I Like This Day; I Like That

I Shall Be Thirty-one Next Birthday. My Youth Is Gone Like A Dream; And Very Little Use Have I Ever Made Of It. What Have I Done These Last Thirty Years? Precious Little.

It Is One Of My Faults, That Though My Tongue Is Sometimes Prompt Enough At An Answer, There Are Times When It Sadly Fails Me In Framing An Excuse; And Always The Lapse Occurs At Some Crisis, When A Facile Word Or Plausible Pretext Is Specially Wanted To Get Me Out Of Painful Embarrassment.

I Am Not Talking To You Now Through The Medium Of Custom, Conventionalities, Nor Even Of Mortal Flesh: It Is My Spirit That Addresses Your Spirit; Just As If Both Had Passed Through The Grave, And We Stood At God's Feet, Equal--as We Are!

I Know I Must Conceal My Sentiments: I Must Smother Hope; I Must Remember That He Cannot Care Much For Me. For When I Say That I Am Of His Kind, I Do Not Mean That I Have His Force To Influence, And His Spell To Attract: I Mean Only That I Have Certain Tastes And Feelings In Common With Him.i Must, Then, Repeat Continually That We Are Forever Sundered: - And Yet, While I Breathe And Think, I Must Love Him.

I Have Not Broken Your Heart - You Have Broken It; And In Breaking It, You Have Broken Mine.