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[The] longer I know you, the more [&] more I esteem & admire & honor you for your rare wisdom, your peculiar good sense, your fortitude, endurance, pertinacity. Your justice, your charity, kindliness, generosity, magnanimity, your genuine righteousness & your unapproachable excellence in the sublime & gracious offices of motherhood. Many wives call out love—that is common—but very few such honor & [admiration.]
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[I] offer you as a birthday present, the fact that only three profane expressions have issued from my lips or existed in my heart (which is the great thing) since the event of the 8th of last August. Of course I mean in waking hours: (curiously enough, or not curiously, I don’t know which) there is no change in my dreams: in my dreams I still do swear like the very army in [Flanders.]
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Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary
Source text(s):Provenance:
Clara Clemens Samossoud owned the letter until at least 1931. Its present location is unknown.
Emendations and textual notes:
The • “~
& • and [here and hereafter]
admiration. • ~.”
I • “~
Flanders. • ~.”
