The Victorian love letter

It is with some species of lethargic insouciance that I regard each sympathetic vibration that thrills through my paltry frame tonight, at sight of your loveliness. It was as twere an epiphany, a penultimate joy that acts only as a rough prelude to fulfillment, which, I have no doubt, will arrive. Every shameful action, each wave on which I ride, were only an act of purer sacrifice, sullying itself in flesh only, as an offering to a goddess may partake of the grossest matter, the more fully to transcend it, and leave it behind. Thus it is that I am smitten, Cupid-wise and Venus-dazed, at sight of that which men, in their ignorance, suffice to name your beauty. ... ....I write to you as one chastened and humbled, not by the misuse of others but by my own importunate weakness.

On repeated exposure to your presence, the charms of which it were hardly in my power to surmise, I experienced a specific condition, which, while hesitating to name, words failing somewhat before its full intensity, I can only ascertain as an involuntary response to the powerful stimuli of the visual and indeed auditory phenomena offered and represented by yourself. For the sake of delicacy and propriety, while not appearing to skirt the issue, a condition of what can only be described as physiological arousal accompanied in due course by the commensurate and appropriate responses took place. It is with some shame that I own that solitude, and its concealing darkness, were frequently resorted to, and that these secret sojourns were accompanied by actions whose widespread occurrence should not lessen their shame, and which I can only excuse by a defence of temporary madness as relief was sought from the aforesaid tension. This temporary frenzy of mine was, I now fully confess, not unconnected to your wondrous beauty and Venusian form, and, before it was abated, I had attained a not uncommon pleasure from the mental contemplation thereof.

It may very well appear that the allure of the ample bosom was like unto that siren song which tempted the unwary sailor onto the precipitate rocks of his erstwhile doom. And yet, was there aught in that headlong rush, that delighting in the fruits of Elysian splendour, which was base or opportunistic? Nay, rather it represented that effulgence of feeling which, exceeding its proper bounds, strayed not thereby into realms untainted by any but the most noble refinements of affection.

And, since my conscience permits me neither restraint nor inaction, but compels me instead, ever to match the timbre of my actions to the tune of my desires, I stand by my acts as one condemned, perhaps exiled, but secure in the perfect knowledge of that moral fervour which issues forth, without hindrance, only from that confluence of a loving heart and mind which must needs express itself in action, being not content with words only.

And thus it is that I, an unhappy pilgrim at the shrine of your exalted beauty, do lay down this unseemly passion as a sacrifice which, though hardly transcendent, partakes, in its earnestness and vigour, in some portion of rarefied and noble candour bordering almost on the spiritual. Think not therefore of this entreaty and confession as issuing from one drawing presumption from an excess of solitude, but rather from one who will ever remain, your most humble and obedient servant, "M. Noir".