“Darling I do so love being near you, even when we are so sad as we were both today.”
– Bronislaw Malinowski (1884—1942), from a letter to Elsie Rosaline Masson (1890—1935), dated January 12, 1929, in: “The Story of a Marriage. The Letters of Bronislaw Malinowski and Elsie Masson”
“I have some new friends who are very dear to me, but the past seems designed, above all, to disturb the imagination and the heart. The present, which one would lament even more bitterly than the past, cannot erase the trace of it. I leave this almost metaphysical reflection to you, you who are such a fine observer of the soul’s interior and who have eyes which see better within than without…”
– Germaine de Staël (1766—1817), from a letter to Gerando, Coppet, dated October 8, 1800, in: “Madame de Staël. Selected correspondence”, translated from the French by Kathleen Jameson-Cemper
“… it is high time to beautify myself, not that I have any pretensions at pleasing and seducing by my physical graces, but I hate myself too much when I look in my mirror. The older one grows, the more care one should take of oneself.”
– Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880), from a letter to George Sand (1804—1876), dated April 23, 1873, in: “The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters”, translated from the French by A.L. McKenzie
“My darling, my sweetheart, when I am away from you in such an apparently unnecessary manner, I love you so much, am so dreadfully homesick for you. I also have the feeling I should be near you, so as to avert any dangers and help you in your discomforts. Dearest if I could spend the rest of my life as your personal servant and nurse I would be happy!”
– Bronislaw Malinowski (1884—1942), from a letter to Elsie Rosaline Masson (1890—1935), dated December 26, 1928, in: “The Story of a Marriage. The Letters of Bronislaw Malinowski and Elsie Masson”
“My sweet, I too have no patience for anything, wherever I am I long to be at home so that I can be alone with you, writing to you and reading one of your letters. It is always the same and will be so until we are together.”
– Marie Bader (1886—1942), from a letter to Ernst Löwy (1880—1943), Karlín, dated September 13, 1941, in: “Life and Love in Nazi Prague. Letters from an Occupied City. Marie Bader”, translated by Kate Ottevange
“… your letters are always rich to the taste. A charming one has just arrived this morning, & pulled me out of a morass of gloom in which I was floundering.”
– Iris Murdoch (1919—1999), from a letter to Frank Thompson (1918—1889), dated October 22, 1943, in: “Iris Murdoch, a Writer At War. Letters and Diaries, 1939—1945″
“… my dear Darling, how could you leave me so long without a letter? I told you how sad I was. Now this doesn’t mean ‘despondent’ for I am really hopeful to the extent of obstinacy in all matters that interest me enough to be matters of despondency. But I am melancholy. That is the habit of my temper. And the kind soothings that you would be willing to bestow come to me in no shape more pleasantly than even the briefest letter. Wont you after this reaches you, write me so often that it will relax all my impatience for you can have no idea how I have really suffered since the first day that I felt sure that a letter would arrive.”
– John Miller (1819—1895), from a letter to Sally Campbell Preston McDowell (1821—1895), Philadelphia, dated February 16, 1855, in: “If You Love That Lady Don’t Marry Her: The Courtship Letters of Sally Mcdowell and John Miller, 1854—1856″
“Every line of yours will be an equal source of joy to me in the new year too, and I will not object to any brevity.”
– Gretel Adorno (1902—1993), from a letter to Walter Benjamin (1892—1940), Berlin, dated January 12, 1937, in: “Gretel Adorno and Walter Benjamin. Correspondence 1930—1940″, translated from the German by Wieland Hoban
“I wish you were here – talking would be so much fun – When you feel soaked and soaked with all sorts of things it’s pretty hard to get any of it onto paper – ”
– Georgia O’Keeffe (1887—1886), from a letter to Alfred Stieglitz (1864—1946), Loveland, Colorado, dated September 4, 1917, in: “My Faraway One. Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Volume 1, 1915—1933″
“Beloved, it has turned 12 o’clock midnight while I’ve been talking with you, so good night!!! I am imagining you are with me, I am going to fall asleep in your arms. Be healthy and happy and write a lot to me as soon as you can. With great longing I kiss your eyes, cheeks, mouth…”
– Marie Bader (1886—1942), from a letter to Ernst Löwy (1880—1943), Karlín, dated Saturday evening, August 8, 1941, in: “Life and Love in Nazi Prague. Letters from an Occupied City. Marie Bader”, translated by Kate Ottevange
“The autumn brings melancholy.”
– Iris Murdoch (1919—1999), from a letter to Frank Thompson (1918—1889), dated August 15, 1943, in: “Iris Murdoch, a Writer At War. Letters and Diaries, 1939—1945″
“Altho’ I wrote you this morning that I would not write any more today here I am at it again. – The walk to the post office – no letter from you for a change – & caught in a downpour – stirred me up a bit. – I hope no letter means nothing. – I’m in such a state of tension that all sorts of miserable thoughts shoot through my head & I dare not let any of them take hold of me.”
– Alfred Stieglitz (1864—1946), from a letter to Georgia O’Keeffe (1887—1986), Lake George, New York, dated June 25, 1929, in: “My Faraway One. Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. Volume 1, 1915—1933″
“Farewell, I will write to you again tomorrow. Now I am sitting down in my favourite place and then a kiss and another and then?”
– Marie Bader (1886—1942), from a letter to Ernst Löwy (1880—1943), Karlín, dated September 25, 1941, in: “Life and Love in Nazi Prague. Letters from an Occupied City. Marie Bader”, translated by Kate Ottevange
“My friend, my angel.
So often you say that it can’t finish with something good and the end would be a rescue. I confessed you long time ago:
If you will be ever so unwell that violent end will become for you the only way we’ll do it together, and I’ll be the first of us – before your eyes. I don’t believe in these escapes and deny whole their nature. But I would be completely another case. I will accept it, my favorite little dolly, as part of your fate, from which I cannot be separated. And after doing that, you may and you have to stay, because then me become you, and you will want with it among the people
lightly and pleasant. And any new of your lives, which will replace the memory, will not be a betrayal, but joyful transformation of your fidelity. And what a exultation, when I’ll take you across faith in suicide immediately into that true, in the eyes of which suicide shows up as idolatry. Let me be in the union with you.”
– Boris Pasternak (1890—1960), from a letter (“note”) to his future second wife, Zinaida Neigauz (1897—1966), dated January 27, 1931, in: “Suicide and Love” in Boris Pasternak’s Ideology: The New Discovered Letter” by Konstantin Polivanov
“I am feeling such a dreadful longing for you, dearest, just to be near you and