MY SHELL

I want to dedicate the following passage from Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights" to a dear & treasured friend of mine. My sincerest hope is that one day you will allow yourself to be loved....this world is too dark & lonely a place to walk through it alone.

While enjoying a month of fine weather at the sea - coast, I was thrown into the company of a most fascinating creature, a real goddess, in my eyes, as long as she took no notice of me. I never "told my love" vocally; still if looks have a language, the merest idiot might have guessed I was head over ears: she understood me, at last, and looked a return - the sweetest of all imaginable looks - and what did I do? I confess it with shame - shrunk icily into myself, like a snail, at every glance retired colder and farther; till; finally, the poor innocent was led to doubt her own senses, and, overwhelmed with confusion at her supposed mistake, persuaded her mamma to decamp.

By this curious turn of disposition I have gained the reputation of deliberate heartlessness, how undeserved, I alone can appreciate.