In the end, it doesn’t matter if love comes to you or not, or if doesn’t come to you in the form or with the force you may have wanted.

All that matters is that love exists somewhere in the world, and that we strive to make a world where this astonishing fact — which alone gives meaning to life, and is itself immortal — can flourish in all of its manifestations.

***

Illustration: Music,  1894, George James Frampton; wooden model for a silver relief. Ashmolean Museum. Personal photo. The letters.