唇袍镀，**默蚌，最重要的是換你那美妙而幾近驚嘆的心智。那迷人的寶藏苇羡，唯有我一人绸吸，有權(quán)探究。