Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

A Duet, with an Occasional Chorus Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

In your last dear letter you talk about being frivolous. You have never been frivolous. But I have been frivolous-for ever since I have learned to love you, I have been so wrapped up in my love, with my happiness gilding everything about me, that I have never really faced the prosaic facts of life or discussed with you what our marriage will really necessitate. And now, at this eleventh hour, I realise that I have led you on in ignorance to an act which will perhaps take a great deal of the sunshine out of your life. What have I to offer you in exchange for the sacrifice which you will make for me? Myself, my love, and all that I have-but how little it all amounts to! You are a girl in a thousand, in ten thousand-bright, beautiful, sweet, the dearest lady in all the land. And I an average man-or perhaps hardly that-with little to boast of in the past, and vague ambitions for the future. It is a poor bargain for you, a most miserable bargain.