by A.L. McKenzie
“Do you know what I want – when I want? Darkness, light, transfiguration. The most remote headland of another’s soul – and my own. Words that one will never hear or speak. The improbable. The miraculous. A miracle.
You will get (for in the end you will surely get me) a strange, sad, dreaming, singing little monster struggling to escape from your hand.”
– Marina Tsvetaeva (1892—1941), from a letter to Boris Pasternak (1890—1960), in: “Letters. Summer 1926. Boris Pasternak. Marina Tsvetaeva, Rainer Maria Rilke”, translated from the Russian by Margaret Wettlin, Walter Arndt, and Jamey Gambrell
“Sometimes I could just undress you and lick you from head to toe. In my sleep I run my hands over the curves in your physique – what a thrill! Like being proficient in runs on the piano.”
– Henry Miller (1891—1980), from a letter to Brenda Venus (born 1947), dated October 7, 1976, in: “Dear, Dear Brenda: The Love Letters of Henry Miller to Brenda Venus”
“I write you, me beloved one, very often, and you write very little. You are wicked and naughty, very naughty, as much as you are fickle.”
– Napoleon Bonaparte (1769—1821), from a letter to Joséphine de Beauharnais (1763—1814), Verona, dated July 17, 1796 (pbs.org)
“I’m just blessed that I’ve confessed my love to you, that I’ve experienced confessing love to someone. This never happened before… And in life that mutual feeling has to fight its way through! Believe me, there’d be no need for life if it couldn’t bubble over with that intoxication. It’s the height of existence; it’s like a flower which waits for the bee to bring the pollen.
The flower must surely grieve when it finishes flowering in the cold, in the frost.”
– Leos Janacek (1854—1928), from a letter to Kamila Stosslova (1891—1935), dated May 2, 1927, in: “Intimate Letters: Leoš Janáček to Kamila Janáček”, translated by John Tyrrell
“If I only could make you realise how very badly I miss you and how empty everything is for me without you. At times you feel that the difficulties of our movements and our existence weigh on me, and at times I do not do things easily or gracefully. But when you are not there I realise how much I love doing things for you and how nothing is really the matter as long as we share things.”
– Bronislaw Malinowski (1884—1942), from a letter to Elsie Rosaline Masson (1890—1935), dated Monday October 3, 1933, in: “The Story of a Marriage. The Letters of Bronislaw Malinowski and Elsie Masson”
“I only wished to send you one more kiss before I went to sleep, to tell you that I love you… So, a kiss, a quick one, you know what kind, and one more, and oh again still more, and still more under your chin, in that spot I love on your very soft skin, and on your chest, where I place my heart.”
– Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880), from a letter to Louise Colet (1810—1876), in: “Rage and fire: a life of Louise Colet, pioneer feminist, literary star, Flaubert’s muse” by Francine du Plessix Gray
“When I am alone and have had no news from you for quite a while, then I get despondent.”
– Marie Bader (1886—1942), from a letter to Ernst Löwy (1880—1943), Karlín, dated December 24, 1941, in: “Life and Love in Nazi Prague. Letters from an Occupied City. Marie Bader”, translated by Kate Ottevange
“ – Maybe it’s stupid to be in love. – To have a heart. All weakness. All meaningless. To live & be – without thought of other – maybe that’s the way.”
– Alfred Stieglitz (1864—1946), from a letter to Georgia O’Keeffe (1887—1986), Lake George, New York, dated July 5, 1929, in: “My Faraway One. Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Volume 1, 1915—1933″
“I’ll send you, one of these days, a bunch of poems I composed during these lost evenings. They are written for you alone and not for other readers – not because there is anything bad, but because they are only for you.”
– Luigi Pirandello (1867—1936), from a letter to Marta Abba (1900—1988), dated April 8, 1929, in: “Pirandello’s Love Letters to Marta Abba”, translated from the Italian by Benito Ortolani
“This paper feels too little for me but I’m going to try to write to you anyway – I guess we often do things in spite of difficulties —.”
– Georgia O’Keeffe (1887—1886), from a letter to Alfred Stieglitz (1864—1946), Charlottesville, Virginia, dated August 6, 1916, in: “My Faraway One. Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Volume 1, 1915—1933″
“What do I get out of it when they’re always telling me that I appear young? They should rather ask for whom my heart aches and give me a cure. I’d drink it by the spoonful not only three times daily but all the time. You don’t understand this, and that’s good.”
– Leos Janacek (1854—1928), from a letter to Kamila Stosslova (1891—1935), dated July 4, 1924, in: “Intimate Letters: Leoš Janáček to Kamila Janáček”, translated by John Tyrrell
“My love,
I’m writing this in bed. Yesterday, I couldn’t have managed it but just slept, with gargling as my sole distraction. I had a very sore throat and even some temperature… If I weren’t so uncomfortably positioned for writing, I’d spend pages telling you how happy I am and how much I love you. But I take comfort from the fact that you felt it clearly yourself, didn’t you, little man? Here are a hundred kisses, each carrying the same message.”
– Simone de Beauvoir (1908—1986), from a letter to Jean-Paul Sartre (1905—1980), dated January 6, 1930, in: “Letters to Sartre”, translated from the French by Quintin Hoare
“That is all, my dear old friend, it is not my fault, I embrace you with all my heart. For the moment that is the only thing that is functioning. My brain is too stupefied.”
– George Sand (1804—1876), from a letter to Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880), dated March 17, 1872, in: “The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters”, translated from the French by A.L. McKenzie
“Do you think poetry was ever generally understood – or can be? Is the business of it to tell people what they know already, as they know it, and so precisely that they shall be able to cry out – “here you should supply this – that, you eventually pass over, and I will help you from my own stock?” It is all teaching, on the contrary, and the people hate to be taught…
A poet’s affair is with God, to whom he is accountable, and to whom is his reward: look elsewhere and you find misery enough.”
– Robert Browning (1812—1889), from a letter to John Ruskin (1819—1900), Paris, dated December 10, 1855, in: “The Life and Work of John Ruskin” by William Gershom Collingwood
“… do write,
