My dearest,
You must forgive me for not properly addressing this trivial letter of mine, but you will not tell me your name, and it seems that neither is anyone else privy to such information, though you are certainly known to many. Such an air of mystery you shroud yourself in! It is hardly to be believed, that one who frequents such gatherings, so full of gossip and sly questions, could retain so many secrets! But oh, my beautiful one, you must know how it only entices me more. There is such a depth of knowledge in your eyes of darkest beryl, yet you release it only in pearls of epigram. You speak nothing of your past but in vague references to some high position you once held. And well might I believe it! How else could you have come by such exquisitely crafted clothing, such lavish and exotic furnishings for your many rooms? (It occurs to me that I have no idea if I have yet even visited you in your true home! Or have you none, and truly exist only to pass from one soirée to the next, as some insist you and your consorts do?) Yet you seem not to be trading on a wealthy family name, as so many of us do... You have, it seems, endless resources, and access to every luxury and novelty ever created by man - though there are some for which we question that latter point, as it seems no human could devise things so delicate and subtle and potent with mystery as some in your possession.
Ah, you, who cast my world into new and radiant tones! Your every word is poetry, so artfully wrought, and carries the weight of a wisdom far deeper than your apparent age should allow. I should never dream of asking, but I do wonder, when and where was such a creature as you brought into this world? I feel as though you could hardly have had so commonplace an origin as the rest of us - for what parents could have conceived such ethereal beauty as yours? could have engendered such unfailing grace in a child? Oh, is it not impossible! I can think of nothing but that you are a manifestation of perfect beauty, of that ideal which we so long for, that we must have wished so earnestly for it that--- ah, but you are no creation of ours! Forgive me, I am laughing now in self-rebuke. There is no such possible explanation, but that you have always been and always will be, a thing of perfection perfectly unable to be rationalized by science. You are that pure thing toward which all art strives. To pin you beneath a microscope and learn of all your secrets would be to spoil your beauty, for once a thing is fully known its faults can no longer be hidden, and even should no fault exist, one should certainly be created by the fumbling hand and clumsy mind of man.
But I do so digress! I had meant only to say how I love the very mystery of you, and that I should never seek to dispel it. Yet I live for the smallest drops of self-revelation that fall from your crimson lips, soaked in the rich nectar of your voice. Ah, such a voice! I hear within it all the darkest delights of history, all of the secret knowledge which man has forgotten, and the promise of all the discoveries he has yet to make. It is the voice of the poets, of the seer and the hedonist, the wise men of the Orient and the sacred Pharaoh. Your voice has the richness of velvet and the delicacy of brocade, the elegant smoothness of a lover's breath and the myriad shades and subtleties of twilight in summer.
I am afraid you receive many such letters as this, but I promise (as, no doubt, have countless before me!) that I bring you no empty flattery. I grow shy of my pathetic words in your overawing presence, so I must commit them to paper, but even here, in the lingering fragrance of a room you have recently quitted, I worship you. You are my every ideal, you - but I have praised your poise already, and I can find no words to approach the perfection of your appearance. Ah, such beauty as yours! If only I were a painter - but I could capture neither your eloquence nor graceful motions. Words alone shall never approach the lofty altitude in which you exist, in the rarefied air which preserves your skin of such radiance. Music is too abstract, though it comes nearest to the exquisite pain of your loveliness. I long for your presence every moment I am away from it... yet I fear I am only one of many unworthy admirers, I feel I have nothing to give you but my unending adulation. If you will deign only to speak to me, I shall be in perfect rapture... though (I take refuge in the distance a letter allows me!) I long endlessly for more. Ah, to take your hand of delicate ivory in mine (rough and unworthy though it is), and press my lips to it in a prayer of pure adoration! My body trembles at the very thought, and though such a small gesture should break my heart in ecstasy, I--- but I cannot bring myself to put it into words. Oh my darling! Know that with every inch of my body I long to worship you, to praise the wonders of every part of you, to speak all that I cannot say in breathless caresses... I do not dare hope to be allowed such trespass, but I find that I cannot help but tell you that I should, if you might permit, be your willing slave, in anything you should ask me to do. I could never refuse your least - or greatest - request. I should do anything, only to please you...
You have been more than gracious to spend your estimable attentions on this paltry letter of mine. I do hope the flowers I have sent it along with have arrived without incident - I fear the winter winds shall not be kind to the fuchsias, though I did pay the boy extra to mind them carefully. Would that all servants were as attentive as those in your employ! But, there, I have wasted a fair amount of paper and ink, purely on reasons one might wish to suit you. I am certain even serving men are not immune to your many charms.
I long every moment to return to the wonder of your presence, and I pray I shall not be from it long. You are my every dream and desire, the perfect realization of all the arts and all human endeavor, the divine thing which humanity so rarely achieves. I could sing your praises until the end of my days - but surely you would grow weary of my uncouth voice long before then, so I shall seal this now with trembling lips.
Yours ever,
Robert
