Torquay, 1897

My Own Boy,

Your sonnet is quite lovely, and it is a marvel that those rose-red lips of yours should have made no less for music of song than for madness of kisses.  Your slim gilt soul walks between passion and poetry.  I know Hyacinthus, whom Apollo loved so madly, was you, in Greek days.

            Why are you alone in London, and when do you go to Salisbury?  Do you go there to cool your hands in the grey twilight of Gothic things, and come here whenever you like.  It is a lovely place-it one lacks you; but go to Salisbury first.

                                                            Always, with undying love,

                                                                        Yours

                                                -Read in Court as evidence

To Robert Ross (excepts)

                                                                   Hotel de la Plage, Berneval-sur-Mer

                                                                                                [May 28, 1897]

My dear Robbie,       

            This is my first day alone, and of course a very unhappy one.  I begin to realize my terrible position of isolation, and I have been rebellious and bitter of heart all day.  Is it not sad?  I thought I was accepting everything so well and so simply, and I have had moods of rage passing over my nature, like gusts of bitter wind or storm spoiling the sweet corn or blasting the young shoots.

…. I had hardly any sleep last night.  [Douglas’s] letter was in my room, and foolishly I had read it again and left it by my bedside.  My dream was that my mother was speaking to me with some sternness, and that she was in trouble.  I quite see that whenever I am in danger she will in some way warn me. 

…Yet I am distressed to think that I shall be looked on as carelessness of your own welfare and indifferent to your own good.  You are made to help me.  I weep with sorrow when I think how much I need help, but I weep with joy when I think I have you to give it to me.

…But if I think that I am harming you, all pleasure in your society will be tainted for me.  With you, at any rate, I want to be free of any sense of guilt-the sense of spoiling another’s life.

Dear Robbie, I couldn’t spoil your life by accepting the sweet companionship you offer me form time to time.  It is not for nothing that I named you in prison St. Robert of Phillimore.  Love can canonise people. 

                                                …With all love and affection,

                                                                        Yours