Possession

"I was entranced and moved by your portrait of your father." 319 00:30:28,078 --> 00:30:29,788 "I write nonsense." 320 00:30:30,038 --> 00:30:34,334 "If you write again, you shall have an essay on what you will." 321 00:30:34,585 --> 00:30:36,795 "Yours to command, in some things." 322 00:30:37,045 --> 00:30:39,214 - "I was born... - Christabel LaMotte. 323 00:30:39,464 --> 00:30:44,386 ...in a small place too." Not like this, not bare. 324 00:30:44,636 --> 00:30:51,268 <i>A brilliant, dusty hutch of mysteries.</i> <i>A cabinet of curiosities.</i> 325 00:30:51,518 --> 00:30:53,729 <i>What did my eyes first light on?</i> 326 00:30:53,979 --> 00:31:00,444 <i>I am a creature of my pen.</i> <i>My pen is the best part of me.</i> 327 00:31:00,694 --> 00:31:02,738 <i>I send you now two more poems.</i> 328 00:31:02,988 --> 00:31:09,369 <i>I read your mythic tales of Maia and</i> <i>found them both charming and sad.</i> 329 00:31:09,620 --> 00:31:13,040 <i>Your verse is rich</i> <i>but the metaphor is richer.</i> 330 00:31:13,290 --> 00:31:18,003 <i>Dear Mr. Ash: I live circumscribed</i> <i>and self-communing.</i> 331 00:31:18,253 --> 00:31:19,796 <i>It is best so.</i> 332 00:31:20,047 --> 00:31:24,551 <i>Not like a princess in a thicket.</i> <i>More like a spider in her web.</i> 333 00:31:24,801 --> 00:31:29,056 "Inclined to snap at visitors or trespassers... 334 00:31:29,306 --> 00:31:34,436 ...not perceiving the distinction until too late. Thus it is unwise to call." 335 00:31:34,686 --> 00:31:39,358 <i>I know you live very quietly</i> <i>but I could be very quiet.</i> 336 00:31:39,608 --> 00:31:42,319 <i>I only want to discuss Dante.</i> <i>Shakespeare.</i> 337 00:31:42,569 --> 00:31:45,364 <i>Wordsworth. Coleridge. Goethe.</i> 338 00:31:45,614 --> 00:31:53,914 <i>Not forgetting, of course, Christabel</i> <i>LaMotte and the ambitious fairy project.</i> 339 00:32:07,553 --> 00:32:14,226 <i>Sir, things flicker and shift</i> <i>all spangle and sparkle and flashes.</i> 340 00:32:14,476 --> 00:32:20,649 <i>I have sat all this long evening by my</i> <i>fireside, turning towards a caving in...</i> 341 00:32:20,899 --> 00:32:25,988 <i>... the crumbling of the consumed coals</i> <i>to where I am leading myself...</i> 342 00:32:26,238 --> 00:32:28,824 <i>... to lifeless dust, sir.</i> 343 00:32:29,074 --> 00:32:35,914 <i>My dear friend, for I may</i> <i>call myself a friend, may I not?</i> 344 00:32:36,164 --> 00:32:41,670 <i>I speak to you as I would to any person</i> <i>who possesses my true thoughts...</i> 345 00:32:41,920 --> 00:32:48,177 <i>... my thoughts have spent more time in</i> <i>your company than anyone else's lately.</i> 346 00:32:48,427 --> 00:32:54,725 <i>Where my thoughts are,</i> <i>there am I in truth.</i> 347 00:32:55,350 --> 00:32:58,729 "My dear friend, it has been borne in upon me... 348 00:32:58,979 --> 00:33:02,691 ...that there are dangers in our continued conversation." 349 00:33:02,941 --> 00:33:05,027 <i>The world would not approve...</i> 350 00:33:05,277 --> 00:33:10,449 <i>... of letters between a woman living in</i> <i>shared solitude as I do, and a man.</i> 351 00:33:10,699 --> 00:33:14,661 <i>Even if that man were a great poet.</i> 352 00:33:14,912 --> 00:33:17,372 <i>And if one is to live in this way...</i> 353 00:33:17,623 --> 00:33:25,672 <i>... it's imperative to appear respectable</i> <i>in the eyes of that world and your wife.</i> 354 00:33:25,839 --> 00:33:28,258 <i>It is a sealed pact.</i> 355 00:33:28,509 --> 00:33:32,513 <i>It is a chosen life in which I</i> <i>have been wondrously happy...</i> 356 00:33:32,763 --> 00:33:35,807 <i>... and not alone in being so.</i> 357 00:33:36,058 --> 00:33:41,522 "I have chosen a way, dear friend. I must hold to it." 358 00:33:41,772 --> 00:33:45,317 "Be patient, be generous, forgive." 359 00:33:45,567 --> 00:33:49,321 "May I also request that you return my correspondence." 360 00:33:49,571 --> 00:33:53,200 "In this way at least our letters shall remain together." 361 00:33:53,450 --> 00:34:00,958 "I have known incandescence and must decline to sample it any further." 362 00:34:01,208 --> 00:34:08,757 "This goes to the post. Forgive its faults and forgive me. Christabel." 363 00:34:09,007 --> 00:34:16,139 <i>My dear Christabel, your letter came</i> <i>as a shock to me, I will confess.</i> 364 00:34:16,390 --> 00:34:22,688 <i>I was at first not only shocked,</i> <i>but angry that you should write so.</i> 365 00:34:22,938 --> 00:34:27,317 <i>As you have asked about my wife,</i> <i>however, I will tell you.</i> 366 00:34:27,568 --> 00:34:29,987 <i>I love Ellen...</i> 367 00:34:30,237 --> 00:34:32,781 <i>... but not as I love you.</i> 368 00:34:33,031 --> 00:34:39,204 <i>There are good reasons I cannot discuss</i> <i>why my love for you may not hurt her.</i> 369