Love
December 2007 
"In a Man's Letters His Soul Lies Naked." --Samuel Johnson
Posted on Dec 3rd, 2007
by 
zhukova
zhukova
Gentle Reader
Today, I have been trawling biographies and correspondence compilations for love letters to include in the February issue of The Light. My task is a happy one for what I have discovered in these compositions is "the most beautiful, the most immediate breath of life" -- a phrase Goethe once used to describe the power of letters. In love, like in so much in life, it is not only what is communicated that matters but also how it is communicated. A love letter captures a moment in time.
I can neither Eat nor Sleep for thinking of you my dearest love, I never touch even pudding.
--Horatio Nelson to Lady Emma Hamilton, 1800
...you cannot come into the room without my feeling all over me a ripple of flame, & if, wherever you touch me, a heart beats under your touch, & if, when you hold me, & I don't speak, it's because all the words in me seem to have become throbbing pulses...
--Edith Wharton to Morton Fullerton, 1908
Speak to me of love. I thirst for it.
--Alexande Pushkin to Anna Kern, 1825
I have seen only you,
I have admired only you,
I desire only you --Napoleon Bonaparte to Marie Walewska, 1807
A something in your eyes, and voice, you possess in a degree more persuasive than any woman I ever saw, read, heard of...that bewitching sort of nameless excellence.
--Laurence Stern to Eliza Draper, 1767
You have lifted my very soul up into the light of your soul, and I am not ever likely to mistake it for the common daylight.
--Elizabeth Barrett to Robert Browning, 1846
To-day a new sun risesfor me; everything lives, everything is animated, everything seems to speak to me of my passion, everything invites me to cherish it. The fire consuming me gives to my heart, to all the faculties of my soul, a resilience, an activity which is diffused through all my affections. Since i loved you, my friends are dearer to me; I love myself more...the sounds of my lute seem to me more moving, my voices more harmonious.
--Ninon de Lenclos to the Marquis de Sevigny, 1600s
blessings,
zhukova
Today, I have been trawling biographies and correspondence compilations for love letters to include in the February issue of The Light. My task is a happy one for what I have discovered in these compositions is "the most beautiful, the most immediate breath of life" -- a phrase Goethe once used to describe the power of letters. In love, like in so much in life, it is not only what is communicated that matters but also how it is communicated. A love letter captures a moment in time.
I can neither Eat nor Sleep for thinking of you my dearest love, I never touch even pudding.
--Horatio Nelson to Lady Emma Hamilton, 1800
...you cannot come into the room without my feeling all over me a ripple of flame, & if, wherever you touch me, a heart beats under your touch, & if, when you hold me, & I don't speak, it's because all the words in me seem to have become throbbing pulses...
--Edith Wharton to Morton Fullerton, 1908
Speak to me of love. I thirst for it.
--Alexande Pushkin to Anna Kern, 1825
I have seen only you,
I have admired only you,
I desire only you --Napoleon Bonaparte to Marie Walewska, 1807
A something in your eyes, and voice, you possess in a degree more persuasive than any woman I ever saw, read, heard of...that bewitching sort of nameless excellence.
--Laurence Stern to Eliza Draper, 1767
You have lifted my very soul up into the light of your soul, and I am not ever likely to mistake it for the common daylight.
--Elizabeth Barrett to Robert Browning, 1846
To-day a new sun risesfor me; everything lives, everything is animated, everything seems to speak to me of my passion, everything invites me to cherish it. The fire consuming me gives to my heart, to all the faculties of my soul, a resilience, an activity which is diffused through all my affections. Since i loved you, my friends are dearer to me; I love myself more...the sounds of my lute seem to me more moving, my voices more harmonious.
--Ninon de Lenclos to the Marquis de Sevigny, 1600s
blessings,
zhukova
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