Chapter LXXXIII: Letter LXXXIII

I am frightened, dearest, I am frightened at death. Not only for fear it should take me altogether away from you instead of to you, but for other reasons besides,--instincts which I thought gone but am not rid of even yet. No healthy body, or body with power of enjoyment in it, wishes to die, I think: and no heart with any desire still living out of the past. We know nothing at all really: we only think we believe, and hope we know; and how thin that sort of conviction gets when in our extremity we come face to face with the one immovable fact of our own death waiting for us! That is what I have to go through. Yet even the fear is a relief: I come upon something that I can meet at last; a challenge to my courage whether it is still to be found here in this body I have worn so weak with useless lamentations. If I had your hand, or even a word from you, I think I should not be afraid: but perhaps I should. It is all one. Good-by: I am beginning at last to feel a meaning in that word which I wrote at your bidding so long-ago. Oh, Beloved, from face to feet, good-by! God be with you wherever you go and I do not!